Techno originator Juan Atkins. Now, dance music may finally be coming home properly to stay. Photo (CC-BY-SA) Adrien Mogenet. Any one of us, myself included, may break at any moment into armchair analysis of the music scene. But it’s worth asking an expert. Taste-setting, deeply influential DJs Pete Tong and Gilles Peterson of BBC Radio […]

A robot guitar may not injure a human guitarist, or, through inaction, allow a human guitarist to come to harm. A robot guitar must obey any orders and tunings given to it by human guitarists, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. All human and robot guitarists must enjoy guitar hardware, so […]

In Lit Tree, the design team Kimchi and Chips create dances of light across a potted tree, augmenting the plant life by transforming its leaves into voxels. 3D volumetric projection create clouds of light. In time, it could even impact growth – a kind of bonsai technique with light. Given the work’s relevance both artistically […]

Making Katy Perry extraterrestrial, the work of CuteCircuit. Photo by KatyPix.com Digital visual effects need not be limited to projection. CuteCircuit have been one of a select handful of designers pushing the envelope with wearables. Here, Katy Perry becomes their celebrity canvas, in what I expect will be one of the only-ever appearances of American […]

Something has happened to the mystique of the musical artist, as the superstars have faded. It seems people are increasingly interested with understanding process, in understanding what’s inside the magical black boxes of sound. Jess Gitner hosted Derwin Panda, aka Gold Panda, at National Public Radio’s studios for Morning Edition. She talked to the artist […]

Ready to cut the cord and go wireless? With mobile gadgets getting involved in music-making, it seems a logical solution – maybe not reason to throw away your MIDI cabling, but worth at least trying. Bluetooth could be an answer. In fact, it could work even without all those pesky, pricey mobile tablets and phones […]

Despite being a musical technology enthusiast, I really do think of my Android phone first and foremost as a communications device. I imagine I’m not alone, just as I’d guess that people who want a mobile music maker may look first at the iPhone. But that raises the question, are there tools you’d install on […]

Looking to recollection for inspiration, the artist Adam Young, aka Direwires, has a new LP for Moodgadget. Photo by Melissa Upfold; used by permission of the artist. Somewhere at the boundaries of “ambient” and “experimental,” there’s a great deal of wonderful music being made these days. Even with great labels behind them, it’s the sonic […]

Photo (CC-BY) DeclanTM. Let’s cut right to the chase on the “speed bump” revision of the MacBook Pro line today: The 13″ model still gets the short end of the stick as far as graphics; it’s actually a small step backward in raw pipeline performance from the previous model. The payoff is in overall system […]

What happens when you unleash a $140 or less, open source, monophonic, hackable synth with a funny name into the world? We’ve found out, and thanks to inventive users, it’s quite nice. Photo by Iain Browne, who also has a hilarious Tumblr. We introduced the MeeBlip, an open source, hackable synthesizer, back in early November. […]