Brian Eno

15 years ago, Kevin Kelly (Editor of Wired magazine) and Brian Eno (ambient music guru and super-producer) published a list of “unthinkable futures” – probabilities we tend to dismiss without thinking – in the Summer, 1993  issue of Whole Earth Review.

Their intent was less to correctly predict the future (thus the silliness) and more to predict how unpredictable the actual future would be.

According to Kelly:

Improbability is still a strong bias to overcome. Much that is happening today would have been dismissed as unbelievably bad science fiction only 15 years ago. The US with secret prisons torturing Muslims? Street sweepers in India with their own cell phones? Obesity a contagious disease? A trusted encyclopedia written by anyone? Yeah, right, give me a break.

They’re interesting to ponder, and probably more so today than when they were published. And anything that Eno writes is generally worth considering.

My favorite – “A new profession, meme-inspector, comes into being.”

Would that be bloggers? Read more…

Last year, we brought you some great video of game creator Will Wright and Brian Eno on generative systems.

Here’s the whole enchilada – their Long Now discussion of Spore and generative music and gaming.

They touch on all sorts of topics, but it includes great discussions of generative processes and ambient music, fractals, compression in natural systems, parasites in spore and all sorts of other good stuff. (including the secret of amphetemine ambient music!) Read more…

I’ve written previously about the idea of virtual worlds made up of ambient sound-objects.

The world of ambient music could use kick in the seat of the pants, and making it less passive might just do it.

Brian Eno’s template for ambient music – infinite soundscapes structured around asynchronous loops – has been explored for thirty years. While it’s still a fertile area for musicians, listeners are becoming more and more interested in the idea of interacting with musical creations, through things like remixing, mashups and music games.

Virtual 3D worlds offer a great opportunity for this. Check out the video above. It’s a demo video from Im3Labs that shows their AirStrike technology being used to allow “free-air” interactivity with 3D models.

Then consider Toshio Iwai’s Electroplankton – a Nintendo DS game that lets you interact with sound-objects and interact with ambient sound worlds that respond to your voice and touch.

An interactive 3D hologram could be even more compelling, allowing virtual environments with 3D sound-objects that react to your gestures. They could also include 3D instruments that you can play virtually.

Sound cool? It sounds far out – but it’s also within reach.

So throw your hands in the air, and wave em like you just don’t care;
Interact with a holograph, everybody gonna scream “oh yeah”

Let me know what you think of the possibilities.

I’m a massive Budd & Eno fan. The Pearl & Ambient 2: The Plateax of MIrrors are two of the most gorgeous and important works of ambient music.

So I was excited to see music blogger Matthew G Davidson (Stretta) offer his take on the classic work of Budd & Eno. Here’s a little background on the piece, Where Abundance Lies:

This is the first time I’ve worked with tehn’s mlr. I’ve seen fantastic uses of mlr in a wide range of styles. It is the signature monome application.

A while back, a programmer friend at work opened up the source code for a freely-available application, modified and recompiled it to serve his needs better. This stirred some feelings of envy in me as a non-programmer. How great would it be to take a mature application and make a few tweaks to make it perfect for your needs? Well, if you’re familiar with mlr, you may be able to tell I made a few tweaks. Huge thanks to Brian Crabtree for making such a great application and keeping it open.

If you’re not following Stretta yet, make sure you check it out!

 

 Where Abundance Lies [4:52m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

It’s science: chill out music music is good for you

According to research presented at the American Society of Hypertension’s Twenty Third Annual Scientific Meeting and Exposition (ASH 2008), listening to just 30 minutes of rhythmically homogeneous music every day can significantly reduce high blood pressure.

By rhythmically homogeneous, they mean music with little or no variation in rhythm; they tested with classical music and Indian raga music, but the research offers some medical validation to Stephen Halpern’s pioneering new age music, Brian Eno’s ambient music (which he conceived while bed-ridden) and more recent chill out music.

Researchers found that patients with mild hypertension who listened to just half an hour rhythmically homogeneous music a day for four weeks experienced significant reductions in 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure (ABP)

“Listening to music is soothing and has often been associated with controlling patient-reported pain or anxiety and acutely reducing blood pressure,” said study investigator, Prof. Pietro A. Modesti, MD, PhD. “But for the first time, today’s results clearly illustrate the impact daily music listening has on ABP. We …. can now confidently explore music listening as a safe, effective, non-pharmacological treatment option or a complement to therapy.”

Unfortunately, the research was limited to  testing the positive benefits of “soothing” music, so we can’t tell if listening to techno is just as beneficial, or if it’s likely to send your heart into a hypertensive spasm. Read more…