S 1 Planetarium (Excerpt)

S 2 The 4th Place (Excerpt)

Commissioned by exclusive diamond jewelry retailer Hearts on Fire, Illustrious created a series of 3D Soundscapes to play in their new stores that were opening across the globe.

Like the diamonds themselves these compositions were one offs that used spatialised sound to provide customers with an immersive retail experience.

Hearts on Fire

It's Always Ourselves We Find In The Sea / Installation Soundscape

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of i-D Magazine, the Fashion and Textile Museum launched an exhibition using images, short films, graphics, scents, and 3D sound from Illustrious to provide a multi-dimensional tour of the magazines history as well as the wider concept of ‘identity’.

Directed an curated by the the magazine’s founder, creative director and editor-in-chief, Terry Jones, the exhibition sought to capture the essence of i-D, whose premise from its conception has been to empower people to express their own ideas and their individual identity.

As part of this multi sensual experience, Illustrious provided a three dimensional immersive soundtrack, which used musical compositions and voice recordings to create an audio collage charting the history of the magazine.

In partnership with The Design Museum.

i-DENTITY: 25 Years of i-D magazine

Featuring a soundscape from Martyn Ware of Illustrious Company, Echo City was an installation at the Venice Architecture Biennale that described the city of Sheffield from a variety of scales.

Developed under the leadership of Jeremy Till, Director of Architecture at the University of Sheffield, Echo City was described as an “urban register” made up of found objects, architectural projects, photography, an immersive audio experience from Illustrious, and at its centre an interactive model by Jim Prevett which invited visitors to reconfigure urban elements from the surrounding installations.

For the exhibition, Ware created ‘1:10,000,000’, a soundscape that projected Sheffield’s relationship with the world at large, presenting the city as an exemplar of industrial cities everywhere.

In partnership with the Venice Architecure Biennale and the British Council.

Echo City: Diaspora Magnet

Held as part of the Switched On London Festival, Creatmosphere: Breathing Trees was a large-scale immersive outdoor light and sound installation that transformed two enormous trees located next to Potters Field Park into living, breathing lungs.

The two 20 metre high trees were illuminated using LED color changing technology to give the impression of ‘breathing with light’ while simultaneously the sound of breathing was played in 3D sound. 

A recreation of Breathing Trees, a work which was originally performed in 2006 at the Festival Arbres et Lumieres in Geneva, the restaging was a collaborative effort between Illustrious and Laurent Louyer of Creatmosphere. 

In partnership with Creatmosphere and Switched On London.

Creatmosphere: Breathing Trees

Composed and installed by Illustrious Company, SoundLife London was a unique 3-D audio experience that embodied the sonic essence of London.

The composition, an hour long looped soundscape, inhabited the entire space of the capital’s bustling Leicester Square gardens over a ten day period, and was performed in 3-D sound.

Revealing the three dimensional sound world that surrounds us at all times, the performance featured recordings made by various community groups, schools, ethnic associations, reminiscence groups and youth clubs.

In partnership with Future of Sound, Arts Co, and Westminster City Council.

SoundLife London

Martyn Ware, Tracey Moberly and Sarah Hopkins have begun a multi-disciplinary and cross platform collaboration based on Power and Industry. The project aims to examine these themes using synaesthetic imagery, creating an immersive and multisensory experience for the viewer.

United in their passion for creativity in all its forms and with a fascination for industrial architecture and processes, the artists discovered a closer bond. As they shared and developed their practices, they discovered that their fathers had all had life-long careers in UK steel industry. The Power Project is therefore a very poignant gesture towards the industry that unfolded and became so important in their lives from a young age. The scale and all-encompassing nature of the steel industry will be accentuated further by the interaction between the exhibition and the viewer, and the ways in which people behave in the creative space.

An in-depth guided tour of Tata steelworks in Port Talbot and Forgemasters in Sheffield highlighted and further extended the wealth of collaborative possibilities. It also outlined the planning for potential touring exhibition.

The work has so far manifested itself in a series of collagraphs and limited edition screenprints, photography, film and an immersive sonic steelworks created at Martyn’s London studio, featuring his company Illustrious’ bespoke 3D sound technology called 3DAudioScape.

Work is scheduled to begin on a series of four giant textile hangings informed by an in-depth socio-political history of the areas, in part influenced by the tradition of trade union banners.

Power Project

Inspired by the Curtis Mayfield track 'To Be Invisible', Illustrious creates collaborative 3D soundscape 'To Be Invisible'

To Be Invisible

Empath Machine

The Prisoner Immersive Experience

White You Are In Heaven Soundscape

Sweetly The Air Flew Overhead

Tokyo by Kenzo Soundscape

We Found Love In The 80s

Liquid Histories

Everything Old Is New Again

Auroral Synapse

The Beatles Experience

Science Museum F1 Exhibition

Illustrious Company (supported by Monitor Audio) presents the world-premiere of a major new 3D soundscape exhibition inspired by the Electronically Yours with Martyn Ware podcast entitled Adventures In The Electroverse…

The installation will premiere at NYC Culture Club, World Trade Center, between 5th May - 5th June 2024.

This piece embodies the culmination of over 250 hours of interviews and 3 years of research and analysis into the methods and inspirations of some of the world’s greatest musicians, artists, producers, actors, politicians, comedians and creators of all kinds… 

Drawing on Illlustrious’s immense experience of soundscape creation and audience engagement, this rich mix of music, sonic impressionism and the beauty and meaning of the human voice has been recombined into a unique psychedelic, immersive three-dimensional experience designed for your listening pleasure.

The entire soundscape is 60 minutes long, and has been prepared here in binaural format, so people can listen at home or on the go (best enjoyed on headphones).

Relax, stay a while, and let the Electroverse work its magic on your senses….

Adventures in The Electroverse

Empath Machine 

45 mins

Composed by Martyn Ware, Tim Wheater and Cherub Sanson

Kindly supported by Monitor Audio Group

 

Immerse yourself in this hypnotic three-dimensional soundscape featuring an electronic compositional response to the soundworld of naturally resonant acoustic instruments. The contrast between the natural and electronic worlds embodies paradoxically both a warning and a hope for a more considered technologically-enabled future and the inevitability of a new reality.

The original show made with Ditto.tv from 2013

Heaven 17 - Music For Xmas radio show

Sea Inside Us All 020316

Sea Inside Us All 5min Edit

This instrumental is a thank you to all our loyal fans for voting us 'Greatest Sheffield Band Of All Time'

Hope you like it

Martyn and Glenn - Heaven 17 xx

Honeymoon In NY 2 by Heaven 17

Composed by Illustrious founders Martyn Ware and Vince Clarke, On Public Display was a 3D surround soundscape written to accompany Vanessa Fenton’s ballet of the same name.

Staged at London’s infamous Royal Opera House, the performance was commissioned  by the Royal Ballet and comprised the work of five different choreographers drawing inspiration from any of the ballets created for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes.

For the sound-piece, Illustrious were inspired by and incorporated parts of Shostakovich's 2nd Piano Concerto, with the piece

On Public Display

Gabriel and Martyn Ware proudly created a 3D orchestral soundscape composition entitled 'Going Home' to accompany the poignant and beautiful paintings featured in Pete McKee’s ‘This Class Works’.

Going Home

Paperface - Beggar&Co:Martyn Ware

Gimme Shelter Radio Promo

Heaven 17 with Hannah Jones - Gimme Shelter 1993 (Rare)

Composed by Martyn Ware in collaboration with artistic director David Bickerstaff, ‘Tales from the Bridge’ is a mesmerizing three-dimensional soundscape covering the entire length of the Millennium Bridge. It featured an hour-long looping immersive ambient electronic musical composition merged with an engaging spoken narrative written by the poet Mario Petrucci and voiced by Mia Austen and Steven Alexander, and the stunning ‘Water Night’ by Eric Whitacre.

The installation was created with endorsement of The Noise Abatement Society.

Tales from the Bridge

Older people reading children's thoughts and vice versa - with orchestral composItion by GABRIEL WARE - featuring voiceover artists Harry Leckstein, Lucy Macieira, Elena Ware, Woody Scorer, Martyn Ware etc.

Everything Old Is New Again Stereo (Binaural)

Before After

Heaven 17 - This Is Not My World

A compilation of bespoke compositions for a performance at a Sony Playstation party in 2000 by Illustrious Company (Vince Clarke and Martyn Ware) together with several special guests including Andy Bell. Performed live in 3D sound, and presented here in binaural (best experienced on headphones)

Illustrious Company

Popular tracks