When reality slaps you, slap back. Poly_Chain, aka Kyiv-born multi-talent Sasha Zakrevska, has a pure-fire mix of “bumpy electro” and adrenaline-driving broken beats, a lot of it unreleased (though some of it you can and should buy.) The Choreography and Merriment departments say you’re welcome.

The new Berlin is… London? Today is the opening of SchneidersKeller, the new Denmark Street outpost of the legendary SchneidersLaden, appropriately situated in the basement of Rough Trade. (It broke my hipster dosimeter!) And you’ll like the shopkeepers: the store is opened by our friends Edd Butterworth (London Modular, Sonic State) and Jean-Marcel Fricke (son of Manfred, MFB Berlin).

It’s a great week for free and open-source media tools. Hot on the heals of GIMP 3.0 final, we get Blender 4.4. It’s labeled as focusing on stability, but the Blender contributors have packed a bunch of major animation, video, and UI features in there, too. Now, we can say this is the tool used in Oscar-winning films (Flow).

Today, Radio Alhara is marking five years of operation by playing 24 hours of archival material from its home in Bethlehem, Palestine.

Spectral resynthesis is having a moment now that it’s one of the new oscillator types in the mighty Xfer Serum 2. If you’re looking for other ways to get your spectral resynthesis on – or you’re a Serum user who just can’t get enough – here are three free tools to sink your FFTs into.

Iftah Gabbai has delivered his Maxess Max/MSP External Collection, a set of tools that interface patches with the native accessibility features of macOS and Windows. They’re a must if you’re making tools with Max and Max for Live – and worth examining for inspiration even if you focus on other platforms.

Ableton Live 12.2 is in public beta today, with some major welcome features. Bouncing is easier, Auto Filter gets its biggest update since it came out, and there are new generative harmonic features, Meld and Roar updates, Push enhancements, and more. Here’s your guide.

KORG’s analog-modeling, layered multi-poly was already compelling as hardware. Now, it’s available as a software plug-in, either as a companion to the keyboard version or as a rich plug-in in its own right. I’ve been working with a late build; here are some impressions.

An Armed Forces of Ukraine unit in the south of Ukraine depends on John Object’s 1991 Opel Frontera crossover SUV. You know what to do: support Timur, support Ukraine, get new music, and replace this broken car. Be a better friend and ally than the USA is at the moment. There’s more to say so – I’ll just say it.

It’s not just Eurorack. It’s UkRack – the all-Ukrainian module. And while today marks three years of full-scale Russian invasion of their country, it’s a chance to mark the power of Ukrainian resistance in sound. We join our friends at MachineRoom in Kyiv.