Game Changer

It took AlphaZero only a few hours of self-learning to become the chess player that shocked the world. The artificial intelligence system, created by DeepMind, had been fed nothing but the rules of the Royal Game when it beat the world's strongest chess engine in a prolonged match. The selection of ten games published in December 2017 created a worldwide sensation: how was it possible to play in such a brilliant and risky style and not lose a single game against an opponent of superhuman strength? For Game Changer, Matthew Sadler and Natasha Regan investigated more than two thousand previously unpublished games by AlphaZero.

At any given time, you're likely to find Jim Lauderdale making music, whether he's laying down a new track in the studio or working through a spontaneous melody at his home in Nashville. And if he's not actively crafting new music, he's certainly thinking about it. "It's a constant challenge to try to keep making better and better records, write better and better songs. I still always feel like I'm a developing artist," he says.

The new album "Game Changer" is a diverse and impressive release that does a fine job of showing just how many things Jansson excels at. Game Changer is a solo album in the truest sense of the term; Jansson wrote, produced, engineered, and played all the instruments on it with no outside help. He also frequently shifts genre and influence, drawing on his background in rock, metal, punk, pop, americana, reggae, blues, jazz, and fusion to keep the album inspiring and interesting.