Modest Mouse have released an online app that turns your words into music

Modest Mouse are turning words into sounds for the release of their first album in eight years.  Strangers: A Linguistic Remix Generator is a new app, designed by The Uprising Creative, that’s promoting the band’s latest album, Strangers to Ourselves. Input a phrase to the web app and it converts it into a remix with samples from the current record, as well as earlier releases.  The remix is accompanied by cut-up, kaleidoscopic imagery from the album.  

“We wanted the visualizer to have a sort of fragmented feel to illustrate the idea of Strangers to Ourselves," explained one the app’s creators, Benjamin Miles, at a recent SXSW conference. "It needed to be chaotic yet trippy enough to get lost in without giving you a headache.”

And trippy it is. The sounds are created by comparing common letter frequency data, while the sentiment of the phrase is also analysed in order to generate the remix’s BPM.

Musicians are having to find new ways to reinvigorate album sales.  As audiences embrace increasingly interactive and co-creative roles in their products, it seems as if additional plugs like live events or online platforms are key to marketing the actual music.