BBC Earth Films (part of BBC Studios) is set to unveil a ground-breaking new album combining cutting-edge technology, world class musicians and masterful nature storytelling to create an entirely new kind of musical experience.
Earth: One Amazing Day - The Immersive Experience, enables listeners to plug into a three-dimensional surround sound environment using any digital playback device, and immerse themselves in a world where music and the sounds of nature constantly shift and move around them.
A collaboration between BBC Studios, award-winning composer Alex Heffes (Touching The Void, Last King Of Scotland), and leading immersive audio experts, the 13 (plus bonus) track release takes its audience on a highly realistic journey through the everyday wonders of planet Earth, combining an inspiring orchestral score with real-life wildlife sounds and environmental audio.
Listeners experience the effect of being transported to the very centre of the action as the music and animals surrounds them: floating through a school of sperm whales, dancing with death amidst pounding waves on a remote volcanic island, or bathing in the light of a bamboo forest as a panda cub on its first solo adventure snuffles around their heads.
Stephen McDonogh p.g.a, producer of the album at BBC Studios said: “The Immersive Experience is the first album of its kind, combining a vast classical orchestra and choir, some of the world’s leading creatives, musicians, and recording engineers, with an incredible array of over 78 unique music, plant and animal sound objects to depict the everyday natural wonders that occur across every continent of our remarkable planet.”
The result of that unique collaboration, Earth: One Amazing Day - The Immersive Experience, takes listeners on 45 minute journey through a three-dimensional audioscape, painting a vivid picture of the world’s remarkable creatures and landscapes utilizing only music and natural sounds.
Ray Mia, album co-producer, added: “Music is all about telling stories, so it was a natural next step for our immersive recording team to utilise music, technology and psycho-acoustic storytelling techniques to create a new form of all-embracing musical experience, pairing creativity with cutting-edge spatial audio techniques to explore narratives in a fresh and compelling way.”
To allow listeners to enjoy the album’s immersive surround sound environment irrespective of the device they use, The Immersive Experience is to be released in two editions tailored for playback on either stereo headphones (Binaural) or a home cinema surround sound systems (Dolby Atmos®).
The Binaural Edition, which utilises state-of-the-art 29th Order ambisonics to create an immersive psycho-acoustic experience that can be enjoyed using any pair of ordinary good quality headphones, will be released in the United States on iTunes on September 21.
A limited edition Atmos Edition, crafted for use on any Dolby Atmos® or Dolby TrueHD 7.1 or 5.1 enabled home cinema surround sound system, will simultaneously be released on the US market in disk format via Amazon.com.