Bronzed

Over the past decade or so there has been a colossal shift in how we create, buy, handle and listen to music. MP3 technology was developed in the early 1990’s and made it possible to reduce the size of any music file with minimal loss of sound quality. This development of audio compression technology started a change in musical tides back in the early 2000’s and with the release of the first iPod in 2001 it developed into a music revolution. Since the birth of MP3s and MP3 players digital music has become seamlessly embedded into our everyday lives with many of us carrying round tens of thousands of songs everywhere we go, accessible at the press of a button. In the past two years or so, for us in Europe at least, Spotify has offered a similar feeling of change in how we absorb music, albeit more evolution than revolution. Spotify has offered a service which provides literally millions of music tracks playable on demand for free (if you’re willing to put up with the adverts).

Understandably everybody is on the lookout for the next big thing in the music industry. Given that there are almost limitless avenues for pioneers to explore it is hard to know which way to turn, what to look out for and which horse to back. One very interesting new project developed by Gwilym Gold (former frontman of Golden Silvers) and Lexxx is the Bronze format. The basic premise is that no two listenings of a track are ever the same. This is achieved through an algorithm in the software that makes changes to the structure and arrangement within each track every time it is played through a Bronze player. Essentially the software mixes the track afresh on each play. This could, of course, result in horribly unlistenable tracks but the ingenious algorithm used ensures that each mix works musically and sounds great, much like having a miniature sound engineer inside the software. Artists have the option to set the parameters of the randomizers within the software, for example Gwilym Gold set them quite low on Flesh Freeze in order to make any changes more subtle. I’m sure in the future there will be artists keen on having broad parameters for their tracks with the intention of creating distinct reinterpretations each time. What would be really interesting at this stage would be to hear some well-known tracks a few times in Bronze format so as to to see the potential within known margins.

Currently the Bronze player and Bronze format songs are only available on Mac desktop, this is obviously very limiting but they assure that they will be available soon on Windows, iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad. In downloading the Bronze player and Flesh Freeze (the first track available for the Bronze player) one thing was very noticeable, the size. The main reason for this is the way that Bronze works necessitates higher quality audio and a lot more audio files than a traditional format. This of course will have an effect if the format becomes more popular since the larger the files the more precious space they take up on digital music devices. Perhaps this will shape the Bronze format audience; MP3s are loathed by those who truly value music sound quality, those who spend a great deal on Hi-Fi systems. It is this market who may well be willing to spend the time and money to indulge in this high quality, unique music experience. If this is the case it will be curious to see which artists adopt this format and if it will become synonymous with certain music genres. Nevertheless the Bronze format is certainly one to keep an eye on and I am sure further releases will be greeted with great intrigue from many camps.