Every city has
a sound of its own.
Vael is a hyperlocal, geo-triggered music discovery app that surfaces independent, city-native artists to people driving through or exploring a place — live, corridor by corridor, instead of a playlist built once and never updated.
Why we built it
Streaming made every city sound the same. Spotify, Apple Music, and the rest optimize for what you already like — not for what’s actually happening where you are right now. There’s no platform that combines location-based streaming with a strict city-native filter: real artists, from the place you’re passing through, surfaced because of where you are rather than your listening history.
Vael fills that gap. “Hear Where You Are” isn’t a tagline we picked after the fact — it’s the entire mechanic. The catalog changes because the city changed.
How it works
Drive Mode
Start a trip and the corridor updates as you move — the artists playing are native to wherever you actually are on the map.
At Home
Not driving? Drop a pin on another city and listen to its scene from anywhere — a virtual teleport into that local sound.
Signal
Upvotes, downvotes, and plays feed a live ranking of what’s resonating on each corridor — the crowd shapes what surfaces next, not a label or an algorithm trained on your history.
Built on a real network
Murvi
Murvi is a DJ with a professional network of artist, radio, and DJ relationships spanning major cities across North America — built over years of touring, residencies, and radio work. That network is Vael’s edge: sourcing real, city-native independent artists and verifying authenticity is a solved problem for Vael in a way it isn’t for a new entrant starting from zero.
Carl
Carl is the co-founder of Vael, with a track record of building ventures from scratch in heavily regulated markets — a multi-state cannabis licensing portfolio spanning New Jersey, DC, Maryland, and Delaware, plus Verdigris and Nephrite, his consulting and CFO-advisory practices. That instinct for spotting overlooked value is Vael’s edge: navigating regulatory complexity is a solved problem for Vael in a way it isn’t for a new entrant starting from zero.
Where we are today
Closed betaVael is pre-launch and in closed testing with a small group of invited drivers. The first market is the Mid-Atlantic triangle, rolling out corridor by corridor as artists sign on and each route proves out.
Rollout markets
For artists
Artists upload and license their music to Vael directly — they keep ownership, and there’s no label sitting between the artist and the platform. Vael verifies rights before a track goes live, and every artist decides what they submit. As the platform grows, that direct relationship is meant to stay the same, even as tools for artists (listener stats, priority placement) mature — see Plans for where that’s headed.
vaelaudio 