Brian Eno & Peter Chilvers release new app Bloom: 10 Worlds
Posted on November 27, 2018 by James
Radically reinvented 10th anniversary version of Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers’ critically acclaimed generative music app Bloom – now with significant new features, a simplified interface, and available for the first time on Android in addition to the iPhone and iPad.
Image by MicrosoftBrian Eno and Peter Chilvers are pleased to announce Bloom: 10 Worlds – a developed, augmented and expanded new edition of 2008’s game-changing original Bloom app, which explored uncharted territory in the realm of applications and was dubbed “The First Great iPhone App” by Gizmodo.
Requiring no musical or technical ability, the egalitarian and user-friendly Bloom app enabled anyone of any age to create music, simply by touching the screen. Part instrument, part composition and part artwork, Bloom’s innovative controls allowed users to create elaborate patterns and unique melodies by simply tapping the screen. A generative music player took over when Bloom was left idle, creating an infinite selection of compositions and their accompanying visualisations.
Bloom: 10 Worlds is a reimagining of the original – not simply a remaster. If the original Bloom was a single, then this would be an album. The widely broadened palette of sounds and images can be experienced via 10 new ‘worlds’, each exploring a new direction for Bloom. The first world the user encounters is an echo of the original app, with circles appearing where the user taps, while the later worlds each introduce new combinations of sounds, shapes, colours and rules of behaviour.
Praise for the original Bloom“
The very first iPhone apps were universally dull. And then Bloom came out. It was immediately obvious that something special was happening. The app was interesting on an artistic level – one that made you reconsider the relationship between technology and music. It raised the bar for musical iPhone apps.”
Gizmodo“
Hypnotic and ludicrously addictive.”
The Guardian“
A relaxing alternative to just about anything else you can do with an iPhone.”
WiredEno on generative music, as told to The Guardian"
I got interested in the idea of music that could make itself in the mid-1960s, when I first heard composers like Terry Riley, and when I first started playing with tape recorders. I had two on the floor and one piece of tape connecting the two of them, which effectively gave you a very long echo, and you could build up sounds one on top of the other. I was excited about the way I almost lost control of the music. I felt that what was very interesting to do as a composer was to construct some kind of system or process which did the composing for you. You'd then feed inputs into it, and it would reconfigure it and make something beyond what you had predicted."
Brian Eno – musician, producer, visual artist, thinker and activist – first came to international prominence as a founding member of Roxy Music, and immediately followed with a series of critically-praised, pioneering and influential solo albums – including the recently reissued Discreet Music, Music For Films, Music For Airports and On Land. His visionary production includes albums with David Bowie, Talking Heads, Devo, Laurie Anderson and Coldplay, whilst his long list of collaborations includes recordings with John Cale, David Byrne, Grace Jones and James Blake. Equally notable are his highly-acclaimed visual experiments with light and video, which have been exhibited all over the globe – from the Venice Biennale and the Marble Palace in St. Petersburg to Beijing’s Ritan Park and the sails of the Sydney Opera House.
Eno began collaborating with musician / software designer Peter Chilvers on Will Wright’s computer game Spore. Their shared interest in generative music rapidly lead to the development of a prototype for Bloom in 2008. In the intervening decade, they experimented further with the field, expanding their catalogue of apps with Trope, Scape and Reflection. In that time Chilvers has also acted as an engineer and technical advisor to Eno on a number of other projects. A series of multi-speaker installations around the world laid the groundwork for 2016’s The Ship, and they premiered Bloom: Open Space, a mixed reality installation in Amsterdam in 2018.
In addition to his work with Eno, Chilvers co-founded the Burning Shed label and online store, toured with Underworld’s Karl Hyde as keyboardist and musical director, and has recorded instrumental albums and collaborations with vocalist Tim Bowness.
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Bloom is an endless music machine, a music box for the 21st Century. You can play it, or you can watch it play itself.”
Brian Eno Bloom: 10 Worlds prices:UK: pre-order & weekend of release £4.99, then £7.99
US: pre-order & weekend of release US$ 4.99, then US$ 7.99
Europe: pre-order & weekend of release Euro 5.49, then Euro 8.99
Japan: pre-order & weekend of release ¥ 600, then ¥ 960
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