There are a growing number of ways you can explore music in VR, and The Melody of Dust, available now on Steam, offers a new one — throwing objects into a vortex.
The project is the product of a team-up between Viacom NEXT and musician Hot Sugar. It sells for $5, but it is discounted to $3 for launch. You can pick up items like a rose, dove, or champagne bottle that each produce a sound. Then toss them into a vortex to reveal one of 80 melodies that can be discovered in the app.
The project is a companion to a 13-track album from Hot Sugar, aka Nick Koenig, and at the end it reveals the title track from the album.
“The atmospheric fantasy world in The Melody of Dust allows you to confirm that any object in the universe is a musical instrument, whether we know how to play it or not,” said Koenig, in a prepared statement.
The Melody of Dust is definitely a new way to explore music which could allow fans to deconstruct the music of their favorite artist in new ways. But this particular project may get lost on Steam among all the games, where reviewers are notoriously harsh to non-gaming projects that don’t provide many hours of gameplay. Still, it is an intriguing exploration of music and would make for a cool addition to try on Viveport’s subscription program which is helping expose non-gaming projects to HTC Vive owners.
“The Melody of Dust truly is the first of its kind deconstructed VR music experience,” said Chaki Ng, SVP Viacom NEXT, in a prepared statement. “What makes The Melody of Dust unique is the whole experience is ‘the song.’ We believe this is a glimpse of what the future of music could look and feel like as you literally step into the mind of a musician and create your own score.”
