Anyone that has seen the 2000 film High Fidelity, or read the Nick Hornby book will have fond memories of John Cusack’s character’s rules when creating the perfect mixtape: “You gotta kick it off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you gotta take it up a notch, but you don’t wanna blow your wad, so then you gotta cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules.”
Equally, layering music as a DJ is a pure art form too. Knowing when to bring the vibe up and subtly let the mood drop before bringing it back up again is something that is in danger of dying in a digital world where everyone is now a DJ.
Many have become bored of creating their own playlists on services such as Spotify and Apple Music. Instead, they choose to let the services curate music for their every mood, but these cannot replace the human art form of creating the perfect playlist to support their ever changing moods, until now…
Meet the world’s first AI DJ brain, Muru. Inspired by an Aboriginal Australian term glossed as “journey,” the Sydney-based music technology company transforms metadata and generates extended playlists to fit every taste, every dynamic, by disrupting the way music is classified in the digital realm.
We’ve built tools that allow streaming and other digital music services to optimize the listening experience, streamline data flow, and create new revenue opportunities.
Muru playlists can be generated in a matter of seconds, even when they span hours, by selecting genres or artists as beginning and ending points. It can work on top of any streaming service. Muru can start cocktail hour with some cool jazz and morphs to deep house by the time everyone’s done with dessert.
Users can even nudge the playlist to evolve in real time, as they adjust parameters from energy to era to popularity. The approach is streamlined and intuitive, yet reflects years of serious thinking into how we relate and move to music.
We’ve created ways to let Muru do what I used to do as a DJ when I got feedback from the crowd
To perfect user experience, Muru not only creates listenable playlists with elegant transitions between genres and styles, but also allows users to interact with the app to tweak the journey.“We’ve brought big data in harmony with the human response to music,” a response Johnson witnessed extensively as a veteran dancefloor DJ.
Guest Info
With more than 16 years’ experience as a Musicologist, Professional DJ and Music Curator/Consultant, Johnson has created thousands of playlists. He was a resident DJ at world’s most successful nightclub, Pacha Ibiza and classically trained in Music Theory and Sound Engineering.
Nicc Johnson, Chief Musicologist and Founder of Muru
As a consultant, he focused on Brand Identity and building the right music environment for small/medium type businesses like bars, cafes, restaurants, retail stores, barber shops etc. He now uses tech to apply this experience at Muru.