Björk’s Biophilia album for iOS has been updated, to add support for iOS 5 and MIDI out.
MIDI out?
Björk’s never been one to conform to expectations, but adding MIDI out to an album of music, even in app form, is unexpected.
Biophilia is a suite of original music and ‘educational artworks and musical artifacts’. All of the album’s songs are available inside Biophilia as interactive experiences: Crystalline, Virus, Moon, Thunderbolt, Sacrifice, Mutual Core, Hollow, Solstice, and Dark Matter.
Here’s a user demo of using Biophilia’s MIDI out, using MIDI over WiFi.
Björk has collaborated with artists, designers, scientists, instrument makers, writers and software developers to create a multimedia exploration of the universe and its physical forces, processes and structures – of which music is a part.
Features:
- Three-dimensional galactic interface with the song Cosmogony
- Nine song apps available as in-app purchases
- Music scores with karaoke playback
- Abstract song animation
- Lyrics
- Essays
- MIDI out to drive instruments
This is the most innovative idea I have seen / heard in a long time both in terms of being creatively original musically and for marketing new music.
I would like to know what exactly is represented in MIDI. Just the melody? Note On/Off? CC Data?
Everything. If you take the app aprt you can get at the midi files and original samples
wow. if it is everything then i’m definitely getting the whole shebang! Also, I agree that this is a great idea & more artists should look at doing something like this, Great way to get people excited about your music. I’m sure the remix community rejoices…
Brian Eno tried something similar with a CD-ROM and generative music and ColdCut tried something similar with their Jam software. I like the idea, it is novel, but I think it is no more than that – a novelty record for people who like to think they are smart.
One of the truisms of music is that in a style’s early years, novelty songs are commonplace: the freshness and novelty of the musical form lends itself to giggly comic songs, and in turn new audiences attracted by the humor get exposed to the new kind of music. Jazz, R&B, country, and rock all had dozens of novelty hits in their early years. But as a form matures, it starts to be taken (and to take itself) more seriously, and the novelty hits subside. Likewise with technology, things in the past, like Photoshop for instance, were considered playful, amateur tools for restoring and editing photographs.
Very thoughtful application, technologically, musically and academically.