--- title: The Gralbum Collective description: The Gralbum Collective, founded by Sarth Calhoun in 2012 to publish gralbums: music released as interactive apps with art, animation and storytelling. url: https://www.sarth.net/conspiracies/gralbum-collective/ facet: dream credit: Sarth Calhoun conceptualized (gr)album and founded The (Gr)album Collective in 2012, and built the app with lead programmer [Andrew Beck](/conspirators/andrew-beck/). It launched on April 9, 2014 with *Book of Sarth* and four other titles. author: Sarth Calhoun --- [Conspiracies](/conspiracies/) / The Gralbum Collective Conspiracy · Dream # The Gralbum Collective The Gralbum Collective is the group I founded in 2012 to publish gralbums. A gralbum is a record released as an app: music, artwork, video, animation and storytelling in one interactive piece, made for touch screens. The first one was [Book of Sarth](/conspiracies/book-of-sarth/). The collective and its app launched at the SOHO Gallery for Digital Arts in New York on April 9, 2014, with five titles. It is at [gralbumcollective.com](https://gralbumcollective.com/). ![Sarth Calhoun playing a laptop and a Continuum at the Gralbum launch.](/images/gr-album-launch.jpg) The launch, April 9, 2014. Photo by Andrzej Liguz / MOREimages. > Gralbum is an iPad app that lets musicians add interactive storytelling elements to their records, launched by former Lou Reed collaborator, Sarth Calhoun. > > Brian Heater, [Laughing Squid, April 8, 2014](https://laughingsquid.com/gralbum-an-ipad-app-that-turns-records-into-a-multimedia-experience/) ## What a gralbum is From the collective’s own description: (Gr)album is a multimedia app that melds music with art, graphics, moving images, & storytelling into an interactive whole. Meant for touch-screen devices, users tap, pinch, and swipe through these digital albums and experience a completely new way of listening to and learning about music. The albums ship with no instructions. We deliberately publish Gralbums with no help or documentation whatsoever. It is our intention that any curious person would be able to navigate with only a brief period of exploration. Swipes move forward and back, pinching zooms, and tapping an image opens it on its own. ## The launch I wrote the announcement the week of the launch: I conceptualized (gr)album and founded The (Gr)album Collective in 2012. Needless to say I am thrilled to finally launch the app and share (gr)album with the world. The first wave of titles includes Sunken Cathedral by sound artist [Bora Yoon](https://www.borayoon.com/), Sketches by beatboxer Adam Matta, my own title, Book of Sarth, This Tree by [Leah Coloff](/conspirators/leah-coloff/), and Train O’ Thots, which matches sketch artist [Tom Hart](/conspirators/tom-hart/) with the brass band [Moon Hooch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_Hooch). I also thanked The (Gr)album Collective artists [Bora Yoon](/conspirators/bora-yoon/) and [Adam Matta](/conspirators/adam-matta/) for joining me in rocking the party on the downstairs stage. A year later, *Train O’ Thots* launched with a showing at the New York Transit Museum on April 1, 2015. ![Laurie Anderson and Sarth Calhoun, his arm around her shoulders, at the Gralbum launch.](/images/gralbum-launch-laurie-anderson.jpg) Laurie Anderson and Sarth Calhoun at the launch. Photo by Andrzej Liguz / MOREimages. > Once he enlisted Beck, the duo worked together for three years and ended up creating a system that any artist could utilize to package his or her own album. > > Ariel Bitran, [Stereophile, April 23, 2014](https://www.stereophile.com/content/gralbum-re-thinking-concept-album) ## The titles Five gralbums were in the store at launch. *Book of Sarth*, my own. *Sketches* by the beatboxer and animator [Adam Matta](/conspirators/adam-matta/), in which every sound is his unaltered voice and every image his own drawing. *Sunken Cathedral Trilogy* by the composer and vocalist [Bora Yoon](/conspirators/bora-yoon/), set against the animated sculptures of the Seoul artist [U-Ram Choe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-Ram_Choe). *This Tree*, three songs by Leah Coloff with her childhood home videos and animated oil paintings. And *Train O’ Thoughts*, the subway sketches Tom Hart drew live on his commute, under a brass soundtrack. The collective listed further titles as coming: *Omnisphere* by [Billy Martin](/conspirators/billy-martin/), the drummer of [Medeski Martin & Wood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medeski_Martin_%26_Wood); an introductory gralbum by Eva Parker built on the artwork of [Ernst Haeckel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Haeckel); and *Betty Goes Boom Boom*. ## The collective’s statement Art forms are born, and they die. In even these future-shocked days some ideas are unthinkable. Can you imagine a world without music? I can’t, and I won’t ask you to try. But as long as there has been music, it has warped and changed quite righteously with technology and the times. In recent years, our way of finding, sharing, and collecting music has expanded. How we make, compose, and record music has evolved. But is there a new way to experience music? Can you touch music? Get lost in a world of sound and light, immersed in the artist’s creation? Feel the story the music tells, privately, only to you? Of course you can, now. This was the future of music, but we’re here now. Put your headphones ON. The credit: Sarth Calhoun conceptualized (gr)album and founded The (Gr)album Collective in 2012, and built the app with lead programmer [Andrew Beck](/conspirators/andrew-beck/). It launched on April 9, 2014 with *Book of Sarth* and four other titles. ![Sarth Calhoun playing a Haken Continuum Fingerboard under red light at the Gralbum launch.](/images/gralbum-launch-continuum.jpg) Sarth Calhoun at the Continuum, the launch. Photo by Andrzej Liguz / MOREimages. The descriptions, the statement and the title list are from [gralbumcollective.com](https://gralbumcollective.com/); the launch announcement is from my own site. The launch photos are by Andrzej Liguz / MOREimages.