A funny thing happened on the way to the resurgence of analog gear… The digital bits are still mighty cool to have. Yes, the next time someone asks you about whether the return to analog is some sort of regression to the past, you might point out that what we’re seeing is a fusion of […]
Music
RIP Dax Pierson, Árni Grétar Jóhannesson aka Futuregrapher
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Saying goodbye to 2024 with music and reflections: David’s picks
Music Reviews Stories December 31, 2024
A Tangled Sculpture of Lightbulbs, Stage to Elaborate Synchronized AV Performance
In a tree-like cluster of wooden branches, 60 electronically-fired lightbulbs glow in tightly-choreographed pulses along with music. The light sculpture becomes the setting for a kind of AV dance theater, forming an otherworldly environment for narrative movement. “A Man Named Zero” is the work of Nocte and a team in the UK of performers, pairing […]
Amiga is Back: DJing with Two CDJ-Style “Turntables” will Amaze Your Friends
Eat your heart out, Traktor. Take that, CDJs. The dream of the 90s is alive, again, with new Amiga software. Akira Kei shares the project, which he and hoffman co-created and have dubbed the PT-1210 MK1. It mimics some CDJ-style features, but uses MOD files – a clever music format that employs samples and sequence […]
10 Great Releases From 2013 You Might Have Missed
Happiness is a list of new SoundCloud links to follow, records to go buy, artist names and sounds that are new – not the reappearance of repeated artists and musicians, usual suspects, and expected names, but something to actually discover. So, we’re grateful to CDM contributor Matt Earp, aka Kid Kameleon, for his selecting talents. […]
Surveilled, Controlled, Exhausted: Augmented Dance on Machine-Human Interface's Dark Side
If BODYLINE BORDERLINE takes your breath away, perhaps you can thank the fact that it takes the dancers’ breath away. Computer vision in dance is now an accepted trope, to the point of being nearly cliché. The challenge is in part that the human eye’s capacity to follow nuances in movement contrasts to the crude […]
Surveilled, Controlled, Exhausted: Augmented Dance on Machine-Human Interface’s Dark Side
If BODYLINE BORDERLINE takes your breath away, perhaps you can thank the fact that it takes the dancers’ breath away. Computer vision in dance is now an accepted trope, to the point of being nearly cliché. The challenge is in part that the human eye’s capacity to follow nuances in movement contrasts to the crude […]
KORG M01D for Nintendo 3DS, Surprising Mobile Music Workstation [Listening]
The KORG M01D app, available now for about a month for Nintendo’s 3DS handheld, seems the definition of anachronism. It’s a mobile Nintendo DS music app in an age of iPhones and iPads. It’s based on a 1988 digital synth, even as analog is back and style. You use it with a stylus. You can […]
A Slightly Unorthodox Hands-on Review of Waves CLA-2A Compressor
Just watch it. As you can hear, the vocal’s not moving in and out any more. Consider this your Unicorn Chaser of the day. Yes, it’s possible we’ve watched too many of these sorts of videos… Hope you’re having a good weekend. Thank you, Machinedrum, for the tip. * Disclaimer: No, I do not think […]
littleBits Open Source Synth Kit on GitHub; KORG Filter Secrets Revealed, Music Projects
Open source music hardware has gone from promising concept to practical reality. It incorporates not just hacker-friendly kits, but end user products, from synths to controllers to effects. And now, for the first time, you can find one of the biggest names in the musical instrument industry on GitHub. KORG and littleBits promised they’d release […]
From Leisure System Crew, Meticulously-Crafted Techno Rhythms [Listening]
From Berlin and Britain, virtuoso producers imagine a futuristic take on techno that elevates technical craft. Among many fine labels that have somehow flown under the radar this year, the surging productivity of Leisure System is surely one that merits some attention. It’s a producer’s label, in a sense, dodging trends to find music that […]