Endel Music

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Grimes contributing an ambient soundtrack to Endel, founded in 2018 by a team of now 30, which includes programmers, musicians, artists and designers. Grimes musical piece was made up of stems (sonic building blocks) that eventually fed the app’s algorithm. The app makes soundscapes accessible which, according to a manifesto on their website, provide a “tech-aided bodily function” to help people cope with a world where “information overload is destroying our psyche.”

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“This is technology that helps you focus, relax and sleep,” said Oleg Stavitsky, the company’s chief executive. “It creates a sound environment in real time on the spot, on the device, personalized to you, based on a bunch of inputs. The algorithm that we have created – it takes in the time of day, the weather, the heart rate, movement, it plugs all of those inputs into the algorithm. And it creates that soundscape personalized to you in real time.”

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Grimes thinks that the potential of A.I. is being underestimated by experts. She says: “‘A.I. won’t be able to mimic the human spirit or whatever’– that’s what people keep saying to me, and it’s like, ‘I don’t know man, we, like, video-talk through tiny black cubes, through space and time.’ And, you know, technology – I don’t think there’s an actual limit on technology. I mean, you look at Twitter and stuff. It’s like, A.I. can make people pretty emotional.”

(Marcus, 2020)