Andrew Melchior

Andrew Melchior (born 4 April 1972, Wiesbaden, West Germany) is a British-German Creative Technologist and Producer who has worked extensively with Björk, and is Chief Technical Officer of the band Massive Attack. He was named as one of Creative Review’s “Creative Leaders 50” in 2017.[1]

Career

His early career was spent at EMI and, in 1998, helped David Bowie set up the ISP, BowieNet,[2] and initiated the first partnership between a mobile phone manufacturer and a recording artist,[3] where Bowie's music and images were pre-loaded on a device. He managed the British band Elbow in their nascent years,[4] playing on their song Powder Blue.

Work for Björk

In 2014, he began work as technical advisor for Björk’s career retrospective and her “immersive” virtual reality exhibition Björk Digital, working with the artist and her label, One Little Indian, to translate Björk's music into a virtual space.[5] The exhibition debuted at Carriageworks in Sydney, Australia and has toured the world for over three years. He is the producer of her first VR single 'Stonemilker' which was premiered as MOMA's first ever VR exhibit in April 2015 and released for iOS on the App Store in December of that year in addition to the 2019 Vulnicura VR album, an integrated app version of the Björk Digital VR content from her Vulnicura album.[5]

Work for Massive Attack

In 2016 he began a series of projects for the Bristol-based band Massive Attack, beginning with Fantom,[6] an app that created unique interactive remixes of the band's new release Ritual Spirit based on facial expressions, location, movement, and various other user inputs.

In celebration of the 20th anniversary of Massive Attack’s album Mezzanine he acted as producer on a number of projects for the band. These included Fantom Mezzanine, a new version of the Fantom app that created remixes of Mezzanine’s songs,[7] and, in 2018, a "remastering" of the album where music data from the record was converted into synthetic DNA molecules mixed with paint, with the “album” then being released as a spray can.[2] His recent work has included creation of convolutional neural networks based on del Naja's artworks, controlling robots to create new kinds of AI artworks.

In 2019, an endless version of the same album, generated by a custom neural network, was exhibited at the Barbican Centre in London.[8]

Work for other artists

In 2019, he worked with Americans producers Seth Troxler and Phil Moffa on their Lost Souls of Saturn project to produce an augmented reality app which contains "a constantly evolving portal connected to a real-life object," which, when viewed via the app, reveals exclusive music and interactivity.[9]

References
  1. "Andrew Melchior – Creative Review". Retrieved 2019-06-12.
  2. Armstrong, Stephen (2019-03-15). "With AI and DNA, Massive Attack are hacking a new kind of music". Wired UK. ISSN 1357-0978. Retrieved 2019-06-12.
  3. "Emi And Nokia Announce Exclusive Mobile Content For Best Of Bowie Album". David Bowie. Retrieved 2019-06-12.
  4. Hodgkinson, Will (2008-10-11). "Soundtrack of my life: Guy Garvey, Elbow". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-06-12.
  5. "Music Week Tech Summit preview: 3rd Space Agency's Andrew Melchior talks Björk's Digital Tour". www.musicweek.com. Retrieved 2019-06-12.
  6. Cox, Jamieson (2016-01-21). "Massive Attack's new music is hidden inside a spooky iPhone app". The Verge. Retrieved 2019-06-12.
  7. "Massive Attack test remix-rights tracking with blockchain startup Blokur". Retrieved 2019-06-12.
  8. "AI: More than Human | Barbican". www.barbican.org.uk. Retrieved 2019-06-12.
  9. "The Lost Souls of Saturn: How Seth Troxler is transcending his 'party guy' days". Mixmag. Retrieved 2020-08-20.
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