EXP_01 // Wavefield × orbit
The last twenty
Spotify likes · played as a planet
01 / Curatorial note
Every song Menno likes on Spotify lands here, newest first. Pick one and it becomes the planet: its cover art wraps the globe, its colours take over the room, and the music moves everything around it.
02 / Signal chain
- Spotify — the last twenty liked tracks, refreshed every half hour.
- Match — each one is matched by title, artist and length to its 30-second preview on Apple Music. Spotify's own player is copy-protected, so its sound can't be analysed in the browser.
- Listen — the browser analyses the preview live: a 2,048-point spectrum, sixty times a second.
- Spectrum → ribbons — fifteen bands, bass at the front, treble at the back. Each band drives one ribbon, and what it hears travels outward from the planet.
- Waveform → ring — the line around the planet is the signal itself.
- Bass → planet — every kick makes the planet nod; the gaps between kicks give the tempo.
- Five views — every track gets its own: Waves, Ridges (the spectrum as a mountain range), Ripples (rings the bass sends out), Corona (72 rays around the planet) or Stardust (a spiral of stars). Press V, or the view button in the player, to try the others.
04 / Visitor top 20
Anyone can add one track a day. Find it on Spotify, leave a name and an email address, and confirm with the link we send you. The track joins the visitor top 20 with your name on screen and plays its 30 seconds like the others — newest tips first.
05 / The thinking behind it
Diepenhorst Concept Design is where Menno Diepenhorst tries out ideas in the open. This first experiment asks a simple question: what if your taste in music were a place you could step into?
It is built the way he approaches retail technology after more than twenty years in point of sale, Auto-ID and mobile computing: concept before complexity. Start from one clear idea, connect the systems that already exist — here Spotify, Apple Music previews and the browser’s own audio analysis — keep the whole chain visible, and make it hold up in real use.
The site was designed and coded together with AI. Menno sets the concept, the art direction and every decision; the AI turns them into working code, round after round. The same way of working drives his projects in retail and grocery, such as FeedMyCart, the grocery app that thinks along.
Concept design · AI-assisted build · Creative coding · Spotify Web API · Web Audio · WebGL · Retail processes
06 / Ask the planet
The planet answers questions: about music, about the world, about this week’s supermarket deals and opening hours. Behind it is a language model from Anthropic with a few trusted sources — Wikipedia, MusicBrainz and Wikidata for music, and FeedMyCart for deals and opening hours. It says so when it doesn’t know.
Your questions go to Anthropic to be answered. Three questions need nothing from you. To carry on, the oracle asks your name and email address; we keep those and the conversation for 90 days after your last question, and use them only for this conversation (and, if you tick the box, the occasional update). Every mail has a link that deletes everything.