Musique Concrète Proves The World Is A Musical Instrument

Soundhunters is a new interactive media experience that shows the world as a musical instrument, sampling elements of natural sound and transforming it. Inspired by the work of musique concrète innovator Pierre Schaeffer, the project is broken into three parts. Four unique documentaries follow four electronic musicians—Daedelus, Luke Vibert, Simonne Jones and Mikael Seifu— exploring an unknown city for the first time in order to compose a song from voices and sounds they capture. For those without sampling gear access or knowledge, they also provide a mobile app which allows aspiring soundhunters to record and process field recordings, and then create music from what they’ve found. The final element is a 52-minute TV documentary—and that’s where the other pieces fit.

Using the app and the knowledge gained from the documentaries, participants can enter their submissions before August 31st to be potentially chosen as the music that will accompany the closing credits of this televised documentary, due to air September 19th. And if you feel like your junt is balling extra-hard, you can also enter their contest to have their music featured on Schaeffer student Jean-Michel Jarre’s upcoming compilation album Zoolook Revisited, the sequel to his 1984 album Zoolook. Sound cool? Then go get recording, and hurry—we already submitted ours, and they’re pretty sick.