EQUALITY NOW, a raucous Peder Mannerfelt anthem at the right time

Good timing. Sweden’s Peder Mannerfelt delivers a triumphant single, “EQUALITY NOW” as the opening salvo of a 3-track vinyl/digital coming beginning of December. And it’s splendidly forceful. But wait, there’s more. Mannerfelt is a prolific producer and artist, solo under his own name, as The Subliminal Kid, or working alongside Van Rivers on production. That’s […]

MeeBlip couldn’t wait for Black Friday, so it’s Red November

The MeeBlip project reaches some important milestones this year – and we get to say thanks, and celebrate with a sale. And, really, why do that for one day called “Black Friday” or “Cyber Monday” or “Arbitrary Discount Saturday Dusk Hour”? Let’s just do it for the whole rest of the month. MeeBlip quietly turned […]

Jean-Claude Risset, who reimagined digital synthesis, has died

We’re in a strange time, as we big farewell to a great generation of pioneers of electronic music. French composer Jean-Claude Risset’s work can still tickle our perception and challenge what’s possible. He helped expand the frontiers of what digital synthesis can do for our ears, and brought the technology to the European continent. And […]

The MotherF***** is the DIY delay-reverb box of your nightmares

If you want a nice, pristine, versatile delay/reverb, then … this isn’t it. It’s called the MotherF***er 2 for a reason. It’s the creation of Ewa Justka, engineer and musician born in Poland and based in London. (Ewa was also nice enough to co-host the MusicMakers Hacklab with us at CTM Festival this year, where […]

Surprise, Final Cut Pro could be the MacBook’s killer feature

Here’s an unexpected twist in the plot: Final Cut Pro, the product that perhaps more than any other earned ire from users for not being “pro,” might be the thing that sells you on the Mac. Why? Final Cut Pro is really, really fast. After all, paper specs don’t matter. It’s really world performance in […]

Voyage into Dasha Rush’s inspiring ambient sonic worlds

Assemble, cosmonauts: Dasha Rush is an artist whose musical worlds merit repeat visits. She represents the best of what an artist straddling techno and ambient can be – with ambient sets that pulse and live, with timbral and structural freedom rather than resorting to dreary droning grays. So let’s take a break from her better-known […]

Free jazz – how to use Ableton Link sync with Pure Data patches

Effortless wireless sync everywhere has arrived with free software, too, thanks to Ableton’s new open source SDK. And it’s incredibly easy – enough so that anyone with even rudimentary patching skills will probably want to try this out. Pure Data, the free and open source cousin of Max/MSP, looks ugly but does great stuff. And […]

Dot Melody is a nicely weird iOS note sequencer, and now it syncs

Here’s a pitch you don’t expect from an iOS developer: Dot Melody is “kind of weird and limited.” Oh yeah, and how about those glowing hands-on reviews from the first people to try it? Well, reactions “ranged from confused to outwardly hostile.” But wait – we’re in the music making business. Weird and confusing is […]

Here’s the easy thing you can do to support artists you love on Facebook

“The Algorithm.” It sounds like something ominous out of scifi – an AI character from The Matrix, maybe. It’s the name for the proprietary system by which Facebook shows you content. And this element of social media has been under fire lately, even on the global political scale. Computer rules are invisibly determining what you […]

Mixes of the moment: dark techno, diverse records

News and information is important, but it won’t focus you on what matters. Checking Facebook might distract you, but it won’t calm you. Only music is wired directly into our mood when we’re alone. And leave the algorithms; there’s nothing like a human mix. So it is that we bring you regular mixes as windows […]