Brian Eno has made some trippy iOS music apps before but the latest, Scape, takes Tiger Mountain by wackiness. Look at the video above. What are all those strange symbols and shapes? Is this a music app or a weird new age religion? Or Scientology?
In Scape (a collaboration with Peter Chilvers) you make generative music by stacking various building blocks — called elements — onto a flat background tone. The elements all behave and sound different. They’re bizarre programmed instruments, basically. What’s more, as you add more facets to the sound landscape (SOUNDSCAPE??), the compositions take on a life and mood of their own. Eno and Chilvers use some thought creation alchemy doesn’t quite make sense to us, but we love the results anyway.
You can save your creations and play them again later, but because of all of randomness built into the way the elements sound each particular performance will sound different every time you play it. Does your brain hurt yet? Play with this app for a while and let it soothe you. Or drive you crazy. Scape is available for $6.49 in the iTunes store. [iTunes]