Mouse on Mars’ Parastrophics for Monkeytown has been an early highlight of the year, a record packed with musical ideas in densely-configured arrays of sound. The duo is now taking that music on the road, in ambitious, improvisatory live performances. Perhaps all of this can be summed up in one word: energy. Their studio and […]

The pace of technology has made past and future fold in on themselves, to the point where old things can look futuristic, what was once techno-shock can become nostalgic warmth, and the future can look dated. Our own Matt Earp waxed poetic on music’s take on these aesthetics by connecting them to worn VHS tapes. […]

There are a few spots in the world that are active hotspots for music tech geekery, and in San Francisco, it’s definitely all about Robotspeak. CNET’s Donald Bell – known to some of us back in the day as terrific IDM producer Chachi Jones – visits the store that once employed him. (This gives me […]

“So,” you say, “I’ve got a … and I want to connect it to a … to make music. How do I do that?” One strong answer to that question, if you’ve got a Mac, is junXion. Developed by the landmark audio research laboratory STEIM – a hotspot in Amsterdam that for years has been […]

Hear the idea of creating a car sound, and you might imagine a sound designer working on a video game or film. Imagining that person producing a sound for an actual car could sound like a joke. But as today’s vehicles go silent – whisper-quiet electric cars to human-powered bicycles – the problem of imagining […]

Stretch out three seconds into 3,000 frames: even in our world of digital and photographic wonders, the simple ability of photography and motion to manipulate time remains magical. The lowly photobooth can still delight. Having seen Pablo Garcia’s machines earlier this week, I wanted to follow up with his “High Speed Photobooth,” which combines high-speed […]

Speaking of mechanical motion and machine drawing, in the work of Robert Howsare, vintage equipment becomes part kinetic sculpture, part machine artist. In “Drawing Apparatus,” two turntables become a generative geometric drawing machine, Spirograph-style. (See some really lovely-looking renders by this machine on the artwork project page. Via Today and Tomorrow, hat tip to portable.tv […]

(CC-BY) Axel Tregoning. (CC-BY) Marcin Wichary. Jack Tramiel, who died this week, had as deep an impact on computer music for the everyday musician as just about any computing industry pioneer. While Jobs, Woz, Moore, Grove, and Gates get a lot of the attention, Tramiel’s legacy was in making computing affordable and accessible. As such, […]

What happens when an Albrecht Dürer masterpiece meets CNC? Watch the video above to see. The work of Pittsburgh-based Pablo Garcia, who does collaborative, trans-media work and teaches at Carnegie Mellon, the project nods both to art history and the world of robotics – and it’s just one of Garcia’s works to do so.

What happens when an Albrecht Dürer masterpiece meets CNC? Watch the video above to see. The work of Pittsburgh-based Pablo Garcia, who does collaborative, trans-media work and teaches at Carnegie Mellon, the project nods both to art history and the world of robotics – and it’s just one of Garcia’s works to do so.