A reason to visit D.C.

May 31, 2011 • 10:00 am • POSTED BY Chris Muccioli

Up until today I hadn’t seen anything really impressive as far as the user or listener experience goes, plenty of advances on the production side but little intriguing on the consumer side. With the introduction of applications such as the AmpliTube iRig and the BreakOut pedal and app the focus of new devices such as the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch have been focused more on music creation rather than music consumption. This is where the new album from Washington, D.C.-based band Bluebrain comes in. The album titled The National Mall consists of 3 hours of music and is contained within a location-aware app available from the iTunes store. What makes this project unique is that the album can only be heard or experienced when within the stretch of park called the Mall, just outside the capitol building in Washington, D.C.. The music contained within the app is written to accompany you as you make your way through the park to various key locations.

The promo video below was released and explains the concept visually.

“Unlike a number of other music apps out there, this one isn’t a companion to a normal album or an app that gives you tour dates or things like that,” Holladay says. “It actually is the work itself. The music has been composed to work specifically in this landscape. So, for instance, at the Lincoln Memorial, as you ascend the steps up to the giant statue, the sound of bells increases to the point where, when you are standing at Lincoln’s feet, they are surrounding you.”

Having heard nothing of or by Bluebrain until today, this has definitely caught my attention. Read more about the project and the rest of the interview quoted above on Mashable.