electronic music

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Stream Hot Chip’s upcoming album ‘In our Heads’ on The Guardian

Posted by Patrick McMullen on June 6, 2012
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hot chip stream

Now that the members of Hot Chip have had a chance to try out some side projects, it’s time for them to buckle down and finish my most anticipated album of 2012. With the release of every new album, Hot Chip seems to reinvent themselves, Electronic music, and the Euro-pop and club scenes. And while their last album, One Life Stand, was a bit of a more serious and sonically –spacious album, many fans and critics were eager to hear Hot Chip get back to their upbeat dance tracks filled with complex bleeps and bloops. With one of the band’s main producers taking time to concentrate on The 2 Bears, a 2-step house group, I was fairly certain that some of those elements would be brought to the studio for In Our Heads. After listening to the album once so far, I can say my expectations were met, and then blown to pieces.

In Our Heads  marks the first time Hot Chip had full control over the production of the album. This album is all Hot Chip and wonderfully represents their eclectic combination of electronica, funk, disco, and pop music. This time around, the tracks have all of the craziness and energy of The Warning and Made in the Dark, but with the maturity and production value of One Life Stand. I’m not sure if this album took half the time or double the time to complete compared to their other albums, I can imagine it either way. On the one hand, the mix sounds like it would have taken years to get exactly right, but on the other hand, the guys are all more experienced both as a band, and independently. It’s possible they could have sat down and banged these tracks out in rapid-fire succession. This is all speculation on my part, obviously, and it really doesn’t matter how long it took. The album is incredible. It’s nearly perfect. It may be their best yet.

The Guardian seems to think this is Hot Chip’s best. On the page where they host the streaming app, they link to an interview with the band on how this album came together. There are plenty of links to great Hot Chip news to read while listening to the album in its entirety, ad-free, the way it should be. If you are as stricken by the album as I was, you’ll want to preorder it immediately, like I did. Sure, it may not come out until late November, but It’s going to be a great surprise in the mail in six months. Here’s the link to Hot Chip’s store where you can pre-order the album in CD, MP3, Vinyl, all 3, whatever you’re in to. From The Guardian’s streaming page:

Hot Chip‘s fifth album is a multi-coloured riot of electro, funk and pop – and possibly their best yet. Produced by the band themselves, it’s designed for the dancefloor yet never feels short of gigantic pop melodies. Explaining the joyous approach, Joe Goddard said: “I want to listen to records like Never Too Much by Luther Vandross. I don’t want to listen to a band caught up in their hang-ups and problems. That’s just not interesting to me.”

Music for the body, mind, and soul

Posted by Patrick McMullen on February 9, 2012
Posted in: body, mind, music. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

I’ve been really into searching for great meditation and relaxation music lately. Every week, I try to upload at least one videot containing a track that I think is great for all forms of self-exploration. Whether stretching and posing for some early-morning yoga, meditating in a deep trance, or releasing all of your stressors and relaxing, this song will help you leave where you are and get to where you want to be.

Korg is making me want to buy things I’ve already purchased

Posted by Patrick McMullen on January 26, 2012
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Remember how awesome your first iPod was? You had a wonderfully sleek form factor in your hand: a personal portal to a digital music experience. Everything was great. Then, Apple came out with another iPod the next year. World=shattered. With every small (and sometimes major) update and change in Apple’s products from year to year, the devices seem to get even more enticing. How can something that looked like the epitome of new and great at Christmastime be suddenly ugly and archaic come April? Apple (and their consumer research divisions) have that answer; I don’t.

 

Apple isn’t alone in announcing product-line refreshes and updates that make the old seem obsolete. Thankfully though, Korg waited much longer than 12 months in between releasing the mini Kaossilator 1 and 2, but by Gods is that 2nd interation beautiful. In case you’re not familiar with the previous version (the suddenly uncool model I purchase a little over a year ago), check out this picture below.

Ok, so maybe this is a much more drastic redesign than Apple employs year to year, and the features have greatly improved to boot! Korg has this to say about the Kaosillator 2 on their product info page:

Boasting a supercharged sound generator, Kaossilator 2 delivers excellent synth and drum sounds spanning a wide range of genres, plus dramatically expanded loop recording. Use the internal mic to record guitar, vocal, or other audio source – just as with a looper effect. The Organic Electroluminescent (OEL) display provides superb visibility. Add to that a touch slider for ease of use, microSD card data saving, plus a built-in speaker and battery power. All of these features reflect the enhancements incorporated into the sleek and exciting Kaossilator 2.

So what exactly is new on this model you ask? A whole metric shit-load of things that you didn’t get when buying the first model: microSD card slot, built-in speaker and mic, a display that shows you actual words as opposed to just 3 characters, a fancy touch-slider volume control, and better sounds in general. So basically, everything Korg mentioned above is NEW! unlike Apple, Korg believes that they should offer consumers more than a sexy redesign when asking them to buy a subsequent generation of a product they already own. At Korg, 2nd Gen evidently means the product will get features the consumers actually want. Check out this video below where you can see the Kaosillator 2 in action. At about 2 minutes in, you’ll see them actually feeding a guitar input into this thing to allow it to be looped into the mix: something you definitely couldn’t do with the first release. Korg also has a matching update of it’s mini Kaoss Pad 3, the effects processor and sampler, but really, you should get the full-sized and full-feature version of the Kaoss Pad. Trust me.

 

-Patrick

Another DIY tiny instrument

Posted by Patrick McMullen on January 20, 2012
Posted in: music, tech. Tagged: , , , , , , . 1 Comment

You’re probably thinking, “what the hell are those things: 3G and 4G service indicators? Scientologist E-meters? Alien Communicators? Tiny electronic instruments?” Yes actually. They are e-meters, I mean tiny instruments. Esty shop owner WaxxMuseum, self described maker and seller of, “One of a kind instruments / electronics / noise makers” has a pretty interesting piece here. Essentially, this thing is a combination of a thumb piano, theremin, and drum machine. Each of the variably-sized poles can be plucked, strummed, or even played with a violin bow (as in the video below) to produce different pitches and sounds.

The maker of this piece has a youtube channel called vcs3dreams where you can see all of his crazy contraptions in action. I’d love to see him rocking out on one of each of his instruments at once, in what would be Dr. Frankenstein attempting to produce music for Bassnectar. In the video for the Blue Box below, he has one of his Blue Boxes running through a Boss RC-20 loopstation, with some echo and decay in there somewhere. If I had one of these, you can bet I’d be making some crazy Star Trek sounds to run through my Korg KP-3 effects processor and sampler.

-Patrick