Playing From Another Room
I’ve been obsessed with TRNTBL, a clever website that streams music modified to sound like it’s playing from another room. There’s something voyeuristic about it. It’s annoying even, as you may love a song but when someone else is playing it from afar, like some idiot neighbor, it forms some other meaning. Something interesting is going on elsewhere and you’re not invited.
There’s the entirely silly like John Williams’ Imperial March, the exasperating tweeny Backstreet Boy’s Everybody (Backstreet’s Back), or you could go with David Bowie’s Rebel Rebel that might indicate that some cool stranger lives down the hall. The number of songs and playlists is impressive.
It mainly reminds me of movies or video games that do environmental storytelling really well. Like some scene where the protagonist is slowly moving down a hall toward a door where you hear a muffled song playing. That song always is always heavy with significance and creates a strong sense of expectation of what might be found when the door is opened.
Give it a listen, just try to avoid banging on your walls telling nonexistent neighbors to turn it down:
