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In the summer of 2016, Icelandic ambient rock band Sigur Ros livestreamed a 24 hour journey around Route One, Iceland’s beautiful coastal ring road. The whole video was accompanied by new music from the band – well, new music in collaboration with a generative music program called BRONZE. BRONZE was created in 2011 by Mike Grierson, a scientist at Goldsmith University, and musician Gwilym Gold. It takes a recorded piece of music and is able to infinitely regenerate it in unique transfigurations. As the original recording is played over and over on this platform, it’s impossible to tell when each reiteration starts and ends because segments may be played in a different order, instruments may be amplified or eliminated, some sections are shortened and others elongated, etc. The music becomes ephemeral, as “the chances of hearing the same version of the track versus the chances of winning the lottery don’t even compare,” according to Gold.
This experiment worked extremely well with Sigur Ros’s ethereal sound. The entire spectacular 24 hour journey is available online, but here are the middle 9 hours!
And here is a link to an album by Gwilym Gold, which is only available on BRONZE and no permanently recorded version exists , so you truly can’t hear the music the same way twice. You do have to download a mobile app in order to listen.