Abstract three-dimensional geometries: for many, they are the best expression of the rich imagery the mind’s eye produces when listening to music. But, with a growing heap of work that uses that material, artists have to push the details and execution to connect with the music. Last year, Michel de Klein did a beautiful realization […]

Gunshop | Hoppy New Year from Gunshop on Vimeo. Create Animal Motion? Stacy Nimmo, founder and creative director of San Francisco-based motion shop Gunshop sends over their New Years’ creation. This is a bit too cute not to post. And I like nerding out about number sequences. (Composing with pitch sets this year, anyone?) As […]

The beginning of 2013 is as good a landmark as any to begin a return to music making and creativity. But the top-ten lists that crowded the Web in the last couple of weeks may not be your best guide. Instead of working out what’s “best,” we invited CDM’s music contributor Matt Earp, aka artist […]

iPad and iPhone owners got a nice gift recently. Over the Christmas holiday week, a whole slew of new iOS updates rolled in, perhaps caught in the holiday rush. Many of the improvements centered on Audiobus, a proprietary technology that, via a host app, allows iOS users to connect different apps for input, recording, and […]

The lava lamp has entered a whole new age, courtesy multiple projection processes, and a special kind of industrial aluminum with the fanciful name “bubblesheet.” New work by Austrian-born, London-based Roland Lindner and Diane Karner aka decollage.tv ripples and oozes, transporting us to a world from some psychedelic, molten-plasma corner of the galaxy. Set to […]

This isn’t like any Hurdy-Gurdy you’ve seen or heard before. Derek Holzer’s optoelectronic Tonewheels Hurdy-Gurdy is a combination of mechanical, optical, and electronic elements, part sculpture and part instrument. It recalls vintage mechanical and optical instruments, but with a sound that is decidedly modern and strange. In the translation, something wonderful happens: this becomes a […]

Windows PCs are from Mars, Macs are from Venus, Windows VST plug-ins won’t ever run on the Mac — wait, not so fast. Ornament Uncle writes with a solution for running Windows VSTs on the Mac as if they were native plug-ins. The tutorial describes a fairly meticulous process – if you’re expecting this to […]

Snap, snap… LEGO bricks are at some point irresistible for making a synth housing. Our friends at DE:BUG point to a LEGO-built, circuit-bending synth. And the imaginary toy world of LEGO find their way into this instrumental housing. Creator freeformdelusion writes: ClearTone Synth with LFO inside a nice lego project box with a house, dog, […]

It’s easy to be bleak about new music releases, the vast quantities of new work spreading before you in their sameness like a blizzard – plenty of particles, but all a white wash. When feelings like that hit you – or the depressed mood that might strike during midwinter in the far reaches of the […]

2012 Music Video Mashup from Renier Mouthaan on Vimeo. I want my music television. Someone spiked my egg nog, and I had the craziest dream. I dreamt all the major music videos of 2012 somehow ran end to end in a blur. And what a year it was – Korean pop and Elijah Wood’s arm […]