Plastikman to release collaborative AI-powered soundscape piece with Endel, ‘Deeper Focus’
Hawtin and Endel have created a personal Plastikman soundtrack receptive to your own mood
Richie Hawtin has returned yet again to his celebrated Plastikman alias, this time for a collaboration with the personalised soundscape-creating company Endel, ‘Deeper Focus’.
Endel is a creator of AI-generated, personalised sound environments for over two million users. The Endel app was awarded Apple Watch App of the Year 2020.
Backed by neuroscience, the collaboration is part of a recent influx of artists working with AI-integrated music technology. For ‘Deeper Focus’, Hawtin worked extensively with Endel’s AI and team to produce a personalised, real-time adaptive soundscape, infused with his own trademark production. The result is intended to improve users’ focus and productivity.
Hawtin’s collaborators at Endel included sound designer Oleg Stavitsky, composer Dmitry Evgrafov, and artist and visual director Protey Temen, with a view to the soundscape straddling both Plastikman’s artistic vision and Endel’s ‘psychoacoustic’ requirements.
Stems provided by Hawtin were processed by Endel’s AI to create а soundscape that adapts in real-time to the user’s location, weather, natural light exposure, and with beats synced to heart rate.
Commenting on the project, Hawtin said: “The Deeper Focus mode unites newly recorded Plastikman sounds, textures and rhythms with the Endel AI, exploring a new type of collaboration between myself and technology. As a control freak in the studio it is usually I who has the last word of how a track unfolds. However, in this exciting situation, the AI is the one who decides the final framework. Although this may sound scary to some, I believe it is just another extension of my belief in technology and its intrinsic place in my creative process. If you think about it, technology has always been between me and my audience, and this is no different, only that perhaps the technology in-between is this time a little more intelligent.”
Oleg Stavitsky added: “On-demand state of flow is the ultimate dream for all of us, especially in 2021. Fusing neuroscience, AI, and techno to induce a state of deep focus is an incredibly ambitious task. That’s why we have invited Plastikman, with his trademark precision and architectural approach to sound, to help us build this new soundscape. The result is a hypnotic, scientifically engineered soundscape that feels like a superpower, another step towards our vision of Endel as a tech-aided bodily function.”
‘Deeper Focus’ also follows Endel’s collaborative soundscape with the musician Grimes, titled ‘AI Lullaby’, which was dedicated to assisting both sleep and wellness in children and adults.