Bronze Format is an experimental format for recorded music in which the recorded material is transfigured to produce a unique version for each listening. Artists musical stems’ are reimagined by custom machine learning that can provide endless listening from the same corpus of material.
Technical Development
Mital led the development of the generative audio engine, utilizing probabilistic Markov models to reimagine XL Recordings artists’ music. Bronze Format was developed by a team of researchers led by Dr. Mick Grierson from the Department of Computing at Goldsmith’s University of London.
Dr. Grierson comments on Bronze, saying:
“Each time you listen to a song it sounds different, but unlike similar generative music approaches that produce random mixes, artists can control exactly how different the next version of the track will be in quite complex ways.”
Applications + Collaborations
Notable implementations of Bronze include a collaboration with Sigur Ros to create “a 24-hour televised journey around the entire Icelandic coast, set to an evolving version of a single song.”
Additionally, “musician and ex-Golden Silvers frontman Gwilym Gold has released his first solo single, ‘Flesh Freeze'” with Bronze on a custom, downloadable app.
Additional Links
Musician Releases New Single as Experimental ‘Bronze’ App | WIRED
Researcher’s AI turns Sigur Rós single into 24-hour TV soundtrack | Goldsmiths, University of London
Credits
BRONZE Format
Bronze Format by Gwilym Gold and Lexxx
Developed by Dr Mick Grierson for Strangeloop Limited
Lead Developer : Chris Kiefer
Generative Audio Engine: Parag Mital
Audio Threading and Data handling : Dan Jones
Bronze Authoring System: Daniel Herbert
Artwork by Colin Henderson