Mastery, London’s pioneering sound studio, with an array of live experiences and sound installations in its first two years along with co-founders, LWE., has stepped into the recording world. In collaboration with Houndstooth, Mastery announces ‘Quantum Sound,’ an album named after a project playing with the boundaries of sound as meditation and live electronic music, beginning with live experiences featuring founding artists, Cherub Sanson, Tim Wheater & Daniel Avery.
Now announcing an ambitious new album exploring sound as a psychedelic catalyst and redefining the future of sonic meditation. Released on 12th February via Houndstooth, this first-of-its-kind project interlaces sound meditation, breathwork, neuroscience, and ambient electronic composition.
Mastery, founded in 2023 by music curator Bianca Mayhew alongside LWE’s Will Harold and Paul Jack, has spent the last two years shaping a practice at the intersection of music, altered states, and scientific research. The Quantum Sound album is the next step in that evolution, a multi-artist, multi-sensory release designed specifically for eyes-closed listening, and an exploration of consciousness. “It’s time to turn the concept of meditation on its head,” says Mayhew. “So many people say they can’t meditate, but nobody says they can’t listen to music. Meditation comes with a lot of rules which can be intimidating. We want to offer sound as meditation, made by music masters, for the music heads. I’m captivated by the science behind it. Now we can finally begin gathering real scientific evidence for what people have through profound human experience for centuries.”
Released on a label known for championing experimental, boundary-pushing creators, Quantum Sound is one of the most innovative Houndstooth releases to date. Opening the vinyl edition is ‘Embodiment Breathing’, produced by Jon Hopkins and guided by Fearne Cotton — a 20-minute breathwork journey designed to shift attention from mind to body. Frustrated by the lightweight sound palette that dominates much breathwork music, Hopkins set out to create something heavier and more grounded — a slow, hypnotic techno piece that connects new-age practice and the club, two worlds that, in terms of consciousness expansion, he sees sharing far more common ground than is recognised. Flowing from this is a deep sound meditation designed for decompression and integration after the breathwork, built from extended drones and frequencies associated in research with calming, restorative physiological responses.
Also included is a 15-minute sound meditation by Cherub Sanson and Tim Wheater, created in collaboration with electronic composer Rommek. Titled ‘Bliss Code 000’, the piece merges the ancient and sacred instruments such as gongs, flutes, and crystal bowls, with mind-bending modular synthesis, exploring sound-induced altered states of consciousness.
Additional contributions span ambient, and transcendental spaces, featuring Hannah Holland, Wata Igarashi, Manami, Jennifer Loveless and Ruthlss, along with Alessandro Cortini, whose ‘IV’ piece “seemed to stop time” at Mastery’s Quantum Sound show at Prospect in Bristol. A long-time but undisclosed collaborator, Silent Shadow, closes the album’s first half with its emotional peak. For full immersion, a bonus continuous 60-minute mix by Hannah Holland invites listeners to lie down, close their eyes and fully surrender to the Quantum Sound Journey.
The project grew from Mastery’s five-month Quantum Sound residency in fabric’s Room One, where Cherub Sanson and Tim Wheater performed live instrumental sound journeys that flowed into ambient electronic live sets by Hannah Holland, Wata Igarashi, Flora Yin Wong, Jennifer Loveless and founding Quantum Sound artist, Daniel Avery. The performances filled the room and its new body-kinetic dance floor with a unique blend of ancient and electronic sound, played to audiences lying down in complete stillness.
Mastery and Creative Empirical are also launching a scientific partnership that brings cutting-edge neuroscience into major live music events, beginning with the album-launch experiences. This marks the start of a series of research-led projects exploring how communal musical environments influence consciousness, attention and emotion. Although live music is often described as transformative, it has rarely been examined with rigorous scientific methods.
10th February – fabric, London
Legendary nightclub fabric, home of Houndstooth, was the setting for Quantum Sound’s first explorations in bringing sound therapy to rave spaces with a five-date residency earlier this year. Using room one’s system, they brought sound-healing instrumentals and live electronics into one immersive experience to an audience lying down, eyes closed. .
The residency marked the installation of the new bodykinetic dance floor, funded by Arts Council England, which gives new resonance to Quantum Sound’s tagline “see you on the floor.” Designed for deep listening, the floor transforms sound into tactile vibration, enhancing haptic feedback and allowing audiences to feel every detail physically. It creates a more inclusive, embodied way to experience music.
On 10th February, The Quantum Sound Listening Experience now welcomes you into room one as a cosy sound cave: lie down, close your eyes, and sink into Hannah Holland’s 60-minute continuous mix of the album. Known for calling her ambient live sets a “movie for the mind,” Hannah treats this project the same way, shaping the album into a single ambient, classical and experimental score, opening with “Bliss Code 000,” where sound healing meets modular synthesis for a full physiological journey.
14th February – Funkhaus, Berlin
Mastery heads to Berlin for the first time, partnering with MONOM Studios, for a special launch event at Funkhaus, an iconic venue built in the 1950s by architect Franz Ehrlich and a masterpiece of East German Modernism. The Berlin event will take place on 14th February, for a full 360 celebration of the project and everything it embodies. Coinciding with World Sound Healing Day (as stated by pioneering sound therapy figure Jonathan Goldman in 1982) which supports Mastery’s goal of synchronising audiences worldwide in meditative listening, contributing to the collective energetic field studied by institutions like HeartMath.
Mastery and Monom will present the Quantum Sound album as a continuous sound journey, spatialized in 4DSOUND, closing with live performances by Monom co-founder William Russell’s with his surreal live show blending piano with the sounds of natural phenomena, followed by London-based artist Ruthlss and her live set fusing electronics and piano.
After a short interval, attendees will join for a playback listening session of Jon Hopkins – Embodiment Breathing. This twenty-minute breathwork piece opens the vinyl edition of the album, produced by Jon Hopkins, and will be spatialized by Monom in 4DSOUND, marking a key energetic moment in the night.
Frustrated by the lightweight sound palette that dominates much breathwork music, Hopkins set out to create something heavier and more grounded — a slow, hypnotic techno piece that connects new-age practice and the club, two worlds that, in terms of consciousness expansion, share far more common ground than is recognised. Flowing from this is a deep meditation designed for decompression and integration after the breathwork, built from extended drones and frequencies associated in research with calming, restorative physiological responses.
When the audience emerges from the embodying breathwork practice, Jon Hopkins takes over with a longform piano improvisation, with Maddie Ashman on cello, live effects and vocals, and Leo Abrahams on guitar. With the breathwork having prepared both the performers and the listeners, the music will be experienced in a more open, unboundaried state.
“Mastery venturing to Berlin and Funkhaus marks the start of an exciting collaboration between Mastery, MONOM & LWE to explore sound through listening experiences as powerful as performances and viewing 4DSOUND technology as an instrument. The pioneering artistic vision of MONOM in this area is unmatched and adds another dimension to every project on the horizon.” Mastery co-founder Bianca Mayhew
MONOM will install their largest-scale 4DSOUND system throughout Saal 1 at Funkhaus, home to some of the world’s largest recording studios and exceptional acoustic isolation. Within Saal 1, MONOM and Mastery will merge architectural design with advanced spatial sound technology to create an optimal space for communal listening.
Scientific Partnership with Creative Empirical
At the Fabric event, neuroscience researchers from Creative Empirical, working with Goldsmiths, University of London and the University of Cambridge, will record the brain activity of 20 audience members using portable EEG. By comparing communal and solo listening, the team will investigate how sound systems, vibration and collective immersion shape conscious states, an area of neuroscience never studied at this scale inside venues.
“Music venues face unprecedented pressures. We need evidence that captures their psychological impact,” said Oliver Durcan, Founder of Creative Empirical and lead neuroscientist for the project. “People often describe transformative experiences on a dancefloor or in front of a sound system. This research will finally allow us to measure what is happening in the brain.”
Most research on music and consciousness has taken place in tightly controlled labs, limiting the study of naturally occurring altered states. Advances in portable EEG now allow high-quality neural data to be collected in live environments. Mastery’s signature format, where audiences lie down with eyes closed in powerful sound, creates ideal conditions for capturing clean data. Early technical tests at Fabric have already confirmed feasibility, including recent work with Quantum Sound and Jennifer Loveless.
The second phase unfolds at Funkhaus Berlin, shifting focus from the audience to the artists. Durcan will record performers’ brain activity as they rehearse improvisational sections, aiming to study flow states, the deeply absorbing experience musicians call being “in the zone.”
Durcan’s PhD research at Goldsmiths has developed neural markers for detecting flow in musicians. His earlier study, now under analysis and slated for publication in late 2026, is the largest neuroscience experiment on musical flow, recording EEG and MIDI from 45 expert pianists performing improvisation and written music.
At Funkhaus, this work becomes a new experimental model. “Flow is one of the most rewarding states a person can experience,” Durcan explains. “Artists often say it is why they keep creating. Yet we still understand little about how it emerges in real performance. Funkhaus gives us a rare chance to study it with expert musicians in a purpose-built environment.”
The collaboration grew from conversations between Durcan and Prof. Tristan Bekinschtein, Director of the Cambridge Consciousness and Cognition Lab, known for pioneering research on consciousness in unresponsive patients and for studies on meditation, psychedelics, anesthesia and exercise.
The Mastery and Creative Empirical partnership reflect a shared vision to open a new frontier in research by bringing consciousness studies into cultural institutions and artist-led environments, and to move closer to cracking the bliss code behind sound-induced altered states of consciousness.
Track listing
0. Jon Hopkins – Embodiment Breathing (with Fearne Cotton) *vinyl edition only*
1. Cherub Sanson, Tim Wheater and Rommek – Bliss Code 000
2. Hannah Holland – Ambient Chronolight 1
3. Djrum – Come Find Me
4. Alessandro Cortini – IV
5. Wata Igarashi – Mineral
6. Silent Shadow – Red World
7. Cherub Sanson & Tim Wheater – Stillpoint
8. Manami – Sown
9. Jennifer Loveless – If You Let It
10. Ruthlss – Dark Angel
11. Hannah Holland – A Door To Who Knows
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