A fascinating piece of work by the Association for Consumer Research shows how sound design can influence the spending habits of restaurant diners. The research show ”that when slow music is playing, customers spend a significantly greater amount of time (and money) dining than when fast music is playing.” More information here.

Tom Middleton is a pioneer in the field of functional sound, and is one of the country’s leading sleep coaches and sound designers. His latest release – Spatial Sleep Music – is a beautiful album that is designed to reduce anxiety and help you doze off. Listen here.

A recent thought piece by marketing insight agency WARC highlights how important audio is for brands, and yet how few harness its potential. The report shows that companies using sonic cues are “over eight times more likely to be high performing” in terms of branded attention. Read the full article here.

Sound design in architecture is in its relative infancy. We live in an ocular world. But, Thai developers Noble are proving what’s possible by considering a new project’s audio signature from the earliest stages of design, demonstrating how audio can enhance the calm and wellbeing of a building’s inhabitants. See how it’s done here.

BMW has employed Hans Zimmer to produce the synthetic driving sounds for its next generation of electric vehicles. Debuting in 2022, the legendary composer has created a suite of sounds (called BMW IconicSounds Electric) that will provide the soundtrack for its EV cars in the future. More here.

I find the first piece of music or audio I hear in the morning often sets the tone for the rest of the day, and for a peaceful, focused start this track by Harold Budd is hard to beat. Recorded in a live session in memory of James Tenney at California Institute of the Arts in 2006, I think it’s one of the most beautiful pieces of piano music ever written. Listen here.

During the first lockdown of 2020 Jon Hopkins (ambient hero) made public a playlist he had been curating for family and friends, designed to reduce stress and anxiety. It is a goldmine for some of the greatest ambient music ever made, and where I first discovered Harold Budd. Listen here.

Non-pharmaceutical remedies can be less intrusive for patients, and cheaper on the health service. That is why music was recently trialled by the NHS as a treatment for Alzheimer’s, and was shown to reduce stress levels in patients (and NHS staff) by as much as 22%. The trial is part of a larger study on how the benefits of music can be used to treat chronic pain. More information here.

Glasgow airport has used generatively produced nature sounds (biophilia) to reduce passenger stress and simultaneously boost retail spending in its shops by as much as 10%.