Handmade Music returns August 29 to New York City – now in Manhattan at the new Culturefix space on the Lower East Side. Beginners, this is your chance to learn about electronics and sound making, with a newcomer-friendly workshop on making a photo-theremin – and yes, you’ll even learn to solder. (Like knitting, you’ll find […]

For all the wonderful tools and toys for sound out there, sometimes you want to find the couple of tools that, like a great kitchen knife, can accomplish the majority of what you actually need. (And as with the kitchen knife, while it may not eliminate your desire for all those other gadgets, it’s worth […]

a story of light from Jerome Monnot on Vimeo. Just two minutes in length, a teaser from a new documentary on the Mapping Festival encapsulates the growing range today’s visualist can cover. Far from look-alike video loops projected on narrow rectangles, that gamut extends to mapping and human performance that explodes the screen, from advanced, […]

Japanese fusion “underground music unit” Human Boot Project have a clever take on the music video, one that – well, let’s face it, probably appeals only to music production nerds like us. Using the free/open source software Gawker (Mac-only screen capture, not to be confused with thegossip blog), they take an extended timelapse of their […]

2010, meet 1984. For all the wonderfully-futuristic qualities of the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, electronic musicians have reason to scoff now and then: sometimes you want to be able to plug into good, old-fashioned, physical MIDI hardware. Line 6’s MIDI Mobilizer is a nifty little gadget that provides MIDI input and output via the […]

Artists know essential gear when they see it. Never leave home without your Moogerfooger, and your banana. Dan Deacon, surrounded by gear. Photo (CC-BY) Andrew Braithwaite. “Moogfest,” more than just a showcase around a brand, is an event that invokes one of sound’s greatest pioneers, Robert Moog. For a lot of artists, that’s a pretty […]

Pinhole photos date back to the genesis of photography, but artist Pierre-Olivier Boulant is re-imagining them as digital media. Working with custom, hand-built control hardware and software patched in the free visual development environment Pure Data (Pd), he composes live performances from the photos, working with musicians to create a live soundscape. A chemical engineer […]

Sneaks are a good thing. Photo (CC-BY) Pink Sherbet Photography / D. Sharon Pruitt. Let’s start with what’s really important: Chris McCormick’s squeakyshoecore tunes may well make you tap your All Stars and smile. The words “algorithmically-generated acid” and mention of the multimedia patching environment Pd might not suggest feel-goody, cheery, geeky-sounding electronic grooves, but […]

A tower of plastic, and a photographic reflection on the strange physical form music took at the height of the CD. Photo (CC-BY-SA) William Hook. Can music as a physical object have value and meaning again? For many music enthusiasts, that affection has turned back to the vinyl record, not the CD. (How many artists […]

It’s about time to tear up New York City with creative projection mapping, and The Architectural League in New York has a spectacular venue to do it. On September 25, the League’s Beaux Arts Ball descends on the Audubon Terrace complex, an extraordinary setting with various nooks, crannies, and galleries. [See photo gallery] From the […]