Ok, you could maybe get away with calling some of the music made by James Murphy (electronic music pioneer and LCD Soundsystem frontman) “spastic.” Or at the very least bellicose. But if someone said “Murphy’s music sounds like a tennis match,” would it make sense to you? If not, it’s about to.
The U.S. Open is close at hand, and IBM, along with agency Ogilvy & Mather and production company Tool of North America, wanted to find out if Murphy can create real music from tennis match data. IBM provides the raw information from their data cloud, Oglivy & Mather created the marketing drive, and James Murphy creates the “musical probabilities” using music generation software created by Tool Creative Director Patrick Gunderson.
It’s like something Danny Elfman would write for a Tim Burton film.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUkwbsd-NcA
The goal for IBM’s U.S. Open Sessions was to create a system that will take live match data and create an in-the-moment soundtrack for that match, paired with visualizations on the big screens. In addition to being the audio-visual soundtrack for the matches as they happen, the tracks will be taken and later remixed into “something a bit more digestible than the three-hour soundscapes we created for the live matches.”
When you really consider just how complex the mechanics of this musical system are, it’s hard not to be blown away that it can happen in real time. EDM fans are well aware of just how far technology has come in producing music, but this is still a huge leap forward in what’s possible for live AV and musical production.
IBM’s U.S. Open visualizations are brilliantly simple.
The results are pretty astonishing, both aurally and visually. The music ebbs and flows just like a tennis match would, and is distinctly retro electronic. Lots of Moog-inspired sounds and a decidedly upbeat feel are paired with breathtakingly simple visuals. It’s akin to watching an EDM lyric video, where what you see and what you hear collide in perfect harmony. James Murphy, you’re so damn cool it isn’t even fair.
The U.S. Open is going on right now (August 25 – September 8, 2014), and you can hear all the current and upcoming IBM U.S. Open Sessions here!
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