Virtual-reality tech experience jazzes up album launching
NEW YORK band LCD Soundsystem has unveiled a virtualreality experience that allows fans to create a series of dance performances for all to enjoy.
Set to the band’s recently released single “Tonite,” the VR feature “Dance Tonite” works across platforms, although the role of the user varies depending on the device they are using.
Those using Daydream View or other handheld VR headsets will find themselves on stage “watching the experience unfold around you,” while room-scale VR such as the HTC VIVE or Oculus Rift will place users in the role of a performer. Without any type of VR, users will be in the audience with a bird’s-eye-view perspective.
LCD Soundsystem joins a number of performers to offer virtual reality and augmented reality experiences for fans.
Earlier this year, Gorillaz released an augmented reality mobile app that allows fans to tour the band’s studio and experience scenes from recent music videos in VR. The Chemical Brothers also offered up a VR video for their track “Under Neon Lights” that tells “a psychological and physical comingof-age story,” according to VR company Within; as users explore, the environment reacts both to them and to the music.
The track “Tonite” premiered earlier this month and is the third so far to be released from the group’s fourth album, which comes more than six years after the band marked its retirement with a three-hourlong concert at Madison Square Garden. — Relaxnews