Earlier this year, Namibian-German artist Max Siedentopf set up a solar-powered sound installation in the Namib desert that plays Africa, the hit 1982 song by American band Toto, on an infinite loop. The artist says he wants to pay tribute to “probably the most popular song of the last four decades” in the world’s oldest desert. It remains to be seen, however, whether one of the song’s immortal lines, “I bless the rains down in Africa”, will help summon showers and turn the barren desert into fertile land.
The rain gods might not respond to sound, but plants apparently do. The TV show MythBusters found plants exposed to music flourished more than those left in silence, so perhaps it’s no surprise there are winemakers that