The Aphex Twin-ification of synths continues – and who’s complaining? Novation’s Bass Station II gets some mind-warping mental sound features, including key-by-key madness from Richard James.

We’ve been waiting, but now the waiting is done. Propellerhead has added the VST performance boost it had promised to Reason users – meaning plug-ins now benefit from Reason 10’s patchable racks.

For the first time in Reaktor, you now get patching right on Eurorack-style modules – and there’s even an edition you can use entirely for free. Blocks Base is a free edition; Blocks Prime is included with the full version of Reaktor. Here’s a first look:

Max 8 – and by extension the latest Max for Live – offers some serious powers to build your own sonic and visual stuff. So let’s tune in some videos to learn more.

Arturia have followed up their hit “3 Filters…” and “3 Preamps You’ll Actually Use” with the inevitable trio of compressors – but as with the other bundles, there are some twists (and lower intro prices on now).

Computer and modular machine textures collide with explosions of projected particles and glitching colored textures. Now the full concert footage of the duo Belief Defect (on Raster) is out.

Rat communication, adjusted for human hearing, makes for surprisingly musical listening. That’s right – you may enjoy the sweet serenade of an actual rat burrow on NYC’s Lower East Side.

April is a generous month for fans of unusual Ukrainian compilations – now having covered new braindance from the country, we’re directed by readers to another set, giving a tour of experimentalism and electronic composition.

AI in music is as big a buzzword as in other fields. So now’s the time to put it to the test – to reconnect to history, human practice, and context, and see what holds up. That’s the goal of the Gamma_LAB AI in St. Petersburg next month. An open call is running now.

The letters titling the release spell out, in Cyrllic, “sh**s.” And more than just another dull compilation, this collection of tracks is a statement – in opposition to commercialism and homogeny, in favor of “braindance” weirdness.