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LCD Soundsystem's frontman is transforming tennis data into tunes
LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy has dabbled in some weird stuff since the group split up three years ago, so the news that he's now working with IBM to convert the back-and-forth cadence of tennis matches at the US Open into music... isn't really a surprise. What is surprising is what he and dev-collaborator Patrick Gunderson will ultimately wind up with: nearly 400 hours worth of algorithmically crafted "music" made from boiling serves, aces and faults into instrument tracks.
LCD Soundsystem frontman wants to make New York's subway more musical
Musician and self-described "subway geek" James Murphy has had a bit of time on his hands since LCD Soundsystem's curtain call, but he hasn't been idle. Inspired by the sounds of Tokyo's train system, Murphy has proposed that the turnstiles of New York's 468 subway stations each play a unique melody when someone passes through them. He thinks the project, dubbed Subway Symphony, could be part of the city's plan to overhaul the existing MetroCard system and replace it with NFC-based readers, according to an interview with The Wall Street Journal. There is, however, something standing in the way of his 15-year old plan: the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA). An MTA representative said that it's a cool idea but one that would likely require a lot of labor, money and potential downtime for the subway's 5.5-million passengers -- and that isn't feasible (unlike in-terminal WiFi). If you're inclined to disagree, Muphy's set up a petition on the Subway Symphony website. [Image credit: Kent, J/Flickr]
