Thom Yorke remixes classical works

The ground breaking classical music album, Cortical Songs, due for release in May, will feature remixes from Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Nick McCabe, John McLean (The Aliens) and Simon Tong (The Good The Bad and the Queen).

The album, composed by John Matthias, lecturer in Sonic arts at the University of Plymouth, and sound designer Nick Ryan, was commissioned by the University of Plymouth – and now the science bit -to be played by a string orchestra utilising the rhythms inherent in networks of spiking cortical neurons. In laymans terms, Matthias explained it was all down to programming the computer so that it worked like neurons in the brain. The computer programme was created mathematically to replicate neurons, which fire signals. At this point, the computer causes a light to flash.

He said: "We've built a system of lights and 25 neurons. When a neuron fires, a light flashes. It creates interesting rhythms.
"We've got an orchestra with 24 musicians and myself on violin., and we have rules about what we must do when the light comes on.
"We thought: let's make something beautiful that will evolve that we don't expect. But we vaguely had an idea about how it would sound, because of the rules we set.
"It's quite a slow, melancholic piece of music."

Matthias played viola and violin on Radiohead's 1995 classic album, The Bends.