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Space Music: The Alien Sounds of Richard Devine
by Robert Lamb | July 22, 2011
I recently had the chance to interview electronic musician Richard Devine for the Discovery News article “Is Electronic Music ‘Real” music?” The man had loads to share about his own creative process and advice for aspiring artists, so I figured a Space Music post was the perfect place to share more.
NASA’s final space shuttle launch this Friday brings about the end of an era. If you’re like me, you grew up watching the awesome triumphs and stunning tragedies associated with the space shuttle program. Friday’s Atlantis launch brings all this to a close and, amid all the emotion, you’ll probably want to crank some appropriate space music. Here are some recommendations:
Quality space music takes the brain on a journey, be it in the form of some star-tripping P-funk, a sci-fi DJ mix or some retro synth cheese. But even space music’s most talented musicians go for the eyes first with some killer album art. So in this post, with the help of the HowStuffWorks staff, I’ve assembled the top 10 cosmic album covers of all time.
There will be aliens.
There will be space ships.
There will be George Clinton.
In his mere 62 years on the planet, Carl Sagan proved himself an irreplaceable advocate of science and space exploration. His legacy lives on today in his beloved series “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage,” as well as in everything from obnoxious t-shirts to action comics and Auto-Tune tracks. He remains something of a scientific saint. One of more famous nuggets of wisdom is probably this one, related to star stuff:
Supernovae are among the most powerful events in the universe. These dying stars can burn as bright as a billion suns. They outshine whole galaxies and birth the beginnings of new cosmic bodies. So what happens when you give one access to a grand piano and a stand-up bass?
Enter astronomy graduate student Alex Harrison Parker from Canada’s University of Victoria. Parker took three years worth of supernovae observation data (covering four sections of the sky) from Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, sped the video up to 15-days-per-second and assigned each super nova a note. Let’s watch.
Ah, the music of the spheres! I’ve blogged previously on the sonification of space physics data, ranging from stuff as low-key as the SolarBeat flash-based music box to the University of Sheffield’s own “solar music.” Now here’s another one.
NPR’s Studio 360 recently aired an excellent story on a blind astrophysicist named Wanda Diaz which really drives home some excellent points about how we listen to the cosmos. You can stream the full audio piece (as well as a short excerpt of astronomical data converted into synthesized music) right here at the Studio 360 home page. Here’s an excerpt:
What would an extraterrestrial make of music and mathematics? And how much of a connection exists between the beats that stir our brain and the number patterns that underline reality?
I decided to pick the brain of Britain’s DJ Irk on the matter. In addition to being one of the hottest DJs in the world today and the 2010 winner for Solid Steel Mix of the Year, Irk also boasts a mathematics Ph.D. in differential geometry and dynamical systems. So let’s get to know DJ Irk, first hitting the math and then getting into his personal approach to mixing.
If you’re game for a hip hop-fueled sci-fi excursion through a world of interstellar conflict and robotic super villainy, then the 2006 album “Sci-Fu” will get you definitely there. It’s the creation of one Pete Gleadall AKA Pete Sasqwax AKA Waxfactor and as it’s something of an under-appreciated sensation, I felt I needed to highlight it here. Even better, Pete took time away from his life of graphic design, music production and fiction writing to chat with me from his home in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK. You’ll want some fitting background music for all this, so be sure to hit up PeteSasqWax.co.uk for free downloads of “Sci-Fu” as well as a few EPs. Now let’s get to the interview:
Space Music: This is the Sound of Pipe Organs on Mars
by Robert Lamb | April 13, 2011
I have to admit that I’d never thought about this one before. We love listening to our favorite artists here on Earth, but what would, say, Fleetwood Mac sound like on Mars (prior to Mick Fleetwood’s head exploding ala “Total Recall“)? After all, we’re dealing with different atmospheric temperatures, densities and pressures. Nothing would be quite the same. As it turns out, Physicist Andi Petculescu and acoustics Professor Tim Leighton have already done just about everything short of actually blasting pipe organs into space.
We have some cool bits of Space Music to roundup this week. First, we’ve already covered NASA’s first and last artist in residence (AIR), but what about SETI? The ET-seeking non-profit just signed on multimedia artist Charles Lindsay for a three year stint as its first AIR, during which he’ll grow the program and “encourage cross disciplinary artistic expression in order to explore and illuminate the origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe.”
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