To build a deeper understanding for those who cope with schizophrenia, the BC Schizophrenia Society wanted people to experience what it’s like living with the mental condition firsthand.

The agency partnered with various musicians from different genres to create an immersive experience that emulates what it’s like to have schizophrenia. Each audio track began as a typical song, however, by adding in effects to alter the sound and overlaying intrusive voices, the tracks took a turn into the unexpected. To make the listener’s experience as abrupt as symptoms of schizophrenia, vocal interjections were laid out to appear haphazardly throughout the track and sound balance was altered to change the dynamic of where a voice was heard from. Each interruption mimicked the types of voices that people suffering from the mental condition reported hearing: paranoia, delusion and even voices directing people to perform acts of violence. While the execution was uncomfortable for listeners, the objective of Songs of Schizophrenia was to give people an honest, deeper understanding of what it can be like to have schizophrenia.

To capture the interest of as many people as possible with different tastes in music, the team worked with artists from 10 different genres to draw in the largest possible demographic and worked with Spotify and Apple Music to host the album. The goal was to make the experience accessible to everyone, giving anybody the opportunity to understand how schizophrenia affects people. Above all, the project was a breakthrough method of raising awareness for a misunderstood mental condition.

Songs of Schizophrenia was released to the world on January 28, 2019. The first form of distribution was on British Columbia radio stations to target people in the province where the BC Schizophrenia Society is headquartered. Shortly after, all of the songs were released on Spotify and Apple Music to turn what was originally a provincial campaign into an international campaign. All of this was done with zero media and production budget. The music was donated by the artists and there was no cost to the radio space, as the campaign was a PSA. All of the work was signed off by the BC Schizophrenia Society to ensure that the campaign accurately represented the mental condition the team was raising awareness for.