Peter Gabriel just announced, via his website, a new app that will allow fans to remix songs from his classic 1986 album, So. The “MusicTiles” app is due in the Apple App store on January 8.

As part of the celebration around the 25th anniversary of So (including a box set and tour), Gabriel approached “RoboProfessor” Henrik Hautop Lund (who is actually a professor of electrical engineering at the Technical University of Denmark, and who is known for combining robotics and artificial intelligence to create ways of allowing “non-expert users” access to new technology). to create “a So 2.0 expereience that allows fans to create MusicTiles mixes” according to a statement on Gabriel’s website. 

The So MusicTiles app includes songs of the original album — including “Sledgehammer,” “In Your Eyes” and “Big Time” — but also contains new versions of each song in different, modern styles (including electronica and industrial) for the fans “to play with and develop according to their own individual taste.” 

Gabriel said, “I have always loved the idea that music and art should be fully open media from which no one is excluded. They are languages that anyone can learn to speak and definitely not the exclusive province of the high priests armed with ‘Talent.’”

Watch a demonstation of the app by Lund below.

– Brian Ives, CBS Local