Stockholm-based Teenage Engineering are at it again with a new OS Update and a new product. Can’t wait to try it all out on my OP-1.
The OS update delivers new drum and sequencer modes and badly-needed MIDI sync, plus cool MIDI modulation. Combined, it seems the OP-1 has really matured – sync alone removes a major obstacle for some adopters.
The new hardware is Opbox, a combination USB host / MIDI / CV box with analog sensors – and it has pretty plug-in modules and even custom-made shoes to match (below). The shoes may not be terribly practical, but the Oplab fits a unique niche in hardware I/O and DIY projects – provided it’s a niche that people actually want.
Amazing. Musical shoes. More exclusive pictures and info over at Create Digital Music. Thanks Anthony!
For this year’s concert the six-time Grammy winning musician will be joined by special guests: Armenian vocalist Arto Tunçboyaciyan, Gospel singer Theresa Thomason and the dancers and drummers of Forces of Nature Dance Theatre. The program will include music from the Consort’s new album Miho: Journey to the Mountain.
Four Shows Only: Dec. 15 and 16 at 8pm, Dec. 17 at 2pm and 7:30pm
The Cathedral of Saint John the Divine
1047 Amsterdam Ave., New York, NY 10025
At 111th St & Amsterdam Ave
This footage above is from the 2009 Solstice, which featured Russia’s Dmitri Pokrovsky Ensemble, New York’s Forces of Nature Dance Theatre led by Abdel Salaam, and musicians Paul McCandless, Eugene Friesen, Jamey Haddad, Paul Sullivan, Eliot Wadopian, Bill Cahn, Tim Brumfield, Scott Sloan and Paul Winter.
I ran into my friend Anthony from Hype Machine on a plane today, how random. Or maybe not so random! He just launched the Music Blog Zeitgeist for 2010. It’s a collection of the very best music of 2010 as picked by music bloggers. Featuring original artwork, full album streams, and DJ mixes created exclusively for The Hype Machine. More info here. It’s fantastic and I encourage you to check it out, if you like good music. And who doesn’t?
This Google Chrome Experiment called The Wilderness Downtown is beyond awesome. Maybe the best piece of digital execution I have seen in several years. If I gave away screen shots, it would ruin it. Sit through the whole song by Arcade Fire, and enter your actual address for best results. Chris Milk, you’re a genius. Also, don’t touch/click until it asks you. Just sit and watch.
Check out this beautiful music video which was made using pyrogprahy (soldering images onto plywood) and stop motion. It averaged five hours of work per second shown.
The song isIf I Was Kingby Dutch indie rocker and singer-songwriter Tim Knol, directed by an Amsterdam hotshot called Sverre Fredriksen. Making of availablehere.
The fact that these guys keep straight faces playing shoes is impressive.
Somewhere in a top secret location in Tokyo, break beat music duo, HIFANA (composed of KEIZOmachine and JUICY) discovered that Nike Free Run+ running shoes can drop beats like realtime samplers and no other. HIFANA eschewed a part of their regular break beat set up and hooked up the mixers and sound systems to Nike Free Run+ shoes. When bent or twisted, the ultra-flexible Nike Free Run+ drops different tunes and sounds. Via Freshness Mag
How do we hear sound in three dimensions? Check this video out, very interesting. People dancing to sounds moved around a room by a 3D joy-stick. Up to the ceiling and down through the ground. Sophisticated and futuristic.
Totally rad music video by Tin Spider Studio. It’s the new single from Black Noise feat. Lex One, taken from Black Noise ‘EP.02′ on Southern Fried Records. Just watch it, you’ll see.
Blockhead has only gotten better and better, and that’s saying a whole lot when you look at his contemporaries. Deeply intricate instrumental hip hop is a genre that gained numerous contributors after Endtroducing… told unspoken stories without the need for a lyricist. Subsequent albums made the style appear limited, as RJD2 managed only to put out one killer record (Deadringer), and DJ Shadow proved that being the founder doesn’t make you the king with The Outsider. After providing the maudlin soundtrack to Aesop Rock’s audible internal monologues, the New York based beatsmith dropped Music by Cavelight on Ninja Tune in the spring of ‘04. While the record had depth and staying power, it wasn’t a demonstration of Blockhead’s full potential. The following year’s Downtown Science was a similar story. Two years later, and after a couple of solid mixtapes, Uncle Tony’s Coloring Book came out, and the path of this producer’s skill had hit a brand new checkpoint, and it happened to come at a slightly higher average BPM rate. Blockhead has been playing with Ableton Live, so we can expect something a bit more loop based with The Music Scene. If you’ve used the software or seen it it used, you can probably guess that a guy like Blockhead will run with it. The Music Scene is out tomorrow on Ninja Tune records.
I created an animated handmade poster using a tub of black paint, a tub of white paint, photocopied images of the band, lots of newspaper pages and a flattened cardboard box. The strict rules I imposed on myself also included the use of only natural light and avoiding any fancy computer effects or short cuts. This made me concentrate purely on the stop motion and give the piece a punk spirit an energy that I think suits the song and the band.
Like live shows? Sick of the old-school ways to find them and buy tickets? Me too. Check out GigLocator. I’m impressed by the work of James Proud and his partner Miles in London. Keep up the good work guys!
Loving this new track by two of my favorite musical artists Lykke Li and Thom Yorke of Radiohead fame. Via Kanye West (or whoever is blogging on his behalf).
