You might think of Björk as a quirky, charismatic singer known for her otherworldly pipes, innovative songwriting, or perhaps the notorious swan dress she wore at the Academy Awards 10 years ago. But the singer has another, less noticeable side: the ability to assemble a top-notch team to accomplish her latest vision in the studio, onstage and now in the iTunes app store.

Her latest release — Biophilia, an album app that delivers individual song apps periodically, replete with their own games, visualizations, essays and even music-theory-teaching interactions — tests the boundaries of what is possible technically and artistically with the iPad and iPhone. After testing the two song apps that are available so far, we’re impressed by their depth, design, and playability — oh, and the music’s pretty decent too.

To make her vision a reality, the oft-described “genius” tapped Scott Snibbe (whose OscilliScoop iPhone app recently won a ZKM App Art Award) to help her build what he claims is the world’s first app album, and we agree.

Biophilia is promotion and distribution. Commerce and art. Technology and nature. And wow, is it pretty, thanks in part to design contributions by the high-end designers at M/M Paris.

To uncover the genesis of this important development and see what it means — not only for Björk fans but also for the future of the music industry — Evolver.fm spoke with Snibbe, who is Biophilia’s lead developer. His studio is responsible for the overarching “mother” app; three of the song apps (“Cosmogony,” “Virus” [pictured above] and “Tesla”); and adding interactivity to other song apps that have yet to be released.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Evolver.fm: I’ve reviewed one of your other music apps and written about another, so I’m somewhat familiar with your work. How did you end up working with Björk though?

Scott Snibbe: I’ve been doing interactive music in research labs and worked with people like Brian Eno and Laurie Anderson, but none of that stuff ever saw the light of day, for, like 15 years. So I released these apps into the [iTunes] app store — Gravilux, Bubble Harp and so on — and obviously, a lot of people who first got iPads are curious about technology.

You can imagine a person like Björk getting an iPad in the first few days. My understanding is that she took a look at some of the apps that came out right when the iPad came out and identified a couple of developers that were in line with her vision.

Her whole vision of her career is the unification of technology and nature. If you listen to her music, it’s almost all electronic — except for Medúlla [which was made from vocal samples] and some early things — but she uses electronic music in the service of this emotional, nature-oriented message.

That’s her big message: this unification of music, nature and technology. I share her believe that math was invented to model nature, and that it wasn’t invented as a sort of abstract game.

Evolver.fm: I’m with you on that.

Snibbe: If you look at Gravilux and Bubble Harp, they both use math to create or re-create an alternate form of nature. So I got an e-mail from her manager…. We started talking on Skype, then in person in Paris, London, Iceland and New York. She also brought on a couple other fantastic people like [TouchPress scientist] Max Whitby, [Sim City product developer] Luc Barthelet, Drew Berry, who won a MacArthur Award for biological animation, and [Soundrop creator] Max Weisel, who’s a really young guy, just a hotshot wiz at apps.

Pages:12 View All