Looking for a "song", maybe created by scientists, required headphones?

February 22, 2013 11:34 PM

I am looking for a "song" and I believe it was created by scientists. About 10 min long. Headphones were required. It begins with an industrial, pulsating sound like taking a kitchen faucet and spraying it into a stainless steel bowl around and around. After a few minutes, it bursts into loud but clear music with harps and strumming of various instruments. There are no human voices.

I seem to recall this "song" was engineered for a purpose... maybe to help insomniacs, or to create an auditory, holophonic experiment. If you closed your eyes, it created a "visual" effect. I feel like I first learned about it on wimp.com. I also clearly remember learning of this "song" when learning of Marconi Union and their song "Weightless" which was engineered to help you sleep. Any ideas?

posted by paulinsanjuan to science & nature (6 answers total)

Your mention of "visual effect" makes me think that maybe you were talking about a holophonic or binaural recording. The link mentions some samples from the likes of Pink Floyd and Psychic TV. I remember it as something which was big in the 80s and early 90s -proper scientists in white coats would be involved. Or at least people in white coats.
posted by rongorongo at 12:47 AM on February 23

Poked around, found the wimp.com page for "Weightless", nothing more obviously useful. Some keywords that might help you, though:

process-generated music

computer composition, virtual composition
posted by dhartung at 1:42 AM on February 23

http://www.omharmonics.com/
This may be what you're looking for. You can sign up to hear a ten minute free session or google for other ways to resource it.
posted by silvergirlwon at 6:21 AM on February 23

This doesn't sound like what you're looking for but in the early 2000s Matmos created a song called "For Felix" that used a laboratory rat's cage and a violin string to tell the story of a lab rat's life. I seem to remember there being a bit more to the story. Actually here's the Wiki article. Here's the song, if you don't mind some extraneous background imagery.
posted by mermily at 6:42 AM on February 23

Was it this?

Crap, just saw you already knew about this. Sorry!
posted by trogdole at 2:30 PM on February 23

Thanks for trying everyone. Still havent found it but ill keep on looking.
posted by paulinsanjuan at 12:53 PM on February 24