Singer-songwriter James Blake is known for lo-fi indie tracks like “Say What You Will,” “Before,” and “Godspeed.” But today, in his L.A. home studio, he’s putting the final touches on his latest music project, one that—if all goes to plan—might not be as easily recognizable.

“You’re not supposed to think of me or know I was involved,” says Blake.

That’s because Blake’s “Wind Down” isn’t an album, single, or video; it’s an ever-shifting soundscape in the sound wellness app Endel.

A marriage of art and machine, “Wind Down” feeds Blake’s ethereal vocals, piano, and ambient sounds into a proprietary algorithm—one that will hopefully help you nod off at the end of the day. “This isn’t about turning on James Blake; it’s about being scientifically guided toward sleep,” he says. “I’m just the vessel.”

Encouraging listeners to drift off is, of course, not what most musicians set out to do. “It’s a whole different discipline that requires you to put your ego to the side,” says Blake. Yet in the past year, artists across all genres have turned up in sleep, meditation, and mindfulness apps, merging their music with machines to help people concentrate, relax, lock in, or nod off.

The movement has grown to encompass artists from across all genres. Through its Focus Music initiative, mindfulness app Headspace has amassed a bank of original music and playlists from artists like Arcade Fire, St. Vincent, Erykah Badu, Madlib, and film composer Hans Zimmer. The series was designed in part by John Legend, who signed on as the app’s chief music officer in August 2020.

“There’s so much possibility right here on our phones, so many ways to connect with people,” says Legend. “It can be a scary thing for some artists; it’s not what we’re used to. But if we take advantage of the possibilities, there are all these different ways to reach people.”

Elina Brown, content director at Headspace, says the app specifically pursued artists with different points of view. “We wanted people who had a genuine interest, whether they saw it as a cool challenge or they thought, ‘This is already part of my everyday,’” she says.

The singer-songwriter Aluna falls in the latter camp. Prior to her career as a musician, she trained in reflexology, transcendental meditation, and tai chi—all skills she wove into making her hour-long Headspace piece. She created six-minute blocks of sound all grounded in a particular place: crackling campfire, bustling park in late afternoon, dripping cave. Strictly speaking, it was not her usual approach.

“Normally when you write a song, you’re doing wordplay and you want dynamics,” she says. “It’s completely different from music that for an hour has no start and no finish.”

Calm, a pioneer in mixing music and mindfulness, has premiered exclusive albums by Diplo, Moby, and Nick Murphy. The app regularly issues new sleep-inducing tracks and remixes by RZA (who produced the official score for LeBron James’ Sleep Story, “King of the Sleeping City”), Sam Smith, Keith Urban, and others. To celebrate World Sleep Day in 2021 (obviously a major holiday on the company’s calendar), Calm released a series of Sleep Remixes of songs by Ariana Grande, Kacey Musgraves, Post Malone, and more.

In addition to the Blake partnership, Endel has worked with R&B superstar Miguel, pop iconoclast Grimes, and electronic pioneer Richie Hawtin (aka Plastikman) to have its algorithm construct entire soundscapes on the fly from a bank of artist-created “stems.”

Miguel’s soundscape is almost the opposite of Blake’s: The R&B superstar intended his “Clarity Trip” soundscape to accompany “mindful motion” like walking, cycling, yoga, and dance. It speeds up or slows down in tune with the pace of your steps. “I don’t even know what people are hearing,” Miguel says. “They’re seeing parts of my personality that can only be experienced through algorithms.”

For artists, it also represents a new creative frontier. “You’re talking to a musician who has engaged with technology in every piece of music I’ve ever done,” Hawtin says. “I love being on that edge of creation. I’m kind of primed for this type of work.”

The science at the intersection of music and mindfulness is clear, says UC Berkeley cognitive neuroscience professor Sahar Yousef, who partnered with Headspace on Focus Music. (Find it on the app’s Focus tab.)

“We know that when we play music in rehab facilities, people improve quicker,” Yousef says. “We know that when we play music for patients in post-op, they heal faster.”

But there’s a catch: It has to be just the right amount of music. “If there’s too much connection or engagement, it’ll distract you,” says Legend. “Instrumental music is better.” Familiarity also helps. Blake’s soundscape is entirely in the key of C—“the most peaceful and familiar to our Western ears,” he says.

Here’s the (extremely abridged) explanation of what’s going on when you listen: Your brain forges connections via neural networks, the little zaps of electricity that constitute all your thoughts: your creative inspirations, your sixth-grade lunchroom memories, your ability to remember lyrics from albums released in 1992, and—more important—your subconscious associations. The good news is that these networks can be manipulated, and you’re probably doing it right now. You can train yourself to think that the aroma of coffee means it’s time to wake up, that when you sit in your office chair it’s time for work. And you can train your brain to recognize the music designed to chill you out.

In other words, these soundscapes serve as little life hacks. “Michael Phelps listened to Eminem before every race,” says Yousef. “This is the same thing.”

In the end, Grimes says, the process is not too different from creating emotional reactions with something like a paintbrush or a piano. “Algorithms are just new tools,” she says.

To shape its music offerings—which include artists like dreamy Icelandic outfit Sigur Rós, singer-songwriter David Gray, and artists from electronic kingpin Deadmau5’s label—Calm head of music Courtney Phillips and her team turned to the app’s popular Sleep Stories. “It’s all about pace and tempo,” she says, “that gentle slope from being engaged to being in that sleepy state.”

To create her Calm remixes, singer-songwriter Priscilla Ahn—one of the early vocalists to be featured in the app—drew on her previous album of lullabies, La La La. “That was my first foray into writing songs that promote sleep,” she says with a laugh.

To apply that to grown-ups, she reworked three of her songs, turning them into versions that run, thanks to the magic of looping, about an hour each.

Endel cofounder and CEO Oleg Stavitsky says his app’s collaboration with Grimes was more than a cool crossover. “We created a new format for experiencing music,” Stavitsky says.

They began building that format right away. For her “AI Lullaby,” Grimes created stems designed to promote sleep—and listeners responded. In the nine weeks after its release, Endel saw more than 400,000 new installs, with users collectively spending nearly 200,000 hours drifting off to Grimes’ sonic creation. “I don’t think we should underestimate an algorithm,” she says. “It’s clearly able to elicit an incredible amount of human emotion.”

Like Grimes, musician Richie Hawtin—who has been recognized as a pioneer of minimalist techno since the early ’90s—saw his “Deeper Focus” soundscape as a way to switch lanes. “My usual work is in the club,” he says from his home studio, a deeply appropriate Matrix-worthy space filled with keyboards, synthesizers, and blinking red lights. “Here, I’m like this warm sonic cloud that’s keeping real life away and allowing thoughts to come in.”

Miguel was an equally natural fit for Endel—though he admits the project required education. “I’m sure the Endel guys got tired of me asking, ‘OK, what do you need?’” Miguel says, laughing. “My music focuses on lyrics and melody. This was about removing those elements and focusing just on mood.”

There were extended discussions about how certain tones and frequencies can impact mental state, about which sounds compel a runner to speed up or downshift, about how Miguel could create something that enhances focus without feeling monotonous while keeping himself in the mix.

Indeed, for artists, it can be about growth. “I’ve got my records, but this is something quite different,” says Blake. “Music is always a reflection of the person listening. But this is really only about them.”

Hawtin sees this moment as simply an opportunity, an artistic crossroads in its own right. “There’s something beautiful in the makeup of chemicals that creates each of us as individuals,” he says, “and how, through technology, it can transfer to become something magical.”