Paul Hartnoll half of the electronic duo Orbital has released a new song called “Heartwork” that was produced by using the data from the heartbeats of Britaincommuters who cycle to work, to inform its speed and sound. The track first premiered on Steve Lamacq’s BBC 6 Roundtable. The song comes in time for the 10th birthday of the Ride-To-Work plan. Cyclists from up and down the country took part, with data from over 20,000 rides to work analyzed to create a fast-paced track produced to inspire UK commuters to shun their cars, buses or tubes and ride their way to a healthier heart.
In recording the track, which comes in at 128BPM – the average heart rate for a cycled commuter – Paul Hartnoll even used the sounds of himself ‘playing’ his own bike, to give Heartwork even more of a mechanical feel.
In a press release, Hartnoll discusses creating the song, stating “The first inspiration from the data I took is that the average commuting heartrate seems to be around the tempo of techno or fast house music – around 128bpm, which gave me a good feel for how to approach the production. I was also inspired to make the majority of the music and the rhythm out of actual bike sounds, sampling my own bike by playing it with bits of metal and bike pumps. Whether as a listener you notice that the song is made up of bike sounds or not, it’s there in the DNA of the track”.
The song is also available for download here. Evans Cycles also got Alex Rutherford, who has worked with Radiohead, desgin the artwork for the single and three exclusive vinyl’s will be auctioned off to raise further funds for the BHF.
This is the first track from Hartnoll since Orbital’s “Copenhagen” released last year as well as perfroming for the first time in five years at the Electronic Music Awards in Los Angeles, CA. The duo spilt up prior to that for the second time in 2014.
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