Eno's newest perfume-related thing

[Guest guest]

Hi, longtime lurker chiming in here...

The musician Eno (Roxy Music, Talking Heads, Devo, U2, Coldplay,

the main force behind modern " ambient " music) has had an enduring

fascination with perfume. Sixteen years ago he wrote a really

fascinating piece for Details magazine about perfumery (well worth a

read: http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/interviews/detail92.html

); I'm pleased to see he still thinks about it. My favourite Eno

record is called NEROLI, and is a 62 minute or so musical texture,

rather than a melody - piano notes drifting over a hovering bed of

sound.

Yesterday, he released BLOOM, a piece of software for the iPhone.

BLOOM is a generative music program; that is to say that it creates

its own music, rather than just playing a standard repertory. You can

create music with BLOOM: tapping your finger to the screen triggers a

note, as well as a wash of colour. A series of taps produces a melody.

The notes repeat and repeat, slowly dying with each repetition. You

can add more on top, or, when you particularly like the melody you've

got going, you can tell the machine to just repeat that. The program

plays the melody over and over again, changing the texture of the

sound, letting it evolve slowly. YOu can just leave it on to play,

like NEROLI - very soothing and tranquil.

The reason I'm posting about it here is that there are several

different " mood " options, that affect the way the music plays, and

each is named after an essence:

Neroli

Vetiver

Ylang

Labdanum

Bergamot

Orris

Ambrette

Benzoin

Tolu

I thought I'd bring it to the group's attention - a fun little toy, an

NP connection, beautiful music, and a rather astonishing $3.99 price

tag, available now via the iTunes store.

Besides, every iPhone user needs more apps!