2012 may be without a clear landmark album (at least so my producer friends keep complaining), but the singles scene (ahem) has been terrific. Perhaps that suggests a musical landscape in which electronic artists prefer exploration to tightly-controlled packages. Whatever is going on, techno is dirty and grungy again. Just ask the UK’s Untold. Last […]

In this age of maximalist, aggressive productions, the leafy green imagery for Pole’s waldgeschichten (literally, “forest stories”) fits perfectly. The trilogy of releases, the latest arriving at the end of last week, is easy-going and reserved. Each sound is precisely placed, gently shuffling interlaced dub-like patterns set against calm swells, sometimes resembling the cry of […]

If electronic music sometimes seems to contain the secret dance language of insects, mysterious coded rhythms and swarms of sound, an EP released this summer by an English producer makes the connection explicit. Bioni Samp sends us his strange and wonderful sonic journey into the colony. In tunes alternately atmospheric and danceable, at least of […]

Modular music may be associated with densely-layered, sometimes-indecipherable ambiences, but Jimmy Edgar weaves funk and synthesized electro-dance into songs fed by his Detroit roots. (Jimmy’s now on Hotflush, formerly Warp Records, !K7, Poker Flat) In a studio tour with boutique analog maker KOMA Elektronik, he shows off their FT-201 sequenced filter and gestural control on […]

Press a key or two, take a screenshot. It’s been dead-simple for ages. But not so if you just want to grab some sound – until now. WavTap, from coder and GitHub user Patrick Ellis of Berlin, finally makes grabbing audio on the Mac work the way you’ve imagined it should work. Hit a keyboard […]

Artists and labels alike search for a sound and a business model that can flourish in this brave, new age in music. Against that struggle, Oz’s Enig’matik is something special. We’ve got more coming with this crew, but first, CDM’s Matt Earp takes an look inside what makes this record label work with its founder, […]

Permut8 is the kind of thing that inspires the dreams of people who love digitally-manipulated sound. From legendary Swedish developer Magnus Lindström (Malström in Reason, MicroTonic), it’s a digital delay gone very, very mad. Think delays, flangers, bit crushing, beat repeating, and “circuit-bent” digital insanity. The core of the idea is a 12-bit digital delay […]

Photos courtesy the artist. We have data in pictures, we have data in Facebook posts – why not data as music? In the latest data sonification project, the record of travel becomes an oddly-beautiful set of percussive harmonies. And it’s a “record” in every sense: artist and composer Brian House not only composes the data […]

It’s a fitting way to honor computer music: Matmos produced an electronic reimagining of computer pioneer Alan Turing’s favorite tune, the Irish traditional song “Molly Malone.” The results are haunting, made more so by Mr. Turing’s untimely demise and unjust prosecution for his open homosexuality. (According to legend, he played it on violin to the […]

It’s one thing to talk about tools. It’s quite another to put them into action, to make them withstand the rigors of creative process and idiosyncracy, let alone the torture test of touring. Laura Escudé is as deep in the trenches, on a day-to-day basis, as just about anyone on the planet. The music tech […]