Vinyl Bar in Shibuya crafts music apps sans AI prompting

a vinyl bar in shibuya, a startup led by máuhan m zonoozy, former head of innovation at spotify, has raised $5.5m in pre-seed funding from investors including mantis vc, sv angel, and dawn ostroff, a former spotify executive. the company is releasing a series of music apps that allow users to interact with sounds and vocals without using ai prompts. examples of these apps include speed surfer, a chrome extension that changes sound speed and filter, and bop, an ios app that lets users create mixes of base songs using a grid of instruments and effects. zonoozy believes that while ai is powerful, the future of music isn't just about generation, but also about human perspective and interaction. the company aims to release a musical sandbox mixer product this year.