Philip Glass turns 85 this week, and you can celebrate by stealing his piano. Well – you can celebrate by getting a free plug-in version of his favorite piano.

It’s the perfect follow-up to 1010’s ultra-compact blackbox sampler and bluebox mixer. Now nanobox adds pint-sized synthesis to the range, with ultra-portable granular and wavetable synths – and we’ve got a first review from resident 1010 expert Andreas Roman.

Here comes the twist – in a year in which so much of the adventurous end of the electronic music scene was stalled, that dynamism was alive in Köln by way of Iranian diaspora. Timcheh was a window into where electronic musical inventors can go next, together.

It’s next-level chaos – literally. The radical sonic exploration of the original Softpop by Peter Edwards and Bastl has been massively expanded into a new modular analog synth and sound processor. In a chaotic universe, here’s the kind of unpredictability you want to swallow whole — rather than the other way around.

Ableton Live turned 20 in October, and it goes without saying it’s had a profound impact on music making in intervening years. But want to really see how it’s evolved? Here are screenshots, dated reviews, and even retro installs as proof.

Here’s a tip: change your browser preferences to open this groovebox as a new tab / homepage, any time you need to escape doomscrolling, social media, and depressing news and get back in the groove.

Leafcutter John would like to invite you for a walk in a forest full of generative notes and sounds – a playground of his musical world. And it’s just full of great stuff – a “living thing” you can try out for free / support via suggested donation.

The plug-in recalls the 1930s experiments of Maurice Martenot – and it comes with buttons to add chains and a pillow.

The new generation of MacBook Pro isn’t cheap – but without a doubt, it marks the return of the great Apple flagship notebook. It’s long-haul in every sense of the phrase.

The chalk is underwater, screaming like a chattering alien. Or that’s how it sounds through a hydrophone. Enter the weird world of some of Richard Devine’s field recordings – then grab the sounds for your own Creative Commons-licensed creations.