Beatie Wolfe

Wolfe's debut EP, Burst was released in January 2010 as an iPhone App as was one of very few artist apps available. GQ Magazine[18] reviewed the launch concert at St Pancras Old Church as "the best concert [they'd] been to all year."

In July 2011, Wolfe performed at Secret Garden Party in Huntington. In August 2011, she was selected by EMI and Roundhouse to be featured in its 30/30 compilation album. This was released in December 2011 on Roundhouse Records. In August 2011, Wolfe shared the bill with American jazz musician Wynton Marsalis at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club. Following the show, Wolfe and Marsalis became friends and he became an important musical influence and mentor.

Wolfe's "world’ first"[23] format was positively received by various critics such as Wired magazine who described it as an "ingenious 3D layered view that beautifully brings to life her captivating folk sounds"[19] and British GQ magazine who stated that Wolfe "continues to innovate with her beautiful new album 8ight". Several magazines noted that Wolfe was "the first artist to introduce Palm Top Theatre to her product".[24]

Following her 3D Interactive App release, Apple Inc. invited Wolfe to perform at its worldwide flagship event theatres – London, New York & Berlin – to present her App in a live interview and perform tracks off her album 8ight. Live interviewers included Spin and Billboard editor & chief Craig Marks, GQ's commissioning editor Charlie Burton and Debug Founder Sascha Kösch.

Prior to the US tour for 8ight, Wolfe appeared on Monocle 24's Review Show[25] to talk about the influences behind the album, which coincided with a review in Monocle Mediterraneo 2013 summer publication.[26] In September 2013, Wolfe performed a US tour including headline shows in San Francisco, San Diego, LA, New York and Boston. UK tour performances included The Stables[27] in Buckinghamshire, Hare & Hounds in Birmingham and 606 Club in London. European performances included Hamburg's Nochtspeicher, CeBIT in Hanover and the Berlin Kurfürstendamm theatre. In November 2013, Wolfe was invited to present her App and perform at Wired's creative salon in Old Street. Her "8" App was later reviewed in January 2014's Wired Insider,[19] as a highlight of the night.

Beatie Wolfe standing in her album exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum

On 19 February 2014, at Mayfair's Maggs Bros Ltd on Berkeley Square – one of the longest-established antiquarian booksellers in the world – Wolfe launched the first edition of 'Words of 8IGHT',[28] her lyric book to accompany the album.

Following on the innovations of 8ight, Montagu Square was released as a woven album jacket made by legendary tailor Michael Fish (fashion designer).[33] Wolfe recorded the album at 34 Montagu Square, Marylebone, the former home of Jimi Hendrix, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon & Yoko Ono and in the room where "The Wind Cries Mary" and "Eleanor Rigby" had been written. Wolfe's live recording – complete with its ambient sound, resonance of the room – was translated into a woven fabric and cut by tailor Michael Fish (fashion designer) (who dressed Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie & Mick Jagger in the 60s and 70s) as the first Musical Jacket of its kind.[34] The Jacket has been NFC-enabled, allowing people to hear the music by tapping their phone onto the fabric. Wolfe's jacket has been featured in the Evening Standard, Craft Magazine, Creative Review, Huffington Post,[35] Wired, Forbes,[30] Recode,[36] The Next Web,[37] Tech Crunch[38] and Fast Company.[39] Tech Crunch called the Musical Jacket "spectacular" and praised Wolfe for "making music physical again, in a very literal way."

Wolfe has told the story of her Musical Jacket at Digital Life Design in Munich alongside Arianna Huffington; at Apple HQ's Steve Jobs Theatre in Cupertino; at an audience with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in Liverpool; at South by Southwest and in the Victoria and Albert Museum alongside David Bowie's designer Jonathan Barnbrook for the 'Records and Rebels' exhibition.[40]

In addition to the musical jacket, 'Montagu Square' was released as the world's first NFC Album Deck[41] in collaboration with MOO. The Next Web called this release "a brilliant inspiring idea that transcends novelty"[37] and Wired called it "bleeding edge." The Montagu Square album deck comes as a pack of printed cards with each card corresponding to each track off the album and featuring artwork, lyrics and an embedded Near field communication (NFC) chip – allowing listeners to tap the song cards onto their phone to play the music and access its content. The Montagu Square Deck was previewed at London's Serpentine Gallery.

Responding to the streaming age of music becoming the principal way of listening and continuing her approach of trying to reunite music in the digital age with a sense of tangibility, ceremony and storytelling,[46] Wolfe released Raw Space as the world's first live 360° AR stream[47][48] in collaboration with Bell Labs[49] and Theo Watson's design company, Design I/O. This was a first in the world for combining live, 360˚ stereoscopic video and real-time AR visuals, creating a modern, Fantasia-like live streamed album experience.[50] In an interview with Hoboken Life, Wolfe described the thinking behind Raw Space:

Raw Space touches on the themes I’ve been exploring since my first album but in perhaps the most extreme and technicolor way. For this album, it began with a question. What would the anti-stream of today look like? With Raw Space, I wanted to create the antithesis of our current streaming experience and really celebrate the world of the album—it’s artwork, arc, narrative, music—in a fully immersive and multi sensory way, which has the effect of placing the listener at the centre of this dynamic world.[51]

The live stream started on 5 May 2017 and ran continuously for 7 days straight. A turntable physically played Wolfe's album Raw Space on repeat from inside the Bell Labs' Anechoic chamber while people logged on via YouTube to listen to the music and explore the room in 360-degree video with the Augmented reality animation bringing the album's artwork, lyrics and visual landscape to life in real-time for the viewers.[44] The Augmented reality animation was also part-generative, which meant that with every spin the visuals would evolve and listeners might experience different things. The Raw Space live stream was given high praise by TechCrunch,[52] Axios (website), Fast Company,[53] Wired[54] and New Scientist, who described it as "like walking around in a dream someone had made for me"[55] and the BBC Radio 4 called it "transformative"[44] and "an extraordinary production: music and visuals" for "operating in this liminal space between online and offline." Raw Space was featured in YouTube's 'Best of 360°.'

Live, generative AR performance

In addition to the live stream, Wolfe also pioneered the world's first live, generative Augmented reality performance for songs "Little Moth" and "As You" as part of the launch of Raw Space.[56][57] This was achieved by using kinect's motion-sensing devices, designed for Microsoft's Xbox 360 games console, to track Wolfe's movements in the chamber and allow the Augmented reality animation to respond to her specific location in real time. New Scientist described this as "an enchanting effect," with the song's lyrics streaming out of her mouth as her sung and the graphics following her round the room in real time.[58]

Beatie Wolfe standing at the Holmdel Horn Antenna from which she broadcast her album into Space

On 26 September 2017, Wolfe broadcast her album Raw Space into space via the Holmdel Horn Antenna and with the assistance of Robert Woodrow Wilson.[59][60][61] Robert Woodrow Wilson made an update to the horn to ensure Wolfe's music got past the earth's atmosphere and into space, making this the first music broadcast into space using the Holmdel Horn Antenna.

Wolfe's Raw Space sits under the umbrella of Bell Labs Experiments in Art and Technology, a 50-year-old collaborative program which began in October 1966 with 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering. Wolfe is one of the first 21st century collaborators joining the likes of past participants John Cage, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg. Bell Labs president and Nokia CTO Marcus Weldon said the program had "attenuated" over the decades, but he's hoping to kickstart it by working with Wolfe.[52]

Beatie Wolfe Collision Conf 2018 03

Power of Music & Dementia[62] is a philanthropic collaboration between Wolfe and The Utley Foundation. Wolfe was inspired by the work of neurologist Oliver Sacks and his book Musicophilia to begin this project after family members became inflicted by the condition.[63] The Power of Music & Dementia research project was the first recorded study to look at new music for people living with dementia. Wolfe's study has been described as "ground-breaking"[64] and "profound" for testing music unconnected to memory and has been endorsed by the American Alzheimer's Association[65] and Stanford University. The Power of Music research tour ran for 4-months between November 2014 and February 2015 and Wolfe performed her original music at Priory Group care homes across the UK while responses were monitored, both during the live performance and in the weeks following as the patients listened to the same songs on headsets. The findings, which included a significant improvement in communication and memory,[13] were published in May 2015 and received positive press from The Times, Independent, Guardian, BBC Radio 4,[66] and Wired[67] as the first study to both test and show the benefits of new (novel) music.[68]

Wolfe has presented about 'Power of Music & Dementia' at TEDMED, WIRED's Conference,[69] Digital Life Design, UCSD, Royal Institution, Social Innovation Summit, the American Alzheimer Association, in a televised interview for Stanford University "Of Sound Mind"[70] and Sky News. Wolfe's song "Need Somebody" (from on Montagu Square) was inspired by this dementia project. Wolfe also collaborated with Punchdrunk on their Greenhive Green[71] as the musical artist for the installation.

Power of Music & Dementia was turned into the UK charity Music For Dementia 2020[72] with the aim of getting music in all UK care homes. Wolfe is an ambassador for the charity.

Released: 5 May 2017

Released: 26 October 2015

Released: 1 July 2013

Released: 1 January 2010