Twitch has teamed up with Berlin-based generative music startup Endel for a new channel that aims to lull gamers and other Twitch viewers to sleep. Endel’s new “Insomnia” Twitch channel plays 24 hours of music specifically designed to improve the sleep of its listeners.
“Sleep is universally important and everyone is not having enough of it. Especially gamers,” said Endel CEO Oleg Stavitsky. “That’s why we decided to challenge ourselves and bring our sleep-inducing psychoacoustic adaptive soundscapes to Twitch to give their community a chance to sleep better when the streaming is done.”
Endel’s dreamscapes are being composed in real-time by the company’s generative music engine, and combine warm and soothing tones with oscillating sound waves that are meant to directly impact brainwaves during a listener’s sleep phases. Add a little bit of sound masking to filter out distracting noises, and you’ve got yourself the perfect slumber soundtrack, or so goes the theory.
“Twitch is actively exploring new ways to bring music content to our community and AI-generated music is fertile ground for certain use cases like improving sleep,” said Twitch’s head of music strategy & licensing Pat Shah. “We’re excited to see how Endel’s new Insomnia channel will be used by the community, especially when a creator decides to co-host this channel for their communities when offline.”
Endel was founded in early 2018, and has since developed generative music apps for mobile phones and Alexa smart speakers, with plans to launch on Apple TV and Apple Watch as well. The startup has received funding from Major Lazer member Chris Leacock aka Jillionaire, Amazon’s Alexa fund and Techstars Music, among others.