An album you can transform with your phone
Bored of the same old music? This album sounds different, depending on what you point your phone at.
Sadly By Your Side is an album written, produced and performed by Davide Cairo, and it has an excellent trick up its sleeve; while you can listen to it as a normal LP, you can download it as an app and see it transformed into something much more interactive.
Described by its creators as not just an album but a synaesthetic application, the app version of Sadly By Your Side uses the iPhone's camera to transform the sound of each song. You point your camera at things, and custom software converts the visual input into red, blue and black.
The app then takes the amount of each colour it sees at any moment and uses this data to remodel the harmony, melody and rhythm of each track on the fly. It's a really clever idea that we've had a lot of fun playing with.
If you want to hear the music in its original form, there's an accompanying book featuring eight images that contain exactly the right amount of red, blue and black for each song; the idea is that you point the camera at each song's respective image.
It's a free app, too, so if you're up for discovering some new music and playing around with it as well, you'd be mad not to.
Key info
- Works with: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch
- Price: Free
- Developer: Fabrica
- Version: 1.01
- App size: 141 MB
- Age rating: 4+
Words: Jim McCauley
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