Imagine a music soundscape where beautiful songs and lush images flow gracefully together. Now, imagine traveling over that field, stopping to listen and look when the mood strikes, before moving along to new discoveries. That’s Aweditorium, an iPad app that delivers a completely new way to discover unknown artists and music.
Aweditorium throws the iPad and iPhone app “style guides” out the window. Upon launch, you’ll see a large grid of striking photographs, most of people. Flick up, down, right and left, and you’ll find the grid extends far beyond the edges of the screen. Pinch to zoom in or simply tap on an image, and it fills the screen and music begins. Text in the lower right describes the artist and the title of the song playing.
The app showcases indie music artists from the U.S. and all over the world. I spent 20 minutes listening to music, found several tunes that I really liked, but not one artist that I had ever heard of.
The interface feels like it grew organically from the iPad. Tapping again on a song’s picture will bring up subtitles of the lyrics, synced to the song. Tap in the lower right on a heart to see other songs by that artist in the app or to share your discovery over Facebook and Twitter. Touch the word balloon to hear an interview with the artist, or on HD to see a music video. A mini-map in the upper right shows you all the tiles you’ve touched, where you are on the grid and where other people using the app at that time are on the map.
The app developers want us to rediscover the visual and tactile elements of popular music that vanished after the digital music revolution. And, Aweditorium is the venue they created to achieve that goal. The app is free. Don’t miss it.
