UK-based producer and composer Matthew Herbert experiments with just about anything that can produce an original noise. This time, he finds inspiration in the mechanisms of human intelligence, allowing players to create sounds as they embark on a Tetris-like puzzle game that ensures mental relaxation, spatial orientation, and brain workouts.In PENTAPUZZLE, Herbert captures the quick, finger-gestures of players as they flip, rotate and place tile-like puzzle pieces on an incomplete, abstract shape. Melody and dissonance reflect the trials and errors players encounter in each mental challenge. When a challenge is successfully solved, players gain hints for future puzzles, which turn increasingly complex with each level. As players commit errors, they disturb the ambient composition and relaxing atmospheric music. This allows players to personally challenge the rules they decide to apply to music, and create their own compositions.Skrubbeltrang and Platz Ltd. came up with the concept for the app in 2012, and designed the game. In collaboration with TechAhead, a software technology company that was in charge of the game engine, graphics and data modeling, and Matthew Herbert, who worked on the music and sounds, they brought intelligent gaming to life.Herbert, always at the forefront of conceptual, music experimentation explores the future of music production proving he can blend modern day technology with tradition. By writing manifestos that prohibit the use of manufactured sounds like drum machines, synthesizers and unoriginal samples, he focuses on the rhythms of natural occurrences, as well as taking from his personal life and the noises that exist in people’s daily lives.His highly conceptual 2001 album, Bodily Functions, experiments with sounds produced by body parts. His exploration of the human body and its noise making process is taken to the next level in this new project. In PENTAPUZZLE, he goes beyond using the human body; the game allows his music to explore the human mind.You can find out more about Matthew Herbert’s work in our video below[via BlackBook]
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