Nothingness / Six by Anders Weberg (filmed with the iPad) from Anders Weberg on Vimeo. The first is silent; the other, a music video. But in slow-moving meditations, two films inspire you in watery terms to really stop and look. At top, Swedish-based artist Anders is armed with nothing more than an iPad 2, a […]

Lately, I keep coming across reflections on music that talk about movement. When we hear music, somehow, we’re moving inside – we’re following the lines of Bach counterpoint in our fingers, we’re singing along somewhere deep within to the vocals of Billie Holliday. We’re dancing. “Until the Quiet Comes” is special for many reasons, in […]

BEATSURFING #5: JAM at VLEK from Vlek Data on Vimeo. Vlek’s Beatsurfing app is one of the most strange and wonderful things on the iPad, producing quirky, drawn controllers that open up new musical avenues. It’s so strange and wonderful, in fact, that it’s befuddled some of you who tried to use it. So, good […]

Facebook is bragging about one number, in particular – one billion users – this week. But they’re also releasing some other hard numbers on how people are using their service. Much has been made of how Facebook has transformed social gaming and, via Instagram specifically, photography. But just on Instagram’s heels is none other than […]

Ocelot – Beyonica (Live) from Tim Shaw on Vimeo. Let’s again step back from the world of the industry to the realm of individual musicians and how they make tools make sounds. Tim Shaw’s music is a beautiful illustration of the ways in which brain and musical imagination can be connected to fingers and sound. […]

Native Instruments is continuing their hardware attack with a new device that combines three tools: controller, mixer, audio interface. Those knobs and faders control software, as an integrated controller for Traktor, but internally, the Kontrol Z2 is also a mixer and computer soundcard. It’s geared primarily for Traktor users, of course, but with pricing under […]

The story around digital DJing increasingly seems to be controllers built around specific software. As Native Instruments pushes their Kontrol line for Traktor Pro, Serato has rebooted both their software and their hardware approach. Serato DJ is the new generation of Serato software, with some much-requested features making their way to the tool. But whereas […]

“I am an app, I am an island…” On iPhone and iPad, there is now no shortage of apps that make interesting sounds. But producing music is for most people organizing sounds, and so, that same abundance of apps can become a weakness. You’ve got one thing that makes great noises, another thing that records […]

Recalling the imaginative antics of football-field drill teams, the work of Swiss filmmaker NOTsoNOISY (Guillaume Reymond) makes human beings into pixels. People themselves become the medium as much as the stop-motion film, with charming results. So, speaking of what that means for a building facade, it’s worth visiting some of the other best work from […]

The human element in visual performance can apply to mass ensembles as well as soloists. So, while this video has already made the blog rounds, if you missed it as I did, it’s relevant in context of yesterday’s discussion of adding a human to projection mapping. In “ANIMATED TOWER / (HESAV s’anime!,” the team of […]