Does it stress you out to learn that Diplo is exclusively releasing ambient tracks on the Calm app?
Strange times, these. For reasons that require no explanation, the No. 2 app in the Health & Fitness category in Apple’s App Store is a meditation and mindfulness app called Calm. Calm, which you may remember recently got a TV deal from HBO Max (again, strange times), offers audio tracks for meditation, relaxation, and sleep, including bedtime stories from folks like Harry Styles and Matthew McConaughey. If sound helps you, as it does many people, then you might find McConaughey’s contributions to be all right, all right, all right, and yes, we’ll see ourselves out shortly. But first, Calm! And Diplo.
Calm has Diplo now.
To be precise, the EDM producer and DJ has released five songs from his forthcoming album MMXX exclusively through Calm, a partnership that’s not as odd as it might seem. Diplo calls MMXX (that’s 2020 in roman numerals) “a return to my roots—my first album Florida was all super chill instrumentals.” And having listened to the tracks, the words “super chill” are absolutely appropriate.
The record will be released in full next week, but Calm users new and old can listen to the tracks through the app or Calm’s website (though you’ll need a login). Nor is the plinky-plinkiness of the music the only soothing element of the album. Per EDM.com, Diplo “will be directing proceeds from sales of the album to Beam Collective and The Loveland Foundation in the name of mental health awareness,” a decision that’s directly linked to “the inspiration behind the album, which was born out his goal to reinitiate the conversation surrounding mental health amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and racial tension in the US.”
Diplo is not the first artist to premiere music through this particular meditation app, either. In 2019, Moby released an ambient album exclusively through Calm, and last month, Ellie Goulding shared four remixed tracks from the app as well.
Anyway, breathe in for five, hold for three, out for seven, and then calmly and peacefully throw some shapes and make some trails.
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