Adrift – Endless Ambient Sound Art App By Loscil

If you love ambient, generative music & software (and like me, you still have a copy of Brian Eno’s 77 Million Paintings lying somewhere), this one is for you.

Adrift is an interesting (and quite unique) new app for iOS and Android, a collection of endless music by loscil, one of our favorite electronic music artist.
Adrift features original artwork by Gregory Euclide and features Kelly Wyse on piano, Mark Bridges on cello and Elisa Thorn on harp.

It is a collection of four ambient compositions that use structured random selection to continuously play with no beginning or end. According to the press release ‘the pieces are conceived as aural backdrops, seascapes of sound in which the listener is encouraged to drift in and out of; at times becoming focal points for deep listening and otherwise sinking into the subconscious.’

In Adrift, you’ll find acoustic and electronic sources, recorded and produced as individual phrases and elements that the app selects and weaves together on the fly, making each experience of the music slightly different.

The concept
Each of the four pieces is named after a ghost ship. The stories of these ships (the SS Bannockburn, the SS Baychimo, the MV Lyubov Orlova and the Ryou-Un Maru) are briefly described in the app’s info page. Like the ships themselves, the music is ‘adrift at sea, wandering with the tides, following the swells of the waves, aimless and lost’.

Worth buying?
This EP/app costs $6.99, and if you recognize yourself as an ambient music fan (or you feel ready for some unique sound art experience), I’d highly recommend it.

Just make sure you connect some decent speakers to your device and you’ll have an endless source of sonic delights at your disposal (yes, Adrift works in background).
I just have a few minor niggles about this first release. I’d like the app to work in landscape mode as well, and to provide some interaction/extra content while the music plays.

It’s worth mentioning that this is not a one of a kind project. Adrift is the first in a series of ambient music albums curated by loscil and released as mobile apps. Future releases will feature other artists’ interpretations of endless music.
I don’t know you, but I’m quite excited to see what’s coming next. And who knows, if this release proves popular, it may inspire other interesting hybridizations…