We recently stumbled across this brilliant project from Nick Luscombe of Flomotion Radio and Simon Jordan from Jump Studios design and architecture agency… It is called Musicity and we decided to talk to them about the project.

BLEEP: Can you give some back ground to the project. How did the idea come about?

Simon Jordan: The idea came about because Nick and I have been interested in exploring ways in which we can bring our ‘worlds’ together; Nick’s world being music, mine being design, architecture and the built environment. From a technical perspective, obviously a musician’s skill is different to an architects but if you elevate a conversation around the two disciplines to one of design and the creative ‘act’, how things are made, then there is an interesting correlation. There’s an obvious shared language; musicians might talk about ’spaces’ within music and architects talk about ‘compositions’, ‘rhythms’ and ‘pulsing’ of spaces. I think also that as art forms both are uniquely immersive experiences.

B: You have chosen some fantastic musicians to work with on this project. How were these chosen? What was the reasoning behind your selections?

Nick Luscombe: My aim was to find a cross section of London based electronic music makers to get involved in Musicity – people who’s music I’m really into – kinda selfish I guess! I was so curious to see how each musician would react to the idea, and thankfully everyone got it right away and said “yes”! Since I was a kid I loved futuristic City – Scape music. The emergence of Detroit Techno was a real moment for me and I’ve always dreamed of something like that in London. All the musicians have really engaged in the project – and it’s been brilliant hearing the music they each created!

B: In an age where people expect to access everything from their computers at home instantly there is something special about the act of going somewhere to experience something?

SJ: This is a really interesting area and one that works on many different levels for us but one key thought is that we’ve seen the digital realm totally revolutionize how prerecorded music is consumed but the live event has hardly changed. What I think we are doing, really, is harnessing digital technologies to create something that is a kind of performance where the
main actor is the audience. I think also there is something in creating a different way to experience music that is on a par with a live event in that it’s a shared, public experience. Another view might be that we are re -framing how people might see and experience the city, using music as the catylist.

B: What is next for Musicity?

SJ: We already have plans for further cities underway, both in the UK and overseas. Look our for news on that. With regards to London, we plan to release seven new tracks every three months to build on those already available and we are already commissioning the next artists. The plan is to eventually have a ‘map’ of each city constructed entirely from good music!