Scientific research on creatives and creativity
Academic collaborators
12/2025 - ongoing
The first neuroscience study inside world-renowned nightclub Fabric London
Photography by Stefan Hanegraaf
Team
Research
Oliver Durcan, Dr Peter Holland, Prof. Guido Orgs, Miles Comer, Oran Gottlieb, Jolie De Waal, Albane Arthuis, Anna Stewart, Francesca Mamino, Anna Mankowska, Safiyyah Nawaz
Operational and Technical
Bianca Mayhew, Oliver Durcan, Dr Peter Holland, Luke Laws, Mike Becker
Partners
Goldsmiths University of London, Mastery, London Warehouse Events (LWE), Fabric London
Press
Inverted Audio | February 2026
Music Radar | February 2026
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Background
Quantum Sound is an event series from Mastery. The first neuroscience study to take place inside Fabric, the world-renowned London nightclub, was conducted at the launch of its album, Mastery: Quantum Sound - eleven tracks of drum-free, ambient music on Houndstooth Records, featuring Djrum, Wata Igarashi and Alessandro Cortini, among others. The study forms part of an ongoing research programme investigating sound-induced altered states of consciousness, in collaboration with Mastery.
Deep listening can produce altered states - merging with, dissolving into, or losing yourself in the music - much like those mapped in psychedelic and flow research. The study set out to find a measurable signature of these states in the brain, and to relate it to the music driving them.
Methods
Listeners heard the album twice, in two very different settings: once on Fabric's Room 1 sound system at the launch event in Fabric, and once on headphones in an EEG lab. Their brain activity was recorded as they listened, and afterwards they traced how the experience shifted, giving a felt account to set alongside the brain data. We then analysed that data using a method called microstate analysis.
Data Dashboard
We have built an early, interactive preview of that analysis, shown below. It focuses on Bliss Code 000, the album's opening track and the piece we analysed in this first pass. Bliss Code 000 is a unique collaboration of practices, where ancient sound-therapy instrumentation meets electronic sound design and modular synthesis.
Each line in the player represents one of several recurring patterns of whole-brain activity, momentary configurations the brain moves between many times a second; the higher a line sits, the more that pattern is present at that point in the music. Press play to watch the lines move against the music, and switch on the topographic simulation, built from real recordings to simulate what the brain dynamics actually looked like across the scalp.
Quantum Sound is an event series from Mastery. The first neuroscience study to take place inside Fabric, the world-renowned London nightclub, was conducted at the launch of its album, Mastery: Quantum Sound - eleven tracks of drum-free, ambient music on Houndstooth Records, featuring Djrum, Wata Igarashi and Alessandro Cortini, among others. The study forms part of an ongoing research programme investigating sound-induced altered states of consciousness, in collaboration with Mastery.
Deep listening can produce altered states - merging with, dissolving into, or losing yourself in the music - much like those mapped in psychedelic and flow research. The study set out to find a measurable signature of these states in the brain, and to relate it to the music driving them.
Methods
Listeners heard the album twice, in two very different settings: once on Fabric's Room 1 sound system at the launch event in Fabric, and once on headphones in an EEG lab. Their brain activity was recorded as they listened, and afterwards they traced how the experience shifted, giving a felt account to set alongside the brain data. We then analysed that data using a method called microstate analysis.
Data Dashboard
We have built an early, interactive preview of that analysis, shown below. It focuses on Bliss Code 000, the album's opening track and the piece we analysed in this first pass. Bliss Code 000 is a unique collaboration of practices, where ancient sound-therapy instrumentation meets electronic sound design and modular synthesis.
Each line in the player represents one of several recurring patterns of whole-brain activity, momentary configurations the brain moves between many times a second; the higher a line sits, the more that pattern is present at that point in the music. Press play to watch the lines move against the music, and switch on the topographic simulation, built from real recordings to simulate what the brain dynamics actually looked like across the scalp.
What we found
This is a first pass through a rich dataset, so what follows is preliminary and subject to further checks. Two relationships stood out. The first centres on a single recurring pattern, labelled "microstate E" in the player above and shown there in blue. Its presence over time rose and fell in step with the orange line, which records how strongly listeners reported feeling they were part of the musical features. Of all the patterns measured, Microstate E was the only one to correlate with this feeling, although Microstates A, B, and C are also shown for comparison.
The second relationship is one you can explore for yourself. As Bliss Code 000 plays, watch the blue Microstate E line: it tends to climb as new sounds and layers enter and grow, and to ease as the musical features clear. Look at the moments where it peaks, dips, rises and falls, and listen for what the music is doing there. Further analysis is needed to quantify exactly what in the music is shifting at these points.
What it suggests
These observations are intriguing because of what microstate E has been associated with elsewhere. In other research it has been linked to the brain's salience network - the system that picks out whatever matters most in a given moment, integrating signals from the outside world with sensations from inside the body. That offers a natural reading of a brain state responding to new musical information arriving, and to the feeling of being drawn into it.
A neural marker like this hints at a way to read musical attention and embodiment directly from the brain. If it holds up as the research develops, that could open practical uses: tools that help music studios gauge how a mix holds a listener, techniques for shaping live sets and the spaces they happen in, and sound designed more deliberately for focus or relaxation.
A full technical manuscript, with the complete analysis and statistics, will be written up and shared with the research community at a later date.
To follow the project as it develops, sign up for updates using the form on this page. For specific questions, you are welcome to contact the project manager, Oliver Durcan, using the contact details at the foot of the site.
Further reading
Custo, A., Van De Ville, D., Wells, W. M., Tomescu, M. I., Brunet, D., & Michel, C. M. (2017). Electroencephalographic resting-state networks: source localization of microstates. Brain connectivity, 7(10), 671-682.
Tarailis, P., Koenig, T., Michel, C. M., & Griškova-Bulanova, I. (2024). The functional aspects of resting EEG microstates: a systematic review. Brain topography, 37(2), 181-217.
Yaden, D. B., Haidt, J., Hood Jr, R. W., Vago, D. R., & Newberg, A. B. (2017). The varieties of self-transcendent experience. Review of general psychology, 21(2), 143-160.
This is a first pass through a rich dataset, so what follows is preliminary and subject to further checks. Two relationships stood out. The first centres on a single recurring pattern, labelled "microstate E" in the player above and shown there in blue. Its presence over time rose and fell in step with the orange line, which records how strongly listeners reported feeling they were part of the musical features. Of all the patterns measured, Microstate E was the only one to correlate with this feeling, although Microstates A, B, and C are also shown for comparison.
The second relationship is one you can explore for yourself. As Bliss Code 000 plays, watch the blue Microstate E line: it tends to climb as new sounds and layers enter and grow, and to ease as the musical features clear. Look at the moments where it peaks, dips, rises and falls, and listen for what the music is doing there. Further analysis is needed to quantify exactly what in the music is shifting at these points.
What it suggests
These observations are intriguing because of what microstate E has been associated with elsewhere. In other research it has been linked to the brain's salience network - the system that picks out whatever matters most in a given moment, integrating signals from the outside world with sensations from inside the body. That offers a natural reading of a brain state responding to new musical information arriving, and to the feeling of being drawn into it.
A neural marker like this hints at a way to read musical attention and embodiment directly from the brain. If it holds up as the research develops, that could open practical uses: tools that help music studios gauge how a mix holds a listener, techniques for shaping live sets and the spaces they happen in, and sound designed more deliberately for focus or relaxation.
A full technical manuscript, with the complete analysis and statistics, will be written up and shared with the research community at a later date.
To follow the project as it develops, sign up for updates using the form on this page. For specific questions, you are welcome to contact the project manager, Oliver Durcan, using the contact details at the foot of the site.
Further reading
Custo, A., Van De Ville, D., Wells, W. M., Tomescu, M. I., Brunet, D., & Michel, C. M. (2017). Electroencephalographic resting-state networks: source localization of microstates. Brain connectivity, 7(10), 671-682.
Tarailis, P., Koenig, T., Michel, C. M., & Griškova-Bulanova, I. (2024). The functional aspects of resting EEG microstates: a systematic review. Brain topography, 37(2), 181-217.
Yaden, D. B., Haidt, J., Hood Jr, R. W., Vago, D. R., & Newberg, A. B. (2017). The varieties of self-transcendent experience. Review of general psychology, 21(2), 143-160.