There is something incredible and fantastic about it. I'm sure this sonification can be used to stop a pandemic! There is something incredible and fantastic about it. I'm sure this sonification can be used to stop a pandemic! It makes my body vibrate in unison.

This is so lovely. Is there a paper on this professor Buehler? 

Just curious how you chose the sounds you used? There is also a noise component that doesn't seem to be present on other sonicizations. Really amazing work you are doing here!

Is the delay line on the sounds here an artistic choice, or is it a direct representation of the protein?

Protein Counterpoint Sonification

pinball

INFOS / ORDER: http://shelter-press.org/native-instrument-camo-sp073/

—

Native Instrument is a Berlin based sound collaboration bringing together the fieldrecordings archive of Felicity Mangan and the abstract vocabulary of Stine Janvin Motland.

Often referred to as insect techno, Native Instrument’s music is constructed using electronic and vocal adaptations of wildlife audio recordings originating mainly from the Australian and North European fauna; mixing the natural rhythms of animal calls with digital effects and vocal imitations, Native Instrument enlightens a sonic ambiguity between rural nature, electronics, and the human voice. 
 
Over time, field recordings and human vocabulary become mixed up, indiscernible from one another – a sound illusion that ends in the creation of a new melodious wildlife genre.

With their debut release Camo, Native Instrument presents their true artificial nature; sound collages moving between tropical ambience, club inspired bug beats and amphibian trance. 

Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi and pressed at Pallas in a first edition of 500 copies.

NATIVE INSTRUMENT 'Waldfest' (SP073)

Out worldwide 30/07/2018

POISON is the collaborative project of producers DJ Plead and T.Morimoto. On this debut self titled EP, the artists contemplate their mixed Lebanese and Japanese heritages through a dense combination of digital emulations and rhythmic patterns. POISON investigate the uncanny abstraction whereby centuries old instruments and rhythmic patterns are encoded into files and presets; digital synths, heavy subs, 808s, and vocals from collaborator ARZ, combine with emulations of the Shakuhachi, Mijwiz, Taiko, and Darbuka among others. Enabled by commercial sound design tools, the two Australians have produced a beguiling piece of audio simulacra to be enjoyed by DJs and listeners alike.

Super Utu present this eponymous EP in 10” polyvinyl chloride. On side A we hear Eh Mnee7 Ft. ARZ. Off-beat guitar strums build tension as ARZ’s auto-tuned Arabic vocals punctuate a pop-song structure, and a digital Mijwizz solo calls dancers to floor. Next is CCGC60, a minimal, trance inducing, techno-not-techno anthem that is at once strange and familiar. On side B Mess Tool channels heady poly-rhythmic bass patterns and wild drum solos, as multiple digital flute melodies chirp playfully above. The final, International Funds Transfer, alternates between tight snare rhythms, heartfelt melodies, and a driving 4 to the floor kick drum that stretches out into an expansive late night DJ weapon.

DJ Plead has recently welcomed the release of a solo EP through Air Max 97’s Decisions label. He is one third of BV (Formerly known as Black Vanilla) and his photography graces this record’s cover as it does numerous other Australian artists including Cop Envy and Jikuroux. Meanwhile T.Morimoto has an ongoing practise as a multi-displinary artist, curator and writer and is currently pursuing academic research into aesthetic standardisation under post-digital conditions. His music has been released through US label Illuminated Paths as well as cult Australian label This Thing, Plastic World and Body Promise.

Words by Tom Smith. 
http://thomaswilliamsmith.com

SUPER UTU 1 - POISON - SNIPPETS

Forthcoming on Akuphone (AKU1016)

feat: 
FUJI-YUKI - KIKI HITOMI - MIKADO KOKO - MIKI YUI 
KAKUSHIN NISHIHARA - KUUNATIC and KEIKO HIGUCHI.

DIGITAL  => JUNE, 14. 2019 
VINYL-CD  => JULY, 13. 2019

Seitō gathers Japanese female artists from various electronic and experimental music fields. Like the « Tokyo Flashback » series issued by P.S.F. in the early 1990s, this collection recorded between 2017 and 2019 exposes the richness of the contemporary Japanese underground music scene. The title refers to a cult feminist magazine printed in Japan in the 1910s. All tracks issued for the first time.

www.akuphone.com

AKU1016 // VA - Seitō: In the Beginning, Woman Was the Sun (Album preview)

Sam Mallet could have pursued a career as a French literature professor in Paris, but decided his true calling was to remain in Australia, dedicate himself to his music and find the plateau; a word he used to describe the sensory worlds residing in music. Under the influence of Eno, Jon Hassell, Arvo Pärt, John Coltrane and Robert Fripp, Sam explored a wide variety of musical styles and put them to service soundtracking the time-based works of his peers. He crafted spatial ambience, somber jazz, and drum computer driven rockers for short films and experimental video works, television shows (including the original Australian Wilfred series), feature films and live theatre. The avant garde Anthill Theatre, known for its departure from conventional staging practices and having a keen eye for talent, enlisted Mallet to provide soundtracks for approximately 40 productions throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.

Sadly, Sam passed away in 2014. A crucial piece of his legacy is undoubtedly the body of work he produced during his life, and the archive of recorded works is vast and deep. Sam seemingly saved everything, from fragments to finished pieces; and often repurposed previously released tracks by collaging them into new pieces. He self-released a small number of cassettes and CDs from the mid 1980s onward, the contents of which were culled from soundtrack work and original pieces, but the majority of his music was experienced only within the ephemeral live performances.

Wetlands is the product of countless hours spent with this archive by Rowan Mason (Sanpo Disco/Recurring Dream) and Tony Remple (Musique Plastique), offering a dynamic survey of Sam’s work, and housed in a jacket evoking the minimal design and colour palette of his earliest cassette releases. Two selections of Sam Mallet’s music were featured on the compilation Midday Moon (also produced by Rowan), released last year by Bedroom Suck Records. Along with Left Ear Records’ Antipodean Anomalies, Midday Moon has served to highlight outlier musics and scenes from Australia and New Zealand, and Wetlands plunges deeper into the catalog of this obscure yet groundbreaking artist.

Release by Musique Plastique / Recurring Dream

PRE-ORDER HERE: www.seance-centre.com/other-releases…allet-wetlands

For EU distribution contact: info@rushhour.nl
For NA distribution contact: info@seance-centre.com

Release date October 18th 2019

Wetlands

Sam Mallet - Skateboard Terrain (MP006 / RD01)

Sounds of the escherichia virus T4,  a species of bacteriophages that infect Escherichia coli bacteria. What you hear is the sonified expression of the 3D structure of the protein needle at the core of this virus, classified in the protein data bank with ID 4osd (triple-stranded beta-helix comprising the central spike of bacteriophage T4. 

See http://dx.doi.org/10.2210/pdb4OSD/pdb for more information.  

The music represents the spike-shaped protein that functions to disrupt the membrane of the target cell during phage infection. The protein structure has first been reported in [1].

The protein structure is translated into an orchestral setting (koto [a Japanese string instrument], cello, double bass, viola, flute, and a range of other orchestral instruments). The various instruments is used to express the primary, secondary and tertiary structure of the protein. The piece is composed of a A-B-A' structure, where A and A' reflect the beginning and end coding of the protein, the B part represents the coding of the primary backbone sequence and structure. 

The track image shows a picture of this protein, reflecting a highly organized, repetitive structure with continuous slight variations, which is also reflected musically. The extensive length of 40+ minutes is due to the long protein chains included in this protein assembly. 

The piece reflects a classical period model of the hierarchical mapping to describe the 3D folded structure of a protein assembly (consisting of 9 protein chains) in musical space. The musical mapping begins from the primary amino acid sequence and encodes multiple hierarchical structural levels, and is complemented with musical experimentation. 

We use the concept proposed by Yu, Buehler et al. (ACS Nano) [2] to map amino acid sequences to music, and augment the mapping by adding more data. The 3D folded structure of a protein is coded by inserting strummed chords and interwoven, cascaded melodies and rhythms that code for the geometric arrangement of amino acids, the protein's tertiary structure. Rhythm and note volume code for secondary structure.

References:

[1] Original research paper describing the gp5β-BC2 fragment: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4576200/

[2] https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.9b02180

[3] Track image shows the phage, a virus that infects and replicates within bacteria and archaea (source: Wikipedia, by: Adenosine, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8643737, depicting the structure of a typical myovirus bacteriophage)

Viral koto ensemble of protein 4osd with cello, violin, flute and bass

This piece is a sonification of the spike protein of the pathogen of COVID-19, 2019-nCoV (protein data bank identifier 6VSB [1]). What you hear is a multi-layered sonification approach featuring both the vibrational spectrum of the entire protein (expressed in sound and rhythmic elements), as well as the sequence and folding of amino acids that compose the virus spike structure [2]. 

References
[1] Wrapp et al., "Cryo-EM structure of the 2019-nCoV spike in the prefusion conformation," Science, 2020, DOI: 10.1126/science.abb2507
[2] Buehler et al., "A Self-Consistent Sonification Method to Translate Amino Acid Sequences into Musical Compositions and Application in Protein Design Using Artificial Intelligence," ACS Nano, 2019, DOI: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsnano.9b02180

Sonification of a virus spike protein

Sonification of the Coronavirus Spike Protein (Amino Acid Scale)

While we cannot see small nanoscopic objects like proteins or other molecules that make up virtually all living matter including our cells, tissues, as well as pathogens such as viruses, our computational algorithm allows us to make its material manifestation audible.  This piece is a musical representation of the amino acid sequence and structure of the spike protein of the pathogen of COVID-19, 2019-nCoV (protein data bank identifier 6VSB [1]). 

MUSICAL DECEIT

A virus’ genome hijacks the host cell’s protein manufacturing machinery, and forces it to replicate the viral genome and produce viral proteins to make new viruses from it.  This musical art teaches us something about the fine line between beauty of life and death as an opposite pole.  As you listen to the protein you will find that the intricate design results in incredibly interesting and actually pleasing, relaxing sounds. This doesn’t really convey the deadly impacts this particularly protein is having on the world. This aspect of the music shows the deceiving nature of the virus, how it hijacks our body to replicate, and hurt us along the way. So, the music is a metaphor for this nature of the virus to deceive the host and exploit it for its own multiplication. 

HOW IT IS DONE: 

What you hear is a multi-layered algorithmic composition featuring both the vibrational spectrum of the entire protein (expressed in sound and rhythmic elements), the sequence and folding of amino acids that compose the virus spike structure, as well as interwoven melodies - forming counterpoint music - reflecting the complex hierarchical intersecting geometry of the protein [2].

Scientific references:

[1] Wrapp et al., "Cryo-EM structure of the 2019-nCoV spike in the prefusion conformation," Science, 2020, DOI: 10.1126/science.abb2507

[2] Buehler et al., "A Self-Consistent Sonification Method to Translate Amino Acid Sequences into Musical Compositions and Application in Protein Design Using Artificial Intelligence," ACS Nano, 2019, DOI: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsnano.9b02180

Viral counterpoint of the coronavirus spike protein (2019-nCoV)

Viral Counterpoint of the Coronavirus Spike Protein (2019-nCoV)

This is a sonification of a protein extracted from honeybees, and folded using a deep learning method described in [1].

BACKGROUND:

The development of rational techniques to discover new mechanically relevant proteins for use in variety of applications ranging from mechanics, agriculture to biotechnology remains an outstanding nanomechanical design problem. The key barrier is to design a sequence to fold into a predictable structure to achieve a certain material function. Focused on alpha-helical proteins (as found in skin, hair, and many other mechanically relevant protein materials), we report a Multi-scale Neighborhood-based Neural Network (MNNN) model to learn how a specific amino acid sequence folds into a protein structure. 

The algorithm predicts the protein structure without using a template or co-evolutional information at a maximum error of 2.1 Å. We find that the prediction accuracy is higher than other models and the prediction consumes less than six orders of magnitude time than ab initio folding methods. We demonstrate that MNNN can predict the structure of an unknown protein that agrees with experiments, and our model hence shows a great advantage in the rational design of de novo proteins.

Reference: Z. Qin, B. Marelli, M.J. Buehler, et al., "Artificial intelligence method to design and fold alpha-helical structural proteins from the primary amino acid sequence," Extreme Mechanics Letters, Vol. 36, p. 100652, 2020 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eml.2020.100652

Honeybee Silk

have a look at knotwilg.bandcamp.com for complete tracklisting or for purchase of the cassette

A02- Humbros - KNOTWILG TAPE 2020

This piece explores melodic and rhythmic content from a variety of protein structures, including the binding event of COVID-19 to human cells. The progression models pre-pandemic humanity and the virus alone ("growth"), then the virus interacting with human cell - a struggle modeling repeated infection of new cells ("infection") - and finally back to virus alone overlaid with the regular rhythm of human life ("release").  As expressed musically, life after the virus is different than before , since we all changed due to the pandemic. How, we do not know yet. 

LYRICS:

Growth, Infection and Release.
Growth represents prepandemic humanity and the virus alone.
Infection represents the period during with the virus is interacting with human cells.
There is a struggle between infection of new cells and human defenses.
Finally, we return to the regular rhythm of human life, the release.
Life after the virus is different than before. We all changed due to the pandemic.
How we have changed, we do not know yet.

MORE DETAILS:

The rhythm is derived directly from the vibrational spectrum of the virus spike protein attached to the human ACE2 receptor, scaled to the frequencies that human ears perceive as rhythm. 

The construction of this piece involves the vibrational frequencies of virus proteins alone, melding into overlays of the virus with human proteins attached, peaking and then decaying as the virus releases its grip on humanity.  The piece ends with the steady motions of human existence, as we enter release.

The entire composition is written in the amino acid scale, making molecular vibrations audible in a range of experiences from rhythms, to harmony, to melodies. For sources of sonic content, we explore a variety of protein structures - virus spike protein alone, spike protein attached to human cell, human cell alone, and various states of the human cell alone. These provide the melodic foundation on which the progression is based. 

The track image is taken from [1], a recent study to make protein vibrations visible via water waves.

[1] M. Buehler, Liquified protein vibrations, classification and cross-paradigm de novo image generation using deep neural networks, https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.07603, 2020

Growth, Infection and Release

Knife Mix 009: Clarissa Connelly

from a Tomutonttu live EP "Elävänä ullakolla".

kemiallisetystavat.bandcamp.com/album/el-…akolla-ep

Tomutonttu – Alku: puhtaat kädet

'Dolphins of Venice' is the third volume of Rhythmic Tomes, an episodic audio publication by Melbourne-based artist and DJ Lucreccia Quintanilla, commissioned and published by 3-ply.

Rhythmic Tomes - Volume 3 - Dolphins of Venice by Lucreccia Quintanilla

Kenji Kariu nurtures the small, frail, funny and unsettling,  weaves it all in an enthralling unique voice made world (Sekai) with electronics, guitar, and beats.

 http://bruit-direct.org/prod/kenji-kariu-sekai/

Kenji Kariu - Star Signs

Markus J. Buehler is the McAfee Professor of Engineering at MIT, and a composer of experimental, classical and electronic music, with an interest in sonification. Using an approach termed "materiomusic", his artistic work explores the creation of new forms of musical expression - such as those derived from biological materials and living systems - as a means to better understand the underlying science and mathematics. One of his goals is to use musical and sound design as a novel and abstract way to model, optimize and create new forms of matter from the bottom up, and to assess cross-system design relationships. He is also interested in research to explore relationships between classical music, mathematics, and the physical and biological sciences, an in the mapping of models of consciousness across systems. In recent work he has developed a new framework to compose music based on proteins – the basic molecules of all life, as well as other physical phenomena such as fracturing, to explore similarities and differences across species, scales and between philosophical and physical models. 

Contact: mbuehler@MIT.EDU

Sonification of the Coronavirus Spike Protein (Amino Acid Scale)

Markus J. Buehler

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