This new app is like Pokémon GO for music lovers

Remember Pokémon GO, the augmented reality app in which you had to collect Pokémon in the physical realm that took the world by storm in 2016?

Well, now there’s a similar app for music, in which users must track down music snippets in hidden places in the real world. Meet wildwildsky, the app which “merges song, art and nature”.

Created by Nick Donovan – an indie-folk singer-songwriter and member of Brian Eno’s Hard Art Collective – wildwildsky seeks to make “music become an adventure”, as users find tracks hidden in forests, beaches and hillsides.

“Forget passive streaming, what if you had to step into the world, breathe the air, and follow a map to hear a song?” Donovan writes. “Welcome to wildwildsky: the app turning the outdoors into a living record collection, where tracks exist physically, geolocated in the landscape, and can only be heard on site.”

He adds: “I wanted people to discover music as if it were an animal in the wild, tied to a place, momentary, and fleeting.”

Donovan explains that in an age of “instant clicks and endless playlists”, wildwildsky implores users to “slow down and savour music as a rare encounter”.

“Each track is mapped to a specific outdoor setting; listen once, and it vanishes, leaving the music, and your experience, where it belongs: in the wild.”

A select cohort of artists is onboard for the launch, including Stornaway, Dutch Uncles, Anna B Savage, Mercury nominee Sam Lee, Twin Atlantic’s Ross McNae and more, with others joining in the near future.

A not-for-profit project, wildwildsky is supported by Arts Council England and the National Lottery.

“wildwildsky bridges music, nature, and activism,” Nick Donovan concludes. “We hope to create moments of awe and wonder in unexpected places, and to invite artists and listeners alike to see both music and the world differently.”

You can learn more and download wildwildsky right now.

Sam is the Associate News Editor for Guitar.com and MusicTech. Thoroughly immersed in music culture for the majority of his life, Sam has played guitar for 20 years, studied music technology and production at university, and also written for the likes of MusicRadar, Guitar World, Total Guitar and Metal Hammer.