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Digital
Alt-J launch new real time gig download app Soundhalo
By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 17 May 2013
Fresh from winning themselves a couple of Ivor Novello Awards yesterday lunchtime, Alt-J sauntered over to Brixton Academy and launched a new app called Soundhalo.
Now in beta and available on Android devices, the app allowed users to buy live audio and video recordings in real time (well, shortly after each song finishes, at least). Which means people no longer need to hold up their phones in everyone else’s way to record terrible videos they’ll never watch. Plus, they could get the experience of filming a show on their phone for no obvious reason by watching the videos of the show instead of actually looking at the stage, but without blocking anyone’s view. Just in case it’s not obvious, people who films gigs on their phones annoy me quite a lot.
Of course, it’s not just idiots who can use this app. Any gig attendee can have the show ready to watch again on the bus back home. Or, if you can’t go to a show, you can still watch it as it happens. And then when it’s finished you too could watch it again. And again if you wanted, but that’s probably too much Alt-J for anyone.
Commenting on the app, Alt-J’s Gus Unger-Hamilton told CMU: “I think the future of music and technology as an artist, and looking at how artists and fans interact, is really exciting. Artistic output no longer has to be dictated by the things it used to be. It used to be how much music can you fit on a vinyl record? And how long is a video cassette? Now that no longer has to be the case”.
Soundhalo co-founder Barry Palmer added: “I’d long been carrying around an idea that my 22 year old son, Declan, had come up with: of capturing, in real time, a band’s live performance – the music, the visuals, the whole thing – mixed, mastered and graded straight from the stage to a smartphone in an instant, and in the process capturing that intense insane magical moment that only live music can muster”.
He continued: “That’s the crux of Soundhalo. For fan and band alike, Soundhalo keeps alive those incredible moments and offers the music lover the choice to do so while at the gig, in the thick of things, when one can truly appreciate how special it is, knowing all too well that those gigs are rare birds: once gone, gone forever”.
One of the best things about gigs is that they’re a one time only experience, but I see his point, I suppose. If you’re all annoyed now that you missed the chance to download an Alt-J gig live as it happened, don’t worry, they’re doing it all again tonight. Find out more here.
