I’ve never bought Bjork’s music before, or listened to it. All I knew about her up to this point was that she was from Iceland; seemed slightly eccentric; once attacked a photographer in an airport; and did that song where she went ‘shhh’ a lot.

But there I sat, holding an iPad in my hands, not sure what to expect once I pressed play on her latest app, Biophilia. What I got in the end was a new multisensory experience that redefined my relationship with music.

You see, I was born deaf. From an early age my mum and others pushed me to get as much as I could out of what little hearing I had. I wore hearing aids, and played various musical instruments ranging from the tuba to the cornet, from the electronic keyboard to the piano. When I played those instruments, it was about what I felt through my fingertips as much as what I could hear through my buggered lugs. I even appeared on a short film for Channel 4 talking about my piano playing, which earned me the sign name of ‘piano man’.

My first access to pop music came from watching the (badly) subtitled Top of the Pops on Friday nights. I was mesmerised by Madonna, perplexed by Prince and thrilled by Michael Jackson every time I saw him.

But since TOTP’s passing, I haven’t felt the urge to keep up with modern pop music. I like a well-made music video as much as the next man, but I have more subtitled music DVDs than CDs in my collection, chosen on the basis of whether they’re subtitled over any other criteria (Beastie Boys, Michael Jackson, Madonna..!)

So when I read about this new app that would showcase Bjork’s new album in a “multisensory” way I was sceptical, but intrigued. The idea is that the app itself is free, and you use in app purchases to obtain individual tracks from her album as they’re released.

When I first played a track, I was taken into the ‘interactive’ part of the song - some sort of Rez clone where you tilt the screen to collect crystals while her song plays in the background. So far, so disappointing.

But then I tried the ‘animation’ option and proceeded to listen, holding the iPad, to one of her songs playing with lyrics on screen and a beautiful, simple animated timeline showing the shapes and colours of all the instruments and vocals as the song progressed. As I felt the vibrations of the music through my fingertips, the iPad vibrating and rumbling in my hands, hearing the higher pitches through my hearing aid, I had something of an ‘experience’. It was beautiful, lyrical and haunting. I immediately went and downloaded another track – and I can’t wait to experience the rest of the songs on the album in the same way.

Each track comes with its own visual and auditory style, accompanied by a wealth of background information and added value on each track – notes on the song, notes on the interpretation of it, and a different visual and graphical treatment each time. I just love it more than I can say.

Above all, putting subtitles on music tracks is such a simple idea that I can’t understand why more people don’t do it. With the number of people that mishear song lyrics anyway, it would be invaluable. But then if you take into account the fact that 1 in 7 people have some sort of hearing loss, adding up to a potential audience of 6-7m deaf and hard of hearing people who want to access music… it’s a no brainer