American band Vulfpeck have figured out a way to use Spotify's minimal streaming revenue to cover one of the biggest costs of being in a band. They're using it to cover their bills for the road with an ingenious idea that will inevitably be closed as a loophole once this whole thing dies down.

The general plan is that by releasing an album of total silence, their fans can stick it on while they sleep. If enough do that then it should be able to pay for their Sleepify tour, where they'll be visiting wherever has the most people using Vulfpeck's minimal masterpiece to soundtrack their dreams. Their website currently has a map that shows where there is the most Vulfpeck-penned silence, which will be where they aim to go and play free shows.

This flies in the face of Thom Yorke, Foals, Johnny Marr, and others, who have previously had a grumble about the music streaming service.

The band explain how it all works in the video below, estimating that one person streaming the album through the night would net them $4. That alone would probably offset the recording costs.

Some have wondered why you couldn't just put their music on overnight and turn the volume down. Total silence is necessary because simply turning the volume down is detected by Spotify's player. If someone doesn't have the premium version of Spotify (the one you pay a monthly subscription for) then this causes the adverts to pause until the volume is switched back on. If that happened then they wouldn't get the band enough plays to buy a packet of Skips, let alone fund a whole tour. You could probably get away with just unplugging your speakers overnight, but who wants to do that every day?

If you want to 'listen' to the Sleepify album, you can do that below. Make sure you don't pirate it!

We found that it starts off well, but gets a bit samey after a while... the same as making jokes about about it. If you'd like to hear what the band sound like when they're not trying to fund a tour via a novelty method, here's a track of theirs that's (hopefully) named after everyone's favourite Tina Fey movie:

Mmmm, Funky. If you want those guys to come to your town then go and enjoy the silence. Alternatively, you could do something completely off-the-wall and buy their music.