Pete Townshend's Post Tommy Rock Opera Inspires New Release

12/22/2011
. (Gibson) Shortly after The Who conceived, produced and recorded their rock opera Tommy, Pete Townshend started work on a follow-up "sci-fi rock opera." Parts of Townshend's Lifehouse project have occasionally seen the light of day, but he has now produced a new twist on the tale. London-based composer and mathematician Lawrence Ball's forthcoming double CD-set Method Music was not only produced by Townshend, it was also the direct outcome of Townshend's ongoing Lifehouse project.

Ball says: "Method Music evolved from Pete Townshend's question to me about generating unique pieces of music from the input of personal characteristics as data, a question related closely to his ongoing project Lifehouse. I wanted to see what the music could sound like prior to designing the proposed system of portraiture, and I created the tracks on Disc One: Imaginary Sitters, as a touchstone towards designing the software which would eventually execute the task itself."

Townshend's original Lifehouse story was set in a futuristic world where rock 'n' roll no longer exists � but a secret concert is staged where audience members enter their personal characteristics into a computer grid. A unique piece of music � based on the audience member's personal data � would then be generated. more on this story

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