Sonic Bikes

The Bicrophonic Research Institute (BRI) is an organisation that makes music with people and places to play from bikes ridden by you the cyclist.

Over ten years of international projects we have developed the sonic bike to do this. A bike with two mounted speakers on the front and GPS receiver and Raspberry Pi computer on the back. With our bespoke mapping software, different sounds are linked to different places meaning that the interactive music played by the bike changes dependent on where the cyclist goes and how fast they pedal.

Not an app and free of the internet, the sonic bike creates an outdoor listening experience for everyone – reaching new audiences on the street or hillside, far beyond the confines of concert halls and galleries.
Established by Kaffe Matthews and Dave Griffiths in 2014, the BRI works collectively from a London lab, undertaking multiple projects annually, each one realising new site-specific music made through residential collaborations with producers and communities. Politics, time, cycling possibilities, architecture and finances all bare on each project, making them utterly contemporary. Alongside, we run local workshops in sonic bike making and open source development, all information of which is shared online. These projects are resulting in the growth of independent sonic cycling hubs worldwide – currently in London, Finland, Houston, Brussels, Berlin and Magdeburg.

http://sonicbikes.net/