I've amassed a sizable collection of MP3s over the past decade but despite my music player's best attempt to randomize the catalog, I found myself growing tired of hearing the same tunes over and over. It's one of the reasons I opted to try streaming music service Pandora (and ultimately Spotify) a few years ago - I simply wanted something new and fresh.
It seems musician Gwilym Gold and producer Lexx have reached the same conclusion but rather than opt for a streaming music service, they contacted Dr. Mick Grierson from the Department of Computing at Goldsmiths to do something about it.
Together, the team came up with a new music format called Bronze that is designed to enhance the listening experience by slightly altering the musical components of a song each time it is played. This will reportedly ensure that you never hear the exact same track twice.
Dr. Grierson says a musical piece will no longer require the final work to exist in a static form. Furthermore, it can be used on any genre including highly structured music like pop, dance and rock. The quality of 'remixed' tracks is equal to that achieved through professional authoring tools. He says the track will be subtly different each time but will retain the quality and balance of the original song so it'll be easily identifiable to the listener.
The technology can be heard on Gwilym Gold's recently-released debut album Tender Metal. The only shortcoming is that it's currently only available as an app through iTunes for the iPhone, iPod and iPad. Support for the PC, Android and Apple computers is in the pipeline, however.