When you’re peeling out onto the highway, chances are you’re not in the mood for another sad Drake ballad. Now Volkswagen has teamed up with the electronic music duo Underworld to create an app that lets you compose your own customized soundtrack based on your driving style.
By combining data from your smartphone and in-car computer, “the car becomes the instrument, the driver the musician,” as explained in a sneak peek for the Play the Road app (which is not yet commercially available).
Factoring in everything from you car’s acceleration to your phone’s GPS coordinates, the app adjusts the soundtrack in real time. Hit the gas, and you might hear rapid-fire drumbeats. Slow to a crawl, and the music will mellow out with you. The app can even adjust to your real-world location by, say, adding in the sound of birds chirping when you’re driving through the woods or creating waterfall sounds when you turn a corner. (Check out a sample here.)
If all that sounds a little too new agey for your tastes, you may be glad to know that for now the app is just a promotion for the launch of the Volkswagen Golf GTI MK7. Here’s hoping that by the time the zippy hatchback hits the U.S. in 2015, drivers will get to choose from a broader range of music genres.