Desert Songs synthesiser explores the organic beauty of cactus music

Plant-based music has swept the globe as musicians find ways to use nature in creating music that is hauntingly calming. This time, we see audiovisual artist, Love Hulten, construct a custom synthesiser called ‘Desert Songs’ that uses biodata from a cactus garden.

The Desert Songs device uses a plant-based tech called PlantWave to transfer MIDI data into musical notes from electrodes that are attached to the plant (the cactus, to be precise).

Once that data has been collected, it then is transferred to a Korg NTS-1 for “waveshaping” and right after, it’s “drenched in the atmosphere using the Microcosm from Hologram Electronics”. During this process, you’ll also be able to visualise the plant’s chloroplasts in a microscopic view with the MIDI visualiser screen, resulting in a complete audiovisual experience.

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Love Hulten is no stranger to experimenting with unique creations. Over the past few years, he’s crafted a range of musical oddities that gave us creations that we didn’t know we needed. His unique ability to combine synthesisers with retro pop culture nuances has given life to objects such as a choir of vocal synthesisers made from plastic dentures, a musical marble machine, an old-school NES arcade machine, a DOODLESTATION musical desk and many more.

Read this next: You can now listen to music generated by your houseplants

We’re big fans of linking music with nature — one of our favourites from the region is Bottlesmoker creating music for plants. Let’s also not forget when mushroom music was all the craze last year.

Outside of plants, there are also artists making music through inanimate objects such as plastic or just everyday objects.

For more on Desert Songs, click here.

Miki Kitasako is Mixmag Asia’s Social Media and Content Producer, follow her on LinkedIn.