Patatap creator Jono Brandel has teamed up with Plaid to bring you a hypnotic audiovisual treat.
Eclectic electronica duo Plaid have a new album out soon, and to get everyone's attention they've just released a track from it, Tether, complete with a lovely interactive visualisation toy.
Made by Jono Brandel - also the creator of Patatap, a beautiful and addictive music visualiser that we featured recently - Tether's a delightful piece of experimental design that fills the screen with a variety of graphic shapes that evolve as the music progresses, and also chucks in a vivid halftone pattern that adds an animated pointillism effect.
It's hypnotic enough as it is, but for added fun you can manipulate the sound; simply click and drag with the mouse to slow down the music and effect a cool-sounding filter sweep, while painting an animated light trail on-screen. It'll even work on smartphones and tablets.
To see it at its best you'll need to ensure that you're running an up-to-date browser, and if you're wondering how it all works you can find the source code and assets online, complete with details on how everything fits together.
If you're really taken with Tether's looks, you can even buy a 23x26-inch poster from Jono Brandel; yours for $50. As for the new Plaid album, it's called Reachy Prints and it's out on 19 May, on Warp Records.
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Jim McCauley is a writer, performer and cat-wrangler who started writing professionally way back in 1995 on PC Format magazine, and has been covering technology-related subjects ever since, whether it's hardware, software or videogames. A chance call in 2005 led to Jim taking charge of Computer Arts' website and developing an interest in the world of graphic design, and eventually led to a move over to the freshly-launched Creative Bloq in 2012. Jim now works as a freelance writer for sites including Creative Bloq, T3 and PetsRadar, specialising in design, technology, wellness and cats, while doing the occasional pantomime and street performance in Bath and designing posters for a local drama group on the side.
