Last week Icelandic singer/songwriter Bjork unveiled her new live show and album, Biophilia, in Manchester. Alongside the new music is a pioneering iOS app that has the potential to change the music industry forever and could be the first in a new wave of interactive app-albums.
Over the last 3 years Bjork has been working away on new, all-encompassing, multimedia concept album - which has the potential to change the way we buy albums forever.
Her new live show is one small part of a much bigger picture. Biophilla is a new multimedia experiment comprising of a studio album, iPad app, new website, custom made musical instruments, new live show and documentary.
It's a bold and exciting experiment, which represents just a glimpse of what could be the future for an ailing music industry. The premise is to add a compelling new layer of interactivity and depth to an artist's album.
Bjork's chosen subject matter for the new concept album is the Universe. It's a music exploration of the relationships between music, nature and technology - from atomic to cosmic.
One of the centerpieces' to Biophilla is the app. It's a collection of ten smaller apps, one for each song. Each app has its own theme (in connection with its corresponding song) the app itself is represented as a galaxy of stars - with each star representing a song. Tap the song and you're transported into new layers of content. For each of the 10 tracks - you get a game based on the songs scientific and the music subject matter, a music animation of the song, an animated score, lyrics and academic essay.
We were shown a complete build of the app at last week’s press conference and it’s stunning, quite like nothing we’ve seen before. The app boasts some glorious graphics and control interface – one example we were shown was where the user can pinch to zoom into the entire universe of Biophillia as you get closer to the star (which represents a song) the music begins to play as you near its centre. Once you enter the star you are greeted with four choices.
You can play the corresponding game of each song – we were shown one where the user collects crystals, as each crystal is collected the music changes and opens up new pathways for the song to develop. You can also watch a animated clip of the song. There’s an animated score for each song and finally you can read in-depth literature which is aimed as a educational tool for the user.
The is repeated for each song contained with her new album and offers you plenty of content to really enjoy the songs and the themes Biophilia explores in an interactive way never seen or done before.
The app-album is something which combined with a proper CD release and live performances – adds a new layer of interactivity – as you explore the creative process Bjork and her team has been on with the new album.
From what we've seen of Bjork's new App it shows that the future of the music industry could lie in interactive apps which would allow fans, for the first time, to really engage with the music and the creative process their chosen artist goes through.
It’s been built by a team industry pioneers specifically chosen by Bjork – they included Scott Snibble who made apps Gravilux and Bubble Harp and is also the creator of Sim City and Touchpress.
Let just hope that Bjork's bold attempt to try and change the landscape is a success and breeds new creative life into an ailing music industry - we'll know when it launches later this month.
No price was given.
Release date: End of July.