You can expect to see ongoing appearances by Ghostly International, the 12-year-old label with roots in Detroit that has since established firm outposts in California and New York, in these pages. (Pixels?) The reason is simple: Ghostly is a grand experiment in how to retain relevance as a label in the second decade of the 21st Century. But like any label, the proof in that exercise lies firmly in the sonic output, so while I’ll ramble a bit here, the best thing to do is to simply point to a lot of things to pipe into your headphones – particularly as Ghostly has been on a bit of a tear in the opening weeks of fall with plenty of free downloads and mixes to give you a free sample. (The first taste is free, natch.)

Ghostly is perhaps best known, traditionally, for its ties to Detroit and artist Matthew Dear (aka Audion), but contrary to proper belief, the founding role – and ongoing helmsmanship – belongs to Samuel Valenti IV. The label’s presence is now international, founded on slickly-produced tracks that seem to embody a certain zeitgeist. The recent release by mainstay Tycho is coated with a sonic equivalent of the golden patina that seems to resonate from the artist’s tinted photos and designs, emanating a warm, partially-nostalgic glow that nonetheless remains firmly digital and future-minded. Ditto Com Truise, whose modern-retro sound is now crossing Europe, or the previously-covered samplist Gold Panda.

It’s notable that Ghostly’s evolution now has been from narrowly-focused label – often experimental, as with its IDM-ish Spectral Sounds imprint, or techno-focused – to design and taste hub. Ghostly’s model for how to address the exploding access to global stuff now on the Web appears to be to cast itself as a curator, assembling stunning output by designers and design-geek goodies, and ensuring its content flows at a steady but comfortable rate through blogs, Facebook pages, and free online radio pages. While all metrics suggest that all-you-can-eat streaming services are devouring actual sales, Ghostly’s strategy could prove a bellwether: they plaster the free mix services and such, but also are developing a loyal following that consumes everything from vinyl to , all as they cultivate a subscription service that focuses on access to just their releases. (See Drip.fm, formerly the Ghostly Music Service, which in turn has a landing page that hints they may extend the same model to other labels.) Whereas just throwing your music to the winds of the cut-rate services threatens to destroy just the kind of boutique music Ghostly represents, the label suggests that careful curation could rise, not fall, in value in the wake of the cheap fire hose of sounds now available to consumers.

But that’s Ghostly. Let’s listen to some music. It’s especially worth mentioning here in the “hump day” of an autumn work week, as many turn to some of these Ghostly tracks, like the free Music for Ideas compilation, to gain inspiration for getting work done and things made. In particular, Lifehacker spotlighted Tycho in a recent feature. (See their Work Sounds series, and thoughts on whether music really can make you more productive, though I don’t wish to be glib about that on an actual music site.)

Here’s some material to watch and listen, to use as a backdrop to work or dance, or to simply let yourself drift away…

For starters, there’s the 8tracks compilation Ghostly made for itself earlier this month. With cover art by Ghostly design regular Michael Cina, it covers the gamut of recent releases, with appearances by Shigeto, Tycho, Matthew Dear, Com Truise, Jacaszek, Mux Mool, Gold Panda HTRK, plus remixes by Nicolas Jaar, Star Slinger, Teen Daze and King Midas Sound. (I can’t say enough good things about Nicolas Jaar; I’m still working on nailing down an interview. And kudos to 8tracks for being a service with a nicely-designed, clean interface that lends itself well to this sort of track compilation.)

As seen on drownedinsound.com, a good place to discover this sort of thing.

My favorite moment: the chilling, gorgeous Jacaszek track “Elegia,” which apart from its scintillating string and vocal timbres and pads, has a heart-tuggingly melancholy pulsing ostinato that moves the thing forward, before a surprising and satisfying twist in direction at the end. You’ll want to file it away for an icy day. Jacaszek is well worth listening to, generally, with richly-cinematic, Classically-inspired, electro-acoustically-skilled, moving music out of Poland. He’s newly-signed to Ghostly – check out his performance from Poland’s own, legendary Unsound Festival, in the video below:

For that aforementioned mix to boost your productivity, look to Ghostly’s “Music for Ideas” compilation, a free set of downloads celebrating the label’s appearance at a TEDx installment in hometown Detroit. It’s accompanied by an especially-gorgeous, organic Michael Cina explosion of ink and color, seen here. You get more Shigeto, Lusine, Tycho, Mux Mool, Dabrye, and company, but also the likes of Ben Benjamin, Osborne, Solvent:

Ghostly Essentials: Music for Ideas

As they describe it:

A 10 song experience of Ghostly’s artists, each with a unique mood. The Music for Ideas compilation is a joint effort between Ann Arbor-founded Ghostly International and TEDxUofM; it’s release coincides with TEDxUofM 2011: Encouraging Crazy Ideas, the second annual self-organized TED summit at the University of Michigan.

Music for Ideas is meant to awaken the creative flow, the tenet on which TEDxUofM 2011 is based.

If you like that free download, fill up your music collection at this page:
http://www.theghostlystore.com/collections/music-free

MP3.com – yes, there’s still an MP3.com – has a good snapshot of what Ghostly’s about, accompanied by three free downloads. (Ah, free downloads from MP3.com – wow, that takes me back.) Notable: art rock duo out of Melbourne HTRK is one of the downloads, and MP3.com wisely points to the electro-acoustic bent of many Ghostly releases, something often missing from more restrictive electronic labels.

Label of the Week: Ghostly International [MP3.com]

And more HTRK listening: (“Hate Rock,” not to be confused with “Hate Beak,” the heavy metal parrot I have failed to mention for far too long)
http://mp3.com/artist/HTRK

Shigeto has his own mix, as spotted on XLR8R.com, neatly timed to coincide with a tour of Russia and China. (I know we’ve got some Russian and Chinese readers, so do go say hi, and if one of you is handy with a camera, perhaps we can get you a press pass.)

SOB.021 Shigeto by streetsofbeige

Listen to Shigeto’s Mix for Streets of Beige [XLR8R.com, with RU and CN tour dates]

Tycho is on tour now through North America, alongside Swedish rock band Little Dragon, and delivers this tasty remix of that outfit (not to be confused with the experimental outfit Little Dragons, plural):

Little Dragon – Little Man (Tycho Remix) by Tycho

If somehow you’ve missed it, you can follow the exploits of Tycho – including his aesthetic-candy tastes in design and visuals – alongside contributors like Ghostly’s and Moodgadget’s Jakub Alexander, a good place to find goodies for your eyes and ears and play “where is Tycho now”:

http://blog.iso50.com/

And you can see inside Tycho’s studio in some gear pr0n on Wired:
Tycho Shows Off Old-School Synths Used to Craft Dive’s Ethereal Sounds [Wired]
…though, of course, you read CDM, so as the saying goes, there’s nothing there you haven’t seen before.

Gold Panda is featured in a beautifully-produced film of his live performance at a sold-out show at London’s Koko. We previously followed Gold Panda in 2010 – I might add, before this record really blew up – in an in-depth behind-the scenes feature here on CDM:

Gold Panda Interview: Inspiration from Samples, Loved Ones, and Distracting Dogs

See also, from earlier this year:
Gold Panda on Sampling; Moby on Drum Machines

And if all this leaves you wanting to shake your butt around to Matthew Dear – I know there are times when that’s all I want to do – there’s a fantastic, house and techno mix from the label legend in Miami. The next time Berlin gets hit with a frozen ice fog that blots out the few hours of daylight, this is very much getting switched on, at least if I’m not in the mood for staying in messing about with long reverb tails and endless drones.

Matthew Dear DJ Set @ SAFE – Electric Pickle, Miami – 10.22.2011 by Matthew Dear

Ghostly also has a nice approach to YouTube, one worth emulating: in addition to the requisite music videos (I do want my music television), they use the service to tout upcoming releases.

http://www.youtube.com/user/ghostlyintl

If there’s a downside in any of this, it’s that Ghostly is so firmly established as curator and brand that it seems to me it falls on other venues for the kind of experimentation that might lead to future sounds, experimentation that may need to draw outside the lines of what makes Ghostly’s notion of taste so clear. And of course, I’d like to see a release that to me throws caution to the wind, even from Ghostly. At the same time, Ghostly can supply a model for upstart labels that have such aspirations, in the ways in which it crosses media and engages Web networks: there’s a roadmap here for how to thrive, let alone survive, that is not exclusively the domain of a name this well known. Look, learn, and steal.

If you have a label you’d like to see spotlighted, do get in touch. Big and small, you know they’re welcome here. (I have a few things to dig out of my inbox that look tantalizing and go in very different directions, so stay tuned.)

Previously:
Hot for Heat: Warm Up Your Weekend with a Mix from Ghostly’s Moderna (Missy Livington)

After 100 Records, A Bento Box, July Events Full of Ghostly International

Dispatches: Interviewing Lusine on Detroit’s People Mover

And, naturally, for more:
http://ghostly.com/

“Panzer” is beyond any mobile studio you’ve ever seen. It’s basically a tank with speakers and a cockpit containing beat-making gear. (Mackie mixer, Roland sampler, Akai MPC, Korg KAOSS, as near as I can see, plus … the machinery to drive the tank.)

From the description:

Minidumper, Holz, Stahl, Kunstharz, Glasfaser, Audioequipment, Sound
2011

And to make sure it’ll fit in your garage:
H 250 cm x L 350 cm x B 140 cm

Nik Nowak, born in Mainz and based here in Berlin, has a whole portfolio of re-imagined speakers and motorcycles and flames and I’m glad I’m not a curator or art critic because I would be tempted to use phrases like “installations made completely of awesome.”

Nik, if you’re out there, please tell me you still have this and can drive it out to an event. Otherwise, I’ll come to you. Just don’t shoot … or … boom or whatever.

I was going to add the images to this story, but I’m not sure I want to see a takedown notice from Nik. It might actually set me on fire.

Also, Alesis IO Dock: eat your heart out.

http://www.niknowak.de/
http://www.niknowak.de/images/panzer.htm

Alternatively (thanks, Beetlenaut):

Granular synthesis, as described by Iannis Xenakis, imagined sound as constructed from elementary elements. In the work of Zimoun, elementary sonic grains are physical. An undulating wall of cardboard rubs surfaces against one another to form a chorus of sound. Cotton balls roll against boxes in throaty clouds of sound. Wires wriggle like some sort of insect antennae. Below, the newest video of his work, in which cardboard petals form an animated wall of rustling noise.

The results, powered by simple DC motors in kinetic musical action, recall some kind of natural, organic colony. Assembled in structures sculptural and architectural, this is real-world synthesis, constructed mechanically in motion.

The work is elegant, graceful, and witty, not cold and aggressive as are so many sound works. The sounds can be delicate – even assemblages of electric fans.

Zimoun is a Swiss artist whose work has been presented around the US and Europe. He also records music, some of it in surround.

http://www.zimoun.ch/

I hope to see these works in person; if they’re this moving in Internet videos, I can barely imagine seeing them up close. I’ll let the videos speak for themselves.

Okay, I’m not sure the computers can break a sweat (at least not without some serious consequences). But all the people projection-mapping generatively sequencing live audiovisualism electronic thingamabops sure are working hard in the above teaser video for Amon Tobin’s live ‘ISAM’ show. Not a lot of cities get to see the results, but those that do are promised a fully-immersive experience of this sound design extravaganza, complete with new sensory happenings for your eyeballs.

It’s live. It’s audiovisual. It’s not, says Ninja Tune, “DJ-centric.” Amen, brother.

The dates:

1st June – MUTEK, Montreal
9th June – Astra, Berlin
10th June – AB, Brussels
15th June – Melkweg, Amsterdam
17th June – Roundhouse, London

The collaborators:
Blasthaus, San Francisco-based live collective
VSquared Labs, virtuoso visual lab in LA founded by Vello E Virkhaus
Vita Motus Design, another event design shop (not sure about their specific contribution here)
Leviathan and “others” are involved, too.

Another preview, below, features the arresting photography of Tessa Farma’s organic sculptures, though you’ll have to guess at how this work – featured in a touring gallery show – will be interwoven with the motion materials. But whatever’s happening, the ambitions here are compelling.

http://www.amontobinisam.com/

Previously: Listen to Amon Tobin’s Sound Design Magnum Opus ISAM; Commentary, Behind-the-Scenes Details

Packed tightly with interlaced rhythms, set against crisp cool intoned lyrics, the first cut of Brian Eno’s forthcoming “Drums Between the Bells” from Warp can give us all reason to look forward to the summer.

Mr. Eno has been on something of a roll lately. We’ve certainly gone through periods when he wasn’s necessarily in command of electronic headlines in music, even as he contributed in other ways – the 90s brought pioneering work in generative music software and the infamous sound set for Windows, for instance. Now, he’s had back-to-back major releases in recent years.

2008: Spore (the videogame, the soundtrack for which may have overshadowed the actual game title), Everything That Happens Will Happen Today with David Byrne

2009: New live work, score for Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones

2010: Small Craft on a Milk Sea with Jon Hopkins and Leo Abrahams

And now we know what’s coming for summer 2011: Warp Records, July 5, a full-length with Rick Holland entitled “Drums Between the Bells”

The stunning cover image, as much alien patchwork quilt as glitch, is Eno’s own creation. You can preorder vinyl with high-resolution digital for just $21, but $39 gets you the hardback two-CD set with instrumental versions of the tracks (perfect for a late-night painting session when you don’t want to be distracted with poetry), plus a forty-four page book. Typically, such books are superfluous to the musical experience, but here, with Eno himself as accomplished in visual media as musical, they’re almost a no-brainer.

Bleep has your pre-order options.

Give the first track released a listen:

Brian Eno – glitch (taken from Drums Between The Bells) by Warp Records

More details:
http://brian-eno.net
http://warp.net/brian-eno

The Guardian’s take

The poetry

So, who’s this Rick Holland, anyway?

It’s perhaps best answered with his words, which to me sound unaccompanied as though they already have Eno music behind them – the forward-moving staccato cadence, the interwoven reflections of a modern electronic age, the unassuming zen echoes, the amiable ambience of the thing. Here’s his Orange Notebook Philosophy, from his blog:

flutter eyelids against the pillow
flashes behind the eyes

the sounds are computer processors

the mind reflects on itself

on what it can simulate

and it becomes that thing

the imagining becomes event

and event leads to event

so the imagining becomes

in retrospect

equally an event. The computer processor

flutters and electric outbursts

merge data with data

and en route

creates florettes of accidental light

enough to capture the path of animated thought

and divert to a place at once utterly surprising and real within us.

He is mindful of the world around him, but he’s no elitist: he pits the Marquis de Sade against Sasha Fierce.

Read his posterous blog – evidently a new outlet for poetry. Follow him on Twitter (of course).

Rick is musician as well as poet, just as Eno is artist as well as musician, and has various collaborations around London, it seems. Like many of Eno’s collaborations, this one is long-standing, dating to 2002.

http://www.rjholland.com/

And as with Eno’s other recent releases, Eno has a talent for finding other resonant minds to present.

Jim Guthrie was a rockstar long before the iPad was. Paired with pixel-intense artist Craig D. Adams (aka Superbrothers) and the co-design and coding effort of a crack team of video game “wizards” at the indie studio capy, he’s made a soundtrack that’s destined to be a gaming classic. But if you don’t want to play it, you can still listen to it. And if you’re playing it, you may find that it feels as though you’re listening to it, and gazing into its artwork.

From the moment you tap to launch it, Swords & Sworcery plunges you into a world that’s part game, part interactive album. Yes, there’s the obvious presence of a spinning vinyl record you can scratch and brake, right there on the title screen. And yes, there’s the conspicuous “EP” in the title, or the just-released LP (a real LP, on digital but also now sold out on vinyl).

But it’s once you navigate the expansive digital forests of the title, once Jim Guthrie’s moody soundtrack taps away at your brain, that you begin to get it. Sword & Sworcery will certainly get the dreaded (or is that coveted?) “arty” title, but it’s the way in which it spins out audiovisual entertainment that makes it special.

It’s pure aesthetic deliciousness, a brew that makes your head buzz.

And it’s finding that aesthetic sense – neither retro nor modern, neither low-fidelity nor slick – that makes this title relevant beyond even the world of gaming. Jim Guthrie’s songs and the lush pixel art graphics are the perfect fusion of old and new. It’s telling that Guthrie himself crafts his tracks in a combination of a PlayStation music game (MTV-branded, no less), GarageBand, and then high-end Universal Audio plug-ins. (See video above, and have fun gear-spotting familiar toys through the jump cuts.) It’s sort of studio garage, in the way digital music can be now. Its unabashedly synthetic instrumentation gives voice to a generation that grew up with computer-produced music. The musical score itself sometimes nods to Philip Glass, sometimes to punk rock, very often a mixed-up, intimate fantasy folk cinema, with sounds both shiny and flat.

But happily, this isn’t just a game with a clever soundtrack, or a release of game music. It’s a real fusion of album and game, music and visuals. And, lest we get to carried away with the Art label – capital a – music and game alike are good fun.

CDM managed to pry co-creators Craig D. Adams and Jim Guthrie from an adoring gaming press long enough to talk to us in depth about the making of the music and release, down to every last technical and artistic detail. They said so much – and crossed two media so completely – that I’ve broken up their ideas into two stories, across Create Digital Music and Create Digital Motion. Their reasoning for committing to those two media has a lot in common, I think, with why we run these two sites and why a lot of you read and contribute to them.

Out now: both an LP music release on Bandcamp and iPad version. Coming this month: recent-gen iPod touch and iPhone versions of the game, too.

Jim Guthrie: Sword & Sworcery LP – The Ballad of the Space Babies @ Bandcamp
http://www.swordandsworcery.com/project/

Let’s begin with the notion of this as musical-visual collaboration. Obviously, some of our favorite game experiences have used music effectively. What’s different about this project?

Craig:The iPhone & iPod Touch, and the iPad to some extent, don’t have an input style that lends itself to precise inputs. So, it seems to me that a lot of traditional video games seem to fall a bit flat on these platforms. The thing is, these machines are great music and video players, so we knew going in that we wanted to make something that was as open and as laid-back as a record-listening experience matched with a naturalistic visual presentation inspired by film, so that was really the starting point. We also felt that a more relaxed, more occasional, less punishing, more interesting experience would be a better fit, something that was closer in pace to browsing the Internet or whatever. Early on we were calling S:S&S EP “a brave experiment in Input Output Cinema.” I/O Cinema is kind of an intentionally absurd nonsense buzzword but I think it’s perfectly apt for this type of entertainment, it’s a heckuva lot more descriptive than ‘videogame’ anyways, in that it gets away from the idea of a program with rules and win/lose conditions and it puts the focus more on the conversation the audience has with the creators while the audience pokes, prods & problem-solves an authored audiovisual creation.

How did you work together, Superbrothers and Jim, to combine music and visually? What was that collaboration like?

Craig: When we looped Jim into the project in we told him the name, described the aesthetic, talked a bit about The Legend of Zelda & Castlevania, and then Jim dug around and found a few songs he thought might fit. I went ahead and tried to generate art & narrative concepts using Jim’s songs or else stand-ins to set the mood. As we started to mix things together we’d evaluate, iterate & improvise. Eventually we’d get into situations where me and Kris, Capy’s creative director and co-designer on S:S&S EP, would have a plan for an environment or a scene or a situation, and we’d get the art & the mechanics together and then pass along a rough build to Jim with some kind of suggestion like ‘go John Carpenter on this one’ or whatever, and then Jim’d work his magic, filter the concept through his music-making mind and barf up something totally beautiful & shockingly perfect. So yeah, it was a messy process, but towards the end we kind of got a feel for it, I think it all worked out super well.

Jim: It wasn’t always clear if the art needed to inspire more music or the other way around, but it was a very necessary process considering the relation the two elements share in the game.

Technically speaking, is there anything unique to the way the music integrates with game play? How did you approach the technical challenge there, in other words?

Craig: For the music integration aspect, we really just made things up as we went along. We tried some things; some of them worked, some of them didn’t. Then we’d iterate on them or revise them as necessary. We tried chopping things up into a million loops and then stringing them back together with logic, and it kind worked, but was kinda rough, so then we’d revise it or refine it. Eventually we started to figure out a bit of a groove – we learned what the limits were with the machines & the quirks of fMOD [the game sound engine]. We’re a whole lot wiser now, but I think it was a positive thing going into something like this a bit naive.

Jim: Technically, there’s nothing in this game that hasn’t been done before. We sort of ‘stood on the shoulders of giants’ and made it our own. It’s more about the mood and atmosphere that the music and art create that is special. Like Craig said, we made things up as we went.

From the beginning, we knew it was very possible that this would be released digitally as an album, but it wasn’t until a little later on that the idea of vinyl struck us as a good idea. You would think it was all planned from the beginning considering how often the image of the record appears in the game but it sort of willed itself in that direction over time.

It’s always tough to describe the process of summoning one’s art. After we had sort of figured out what the first few tracks were going to be, I just let Craig’s art and ideas lead the way and I reacted. It also really comes down to knowing your craft and what tools you use to create with. Once you figure that out the tools don’t get in the way when you’re hot on the trail of a fleeting melody. There’s noting worse than loosing that spark because a technical issue. Computers have robbed me of so many musical sparks, but to be fair, they have given it back tenfold.

I will give into the temptation to ask one obvious question – what does it mean that it’s an EP? Obviously, it’s a reference to the notion of a game release as being akin in some way to an album, but anything beyond that you wish to say?

Craig:The EP concept goes back to the start of the project – we wanted to put the sound component right out front. We wanted the whole project to feel like a musical composition, and at first we wanted to make something small and acknowledge that this was a tentative first release by a new videogame ‘band.’ The project grew from ther,e and it goes well beyond the 37 minute running-time we had originally envisioned, but everything else fits.

We had always planned to prepare a record release to accompany the project and when the time came to commit to this we basically had to make a vinyl edition, and Jim basically just put that into gear on his own… so that became Jim Guthrie’s Sword & Sworcery LP – The Ballad of the Space Babies. While the record is a smaller component of the project in terms of man-hours, the music on its own is kind of larger than the art and the story we tried to create in the actual videogame, so I think it’s kind of perfect that it’s the LP.

Jim, the music really has a quirky personality all its own, and I think it’d be too easy to describe it aesthetically. How did you approach scoring the music, in finding a voice for this title?

Craig: Several of Jim’s songs pre-date the project, so they informed the aesthetic & concepts from the start. My role early on was to translate the music into artwork & narrative that would fit the general idea of the project. But yeah, beyond that I’ll let Jim fill in the blanks here!

What’s the production process like for the music itself?

Jim: I captured all of the music either on a PlayStation using MTV’s Music Generator and/or
[Apple] GarageBand. For example, on the song, ‘Lone Star,’ I drummed a beat onto a cassette four-track, burned that onto a CD, placed the CD into the PlayStation, sampled and looped in MTV Music Generator,
and then built a song around it using that software. THEN I brought it into GarageBand and added more layers and effects. I also used a [Casio] SK-1 peppered throughout. In terms of plug-ins and soft synths, I used a lot of the Arturia stuff, [Native Instruments] Kontakt, [XLN Audio] Addictive Drums, [Toontracks] Superior Drummer, and a [Universal Audio] UAD-2 card loaded with a bunch of their processing plug-ins.

Not all games are narrative, and I’ve never found conventional narrative to be a prerequisite to art (cough, Ebert). But there is a strong narrative aspect to this title, too. How do you go about telling a story and building a game mechanic at once? (And, for that matter, do you still scrawl things on index cards to get there?)

Craig: It’s funny, we are getting some positive responses to S:S&S EP’s narrative, but really, the narrative only exists to make sense of the player’s experience; it’s not exactly ‘the point.’ We started with the songs, then the art, then the mechanics that would bring it together. And while the broad narrative concepts were always there, it was only in the final stages that the script came together, and really it’s just a way for us to help communicate what’s supposed to be going on. I was on the line to write the script, and for a good long while, it kinda sucked while I was buried under art, sound & design tasks, but I kept iterating on it, editing it for brevity, clarity, and humor, with Jim and Kris and a few others kinda guiding the process.

So yeah, I guess we did some okay things with narrative, and I’m actually super-proud of the mind-fuck tear-jerker heart-breaker finale, but I think the only reason any of it comes across is because of Jim’s music wrapped up in paintings. And really, Jim’s songs are all the narrative I ever wanted.

Now that you’ve become gaming rockstars, what’s next?

Jim: A bottle of vodka?

Craig: Hahahaha… Jim’s already a rockstar, so this stuff is probably old news. I think we’re definitely enjoying our fifteen minutes of fame in this very specific niche, and I’ve been trying – maybe too hard – to keep that buzz going so the project stays visible as we gear up for the all-important iPhone & iPod Touch launch. Once all that’s out of the way, I’m really just looking forward to some quiet time: bike rides, swimming, hiking, and whatever else.

We’ll keep the Sword & Sworcery project rolling along in the background too. We have plans for a gala event here in Toronto in a few months and some other schemes related to the app itself that’ll last the year & maybe into next year. We’ve been given a real opportunity here & we want to continue to honor that.

What are you excited about in gaming – or, for that matter, audiovisual work – at the moment, beyond your own work? Anything you’re listening to, watching, playing (or all three) at the moment?

Jim: Honestly, I went into my iTunes to have a look at my ‘Recently Played’ list and for as far as the eye could see, it’s all stuff I’m working on. No time for art! Just work!

Craig: I’ve been too busy and too exhausted to be paying much attention to what’s happening out there in videogames, film or music. To be honest, what I’m most excited about right now is the prospect of getting some fresh air and some exercise, maybe getting away from electronic screens for a bit sometime, and then after a little break maybe starting on some new creative work.

I had the opportunity to see 2001: A Space Odyssey in theaters a few months ago. I’d seen it a few times before but only on VHS… so that was a real treat, it’s an entirely different film in the theaters, there’s so much more to enjoy. I’m also a huuuge fan of Kanye West’s “Runaway.” I think that’s a genuinely incredible piece of audiovisual work; Vanessa Beecroft’s art direction really shines. Banksy’s Exit Through The Gift Shop and James Cameron’s Avatar blew me away too, for entirely different reasons. I’ve just recently seen my friend Firas Momani’s Fantasia Festival award-winning short film The Adder’s Bite & it gave me all those groovy Cronenberg + Lynch + Kubrick feelings, very inspiring.

On the video game side I’m still intermittently playing Motorstorm: Pacific Rift for PS3, a 2008 effort from Liverpool’s Evolution Studios that I think is basically perfect, plus I’m digging in to Monster Hunter Tri on Wii. I’m playing Monster Hunter co-operatively with a couple friends every Sunday morning… we’re still just scratching the surface but it’s easily the most intricate and deep video game I’ve ever played, which takes me way outside of my comfort zone in an interesting way. I’m also cautiously optimistic about L.A. Noire, Uncharted 3, and The Last Guardian… we’ll see how they work out in the end.

On the music side, I’ve been listening to Jim’s Sword & Sworcery LP… even though I’ve heard these tunes so much in the last two years that my ears hurt, the record itself still comes across as beautiful & fresh, the songs still evoke all kinds of imaginings. That record aside I’ve got a heckuva lot of catching up to do… but first I have to give my ears a bit of a break. That said, I’m amped for the Beastie Boys record that’s hitting in the next little while.

All images courtesy Superbrothers and Jim Guthrie. Used with permission.

Do let us know what you think of the game, folks – or whatever audiovisual creations, in the form of games or otherwise, inspire you.

More on the art, the design, the coding – and why Superbrothers went iOS-only.

On our sister site:
Inside Handheld Game Art: The Art Style and Making of Swords & Sworcery, Superbrothers Pixel Cinema [Create Digital Motion]

And, oh yeah, don’t forget to get the game:
http://www.swordandsworcery.com/

Working with music in software means thinking a bit like a music box maker, using sequences to create note and rhythm machines. Nick Rothwell sends a project in which he literally engages the mechanical music box, with rotating electro-magnetic discs and a set of digital devices that recall their 19th-century predecessors. The designs are modular, interconnecting with one another into a little music box ensemble. And in another sign of the influence of the design of the monome, they explicitly nod to that hardware and its community as an aesthetic cue. (I have to admit, though, I’m more envious of this than the new arc.)

At the heart of the piece is a custom-made electro-magnetic rotary sequencer. Melodies are stored on a series of interchangeable, acrylic, 10” disks embedded with small magnets arranged in a regular circular grid. In the same way vinyl records are located on a turntable these disks are centered on a spindle and rotate over a ‘play head’ made up of a line of magnetic field sensors – effectively replicating but superseding the set of pins on the revolving cylinder that pluck the tuned teeth of a steel comb in the traditional device. Additional units are ‘daisy-chained’ to each other via single cables and include a self contained and controllable sound source (to hear and effect the musical output) and an animated representation of a dancing ballerina automaton – realised as a modern-day interpretation of the praxinoscope (the successor to the zoetrope – the popular visual parlour toy of its era – but which improved on it by replacing its narrow viewing slits with an inner circle of mirrors).

Inspired by the design of the second generation monome.org controllers these modular components draw on their minimalist design aesthetic and utilise a similar restricted material palette of walnut, brushed aluminium, translucent acrylic, and orange LEDs.

Nick aka Cassiel is part of the Monomatic trio, which:

…was initiated in 2007 as a collaboration, experimental playground and halfway house between the work of Anthony Rowe of squidsoup – art, research and play in creative interaction design using sound, physical and virtual space – and Lewis Sykes then of The Sancho Plan – a progressive audiovisual collective who explore the realtime interaction between music and video. Monomatic has since evolved and the current line up now includes Nick Rothwell a.k.a Cassiel – a composer, performer, software architect, programmer and sound designer.

http://www.monomatic.net/modular-music-box/

The work was shown as part of London’s Kinetica, an exhibition of kinetic art over the weekend.

Rotating music box-style wheels is an elemental design in musical machines, which means there are countless works one could mention here. I’ll leave that to comments, though, because I imagine you’ll think of a few examples I haven’t. Fire away.

Here’s an early visualization Nick did of an unrelated project, rendered in Max for Live. I love the circular visualization; I’ve played with some similar sketches myself in Processing, but not in Max. Like a wheel inside a wheel…

What could audiovisual art made for tablets look like? Some dismiss the results as “toys.” The creators of Thicket embrace that very role. Thicket, the product of electronic A/V artists Morgan Packard and Joshue Ott, is intended as a kind of immersive distraction, filling the screen of an Apple handheld or iPad with clouds of abstract color and ambient sound. Free of controls or widgets, playing with Thicket is a bit like sticking your hand into a mist, more gently responsive than overtly interactive.

It’s also lovely, and – for the moment – free. As an experiment, Josh and Morgan are offering up Thicket free of charge on the store, meaning those of you with appropriate devices can try it out as you read.

http://apps.intervalstudios.com/thicket/

A lot of what you read about iOS development and the new “app” markets in general tends to blur into generalities. You’d also be forgiven for assuming the “app” is a gold rush even for avant-garde digital artists. Instead, the picture from Morgan and Josh is subtler. They concede their work may have niche appeal, and view the iPad and iPhone not just as a hot, new market, but as part of a longer narrative of audiovisual expression.

Along the way, they’ve got some tips for learning to develop software, reflections on how interaction can work and why even a baby can play with their creation, and some insight into how their project worked as musical, visual collaboration and not just software creation.

If you had to classify Thicket, how would you describe it?

Morgan: Thicket is a toy. We can get a little more descriptive and call it an audiovisual toy.

Josh: I’d call it portable moving artwork…

What was the original impetus for the idea behind Thicket? What sparked this particular, somewhat abstract notion of how you might interact with sound and image?

Josh: I had been talking about making something for iOS for over a year, ever since Apple released the first SDK, but had been unable to find the time. The impending release of the iPad and Morgan’s interest provided me with the motivation I needed to actually start something. We decided to choose from favorite moments of our past collaborative efforts and find something we could make pretty quickly. Thicket came from one such moment in the “Unsimulatable” DVD/performance that accompanied Morgan’s first album, Airships Fill the Sky. We had referred to this moment (fondly) as the “ball of string”. That particular moment came from multiple experiments and jam sessions with my superDraw program and Morgan’s Ripple program. That was the seed, and once we had that seed, using the unique features of the iOS devices to alter/enhance/affect what was happening seemed fairly natural.

Morgan: My approach to sound for Thicket comes out of a desire to piggyback on the natural ways people want to touch Josh’s graphics. I didn’t want to have any sort of fiddly controls — knobs, sliders, buttons, menus. I simply wanted to sonically respond to the natural, casual interactions which Josh’s visuals encourage. Typically, music apps for mobile devices have a number of controls — buttons, sliders, knobs. And they use simple XY position as a primary source of musical or synthesis parameters. Neither of those input sources — control widgets, or xy position — is compatible with the natural way one wants to interact with Josh’s visuals, so I had to use some different sources of music input — finger speed and multipe touches. I’m really interested in finding other gestural means of input which play nicely with the control of visuals.

While it began on handhelds, Thicket really seems to benefit from being on the tablet form factor on the iPad. What does that device mean to you as a canvas for work?

Josh: It’s a pretty exciting device to work with. As we’ve improved it over the year, we’ve found that we are more and more focused on the experience on the tablet rather than on the phone.

Morgan: I don’t want to discourage anyone from using Thicket on a phone. We’ve made sure the phone experience is solid since the first version. But I’ll admit that Thicket really shines on the iPad. I was a reluctant iPad buyer. I only bought one because Josh forced me to! But now that I have one, I’ve developed quite a passion for it. It’s a seductively humanizing and ergonomic little machine. It’s very book-like, which is a good sign. There’s a reason books are the size and shape they are. Their form has been under development for hundreds of years. The iPad allows us to reach people when they’re in that curl-up-with-a-book mode: relaxed, comfortable, attentive.

Back when multimedia CD-ROMs were what some artists saw as the future (which wound up being both wrong and right, depending on how you look at it), I remember Morton Subotnik talking about his vision for this stuff. He described these devices as a kind of “chamber” experience – the personal quality of them being a strength. What does it mean to the two of you to be able to distribute work to someone on a mobile computer, and not only in a performance or gallery?

Morgan: The mobile art experience has been around as long as radio, so I’m not sure I consider Thicket revolutionary in that sense. I’ve been making music recordings for years which most people experience in solo settings. However, the community aspect of art-making is very important to me. I love performing, and I love what happens when you get a crowd of people together. If we want to test out the “chamber experience” analogy, we can compare the experience of using Thicket to the experience of listening to live (western classical) chamber music. When you listen to the chamber music, you’re out in some sort of venue, you’re setting next to people, probably strangers, you’re in a public place, physically participating in something collective and cultural. Using an app on your own, no matter how artistic that app is, doesn’t have any of that meatspace cultural thing built in to it. The Smule folks have done a great job of allowing you to interact over the Internet with other people using their apps. But I still place a lot of value on getting people physically together in the same space, experiencing the same sounds, the same sights, the same vibe, and actually being interact with one another in the physical world. I’d love to find ways to create software which encourages more connection between people. But on the other hand, sometimes it’s good to recognize what things software is good for, and when it’s time to be a little more old-fashioned.

Josh: I think the most exciting aspect of these devices for me (besides the general human augmentation that all of them increasingly offer us) is their potential to augment the way we communicate in an artistic way. I’ve been exploring this in my performance based work for a while now (performance that involves the audience in new ways, like the multi-user art show earlier this year), but I’m really excited to approach it even more organically, more like little ad-hoc multi-player games that happen to create something aesthetically compelling.

We’ve also seen Thicket adapted to a gallery installation (at TEDxBrooklyn) and theoretically it could be used in live performance. Is this something you’ve been able to perform with, as well? Do you think it’s possible to build a piece that could be both your performance tool and something an end user can pick up?

Josh: I’ve really enjoyed experimenting with how Thicket can be framed (sometimes literally) as a piece of art on a wall. The iPad itself is just big enough to be framed and hung, and people seem to really enjoy interacting with it this way. Another fun use I’ve discovered for it was projecting it on the ceiling for my 4 year old daughter as a moving night light. Thicket was never really designed to be a performance tool, although it’s arguably started to move in that direction. Building a performance tool that is still fun and accessible for everyone, while giving more focused users the flexibility they need, is one of my goals for the next year. I’m not sure whether that will be Thicket or something new, but will definitely be approaching it as something I will use myself for my own performances.

Morgan: I’m wary of allowing Thicket to become too much of a tool. I’d rather make it a better toy. Performers need tools, not toys. For now, I’ll be sticking with Ripple, my performance/composition software for my own music. And trying to make Thicket an easier, richer, and more delightful world to explore.

Game designers have long thought about challenge, reward, and even failure states. And as a result, some of their creations are truly long-form — it’s not uncommon for someone to complain about a 20- or 30-hour game being too short. One of the criticisms of art on devices like the iPhone has been that thing tend to become quickly-digestible toys – perhaps calibrated to the kind of interaction design artists have done traditionally. How do you respond to that criticism? How did you tackle questions of states of interaction in Thicket?

Josh: Being a fairly avid gamer, and having just read a profile in the New Yorker about Shigeru Miyamoto (Nintendo’s Mario creator) I’m really excited about the intersection between art and games. I know this topic is a bit tired, but I’m approaching it from the art side rather than the “gamer” side, and that’s interesting to me. While Thicket isn’t a 20-30 hour experience (though it could be argued that its open ended-ness makes the experience ultimately unquantifiable), making Thicket a deeper experience has been one of our major goals this year. (I think we’re definitely on the right track with our 2.0 update that hit in November.) Games that allow players to be creative in how they play, from open world games like Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto series, to games where traditional goals can be accomplished in a variety of ways (Bioshock, etc.), to games where creativity is part of the game itself (World of Goo, Noby Noby Boy, Captain Forever), have offered players deeper experiences and replayability. I’m really excited to see these two worlds collide, and possibly try to experiment with that collision in my own work.

Morgan: I am decidedly _not_ an avid gamer, though Josh diligently continues to try and convert me. But I’m intrigued by the idea of guiding a user experience, creating some sort of progression a user (or player) travels through. On the other hand, I’m not sure that’s necessary. There’s room in the world for idle playthings with no specified goal. Take those little magnetic Buckyballs, for example. They’re simply fun and satisfying to play with. They’re wildly popular despite the fact that they’re completely open-ended, with no challenge/reward/failure built in to them. A difference between that toy and Thicket is the range of what you’re able to create with them. We’ve been getting regular suggestions from users asking for the ability to add their own sounds and pictures. I have no idea how we would do this. But it may be that what people are really asking for is greater control, a greater range of end results that they’re able to produce. I’d like to come up with ways to do that without losing the casual, playful spirit that Thicket has now — and without adding any sliders!

Working on Thicket meant collaborating not only aesthetically, but technically. How did the two of you work together, especially as you were in different cities?

Josh: There was (and is) a weekly video chat where we discuss our status, what we’re doing… and we’re of course using an SVN [Subversion version control system] on the technical side to share code. Surprisingly, collaborating technically across a long distance has been quite painless.

Morgan: It’s pretty easy for sound and visuals code not to step on each others’ toes. We have a shared set of data we can examine for things like touch position and speed, and mode changes. Other than that, we’re pretty much in our own sandboxes code-wise. We did do a bit of coordination to syncronize mode changes to tempo. As Josh mentioned, a shared code repository — the Subversion software in our case — is absolutely indispensable.

I know a bit about your coding background – Josh having worked in Processing/Java and Flash, Morgan in SuperCollider. What was the process of learning iOS development like? How was the learning curve? Any lessons learned you can share?
Josh: It definitely has been harder than I thought it would be. Coming from [Flash/Flex] ActionScript and Java, I feel like I had to learn three new languages at once: Objective-C, Apple’s Cocoa Touch framework, and OpenGL. Learning about pointers and handling memory was a big challenge. I would highly recommend the (FREE) Stanford iPhone Application Programming course available on iTunes: It was a huge help for getting started and I still am kind of amazed that you can audit a very well put-together class like this for free.

Morgan: I’ve been comparing the move from higher-level languages to the lower-level iOS environment to stepping out of a go-cart and in to a helicopter. Not only was I learning new languages (C, Objective-C, C++), I was dealing with raw audio data for the first time. Honestly, I’m still in the steep part of the learning curve, though things are beginning to feel a little easier. It’s pretty difficult to simply figure out how to send raw audio data to the speaker, which is necessary if you want to do any dsp. This example project helped me quite a bit with that:
http://sites.google.com/site/iphonecoreaudiodevelopment/remoteio-playback

Morgan, you ultimately decided to code sound from scratch. This was your first project to do that, correct? What led you to that solution, and how did you approach it?

Morgan: Without rolling a significant amount of my own code, I would have been limited to very basic techniques — file playback and looping, pretty much. Most of the audio in Thicket is based just on manipulating loop lengths and playback start points. But even though the techniques I use are quite simple, I wasn’t able to find a higher-level sound library which could do exactly what I needed. Also, I didn’t want to get locked in to something which wouldn’t be flexible enough for me in the future. Unless there’s a really powerful tool available which I’m confident I can grow in to for a very long time, I’m more working at low level and building more things from scratch.

Josh has talked with me a bit about how he feels the iTunes App Store and the Apple ecosystem on iOS, for all the criticism it has garnered, has really made Thicket possible. What was it that drew you to iOS? What is it that Apple is able to provide for you, in terms of hardware, software, development experience, or user experience?

Josh: Apple really does have excellent documentation and support for their SDK. That’s one of a number of reasons why we chose to develop for iOS. Another reason is actually the small number of devices that iOS runs on: from a development perspective, it makes things much easier to test… Then there’s the solidity of the Apple’s hardware and multitouch implementation in general.

Morgan: I like the way the Apple devices and OSs look and feel. It’s a dumb emotional judgement, but sometimes you’ve got to follow that. I also like the fact that people using Apple devices are really into their apps. I wanted to be part of that party.

Do you think there’s potential on new platforms – ranging from Web app stores to Android or Windows and Linux tablets – to do the same thing? Or is there something Apple was able to do for you that was unique? Is there anything those platforms can learn from Apple?

Morgan: We chose Apple in large part simply because that platform seemed to be where the action was. I think we probably could have built Thicket for another tablet platform and the product would have been fine. But I also think fewer people would have downloaded, and we wouldn’t have felt encouraged in the way that we were. We might not have made the version 2 update, which has been much more successful than version 1. At this point, for us to transfer time and energy away from iOS development toward another platform, we’d need to see someone else having significant success selling artsy apps. It’s too big an investment to try another platform simply as an experiment. When we see another app store really taking off, on a device which we can feel some love for, we may reconsider.

How has this business of selling an “app” worked out for you? And why try going free?
Josh: I wish I could say Thicket’s paying the rent, but it’s really not. I think the (emerging) art market on the App store is relatively new, and harder to find (as Apple doesn’t give us a real category in the App Store). The fact that they have a Generative Art & Sound category in their 2010 “best of” list [iTunes link] (which Thicket happens to be in!) suggests this may change in the future. We never really expected it to do well financially and are pretty thrilled when people seem to like it. Making it free is an experiment of sorts. It allows a lot of people who wouldn’t ordinarily try Thicket to do so.

Morgan: I had very low expectations for how many people would be interested in Thicket, and they’ve been clearly exceeded. I’m excited that (a modest number of) people are actually spending money on our art! Sales are much better for Thicket than they’ve ever been for any recorded music I’ve released. Originally we thought Thicket would be a sort of experimental, niche product, and we’d price it a bit high. It seems to have a bit wider appeal than we expected though, and a lower price allows us to reach more people, while still making some money. Going free for the holidays is a way of testing just how wide the appeal is.

Have you seen other interactive creations – on iOS or elsewhere – that you’ve found inspiring?
Josh: I’ve mentioned a couple of games that I play; here’s more stuff.

For PC: Windosill (really everything by Patrick Smith, AKA Vectorpark, is just amazingly beautiful.)

Superbrothers have also inspired me quite a bit…

Machinarium is also really good.

Interactive artwork I’ve been inspired by this year on iOS: Uzu, Sonic Wire Sculptor.

Games (also iOS): The Incident, Acrobots, Enviro-Bear (also on Android)

Morgan: I think BubbleHarp is great. I love the butterfly effect aspect of it — tiny differences in the way you set it up result in huge differences in what you see. Bloom is classy and beautiful, and was a great example of how to create a sequencer without forcing a bunch of fiddly controls on a user. Using Uzu makes me feel like a god.

What’s next for your collaboration (or personal projects)?
Josh: Both of us want to continue to make Thicket better. It’s becoming an outlet for artistic experimentation for ourselves, and we are seriously considering how to involve others as well. Additionally I have lots of ideas and I’m hoping to also release a bunch more software next year: some artistic, some performance based, some more game-like.

Morgan: The next thing we want to try with Thicket is in-app purchase of new modes. It will be really satisfying to have this platform we can be continually adding to. I’m a bit anxious to start devoting a bit more energy toward live performance. I don’t want to get so stuck inside the iPad that I forget that I was once a performing, travelling musician.

Thanks to Morgan and Josh for the insight. See also a superb interview, with code, at the always-excellent Disquiet, which focuses on the sonic and compositional aspects of the app…

BEING DECIMAL: THE ANTICIPATORY PLEASURES OF THE THICKET APP [Disquiet / Marc Weidenbaum]

For more interactive iOS goodness, also free, try Josh’s Snowdrift – not that certain people associated with the East Coast of the United States, or London, among other places, really need an app for that at the moment.
Snowdrift @ iTunes

While Mac blog TUAW calls on Apple to kill optical drives (does Apple need that kind of encouragement?), the shiny digital compact disc and the album in general still have their devotees. Sure, album sales are down. Sure, digital downloads are in. But look beyond business or practicality for a moment at these exotic hand-constructed musical objects, and what you see is sheer love. A hand-constructed CD or vinyl album is a gesture of making music for someone, not for the ether.

I raised the issue early last month, and readers responded with lots of examples of handmade records, which I round up here. (And yes, practical, it’s not – a number of you complained that hand-construction is a lot of work. It’s clearly best kept to small runs, but then, I think that’s part of the point.)

Also, last month at NYC’s wonderful Culturefix, a handful of us got together and constructed some handmade discs. It’s definitely something you could do at an album swap meet with other artists and DJs in an afternoon or evening, and it makes the swap feel more meaningful. Pics at top; I hope we do more of these.

If this is the way the CD goes out, I think it’ll go out with style. And whatever the trends in the larger world, who’s to deny you your tangible album, really?

(About the end of the CD – I can tell you that demos, album reviews, music bought at shows, and the like are still very much tangible. Until flash memory is cheaper than CDs, I expect that’ll remain the case.)

First off, a vinyl album – but the process of hand-making these vinyl jackets is already lovely. moni writes:

We hand sprayed album covers for Ruoho Ruotsi’s Hmmm … album (De’fchild Productions release 003) Different colors were used to make each one a little bit different. Hard work, but rewarding. These came out nicely!

The electro-pop band Miaoux Miaoux did a custom run of 100 hand-knitted CDs to benefit Cancer Research and Maggie’s, available for a donation. They also included full-color artwork:

http://miaouxmiaoux.com/album/knitted

My favorite of the round-up is the work of Atlanta-based artist magicicada, who makes handmade boxes full of “surprises” – exquisite photography and unspecified collections of nine songs, packaged in a box made of mud. He also performs music live. (Thanks for the tip, tender vittles!) More images on his site:

http://magicicada.com/

Mugison makes his own CDs, as viewed in this lovely timelapse. (Thanks, Derrida! I assume not that Derrida, but…)

Hey, they’re flat, they’re round, they’re absurdly cheap, they store a good hour of lossless audio, and you can actually hand them to someone. There’s something to be said for that. Now I hope someone takes on the idea of using generative algorithms to make one-of-a-kind album covers en masse.

Previously: Reclaim the Album’s Soul: Tips for Handmade CD Artwork, Make One Sunday

Lots of music hitting the inbox this week, from Reznor scoring a movie about Facebook to Ghostly giving away rarities.

Trent Reznor and bandmate Atticus Ross have scored The Social Network, and created a shadowy, throbbing musical landscape that I feel perfectly fits a biopic of geekdom’s dark underbelly. (The music mischievously asks, is it possible to be a bit seedy, lusty, and dorky at the same time?) They’ve also given away the first five tracks, and if you buy in the US on the 28th and 29th next week, you can get the whole thing for three bucks. Insert silly reference here to “hitting the Like button” or “friending something” like I keep hearing in the mainstream press every time this movie comes up. It’s totally going to be better than Pirates of Silicon Valley. (Okay, that goes without saying…)

Soundtrack: http://www.nullco.com/TSN/
News @ NIN

Our friends at Percussion Lab have been going absolutely nuts lately. Let’s first catch up with what they’ve been giving to us. Daedalus’ live set at the grungy, scene-y Santos Party House in TriBeCa is available for full download, a monome-powered, musical shot of energy drink. “I’ve been developing a little bit of a sweet tooth for tempo,” says Daedelus before launching into a frenetic live set.

Daedelus – Live from Santos Party Haus

If all that sugar gives you a head/toothache, here’s an alternative way to go at PercussionLab. It’s a scintillating, glowing assemblage of “beatless” (but pulsing and vibrating) sounds made for an art museum. Nicely assembled, and fantastic for chilling or coding.

Melodic Shapes by James Healy (Escape Art, Air Texture)
Sound Mix for Leo Villareal at the San Jose Museum of Art

Repeating sonic structures, creating melodic shapes, may form iconic pathways into abstract thought. Nice work by James Healy. It’s a perfect match for Leo Villareal’s visual work.
Tracklisting:

Loscil “Fern and Robin”, Antonio Trinchera “Just To See You Tomorrow”, bvdub “I Knew Happiness Once”, Mick Chillage “Hypothermia”, Antonio Trinchera “The Wind Make Himself”, Schwanbeck “Glow”, Aquadorsa “Daylight Fading Into Evening Silence”, Ulf Lohmann “Kristall”, Antonio Trinchera “Voce Falena”, Ulf Lohmann “My Pazifik”, John Barry “Out of Africa”, Klimek “for Michael Gira and Vladmir Ivanovich”, Loscil “Hyphae”

http://www.sjmusart.org/content/leo-villareal

Escape Art Melodic Shapes for Leo Villareal

Lastly, Burial and Kode9 assembled a set for the last BBC Radio 1 show hosted by Mary Anne Hobbs. (See that news, previously on CDM.)

Finally, some retrospectives from two titantic and well-loved electronic labels this month:

Ninja Tune turns 20, and also happen to be giving away an epic mix by founders Coldcut to anyone who registers for (or signs in) to their site.

I’m sure we’ll be seeing plenty of Ninja Tune coverage as they reach this landmark, but for eMusic users, legendary electronic music journalist Philip Sherburne chooses classics and essentials from their catalog. At eMusic prices, this could be a cheap way to round out your collection.

Starting this month, there are huge party events planned around the world.

And, of course, there’s the enormous, collectible Ninja Tune XX box set, as pictured above. You can hear samples on SoundCloud, below.

Heck, there’s even an iTunes app, though… well, to be honest, I don’t quite get it. It just plays tracks and tells you about releases, both of which your Web browser does just fine. Maybe I’m more old-fashioned than I thought; I’d rather sprawl out on the sofa with the box set and a pair of cans.

Ninja Tune XX Box Set Previews (CDs 1-4 only) by Ninja Tune XX

Not to be outdone, younger label Ghostly International has a free second volume of rarities which is hitting repeat in my player.

Highlights include Matthew Dear’s “Stab In The Backs”; Mobius Bands’ “You’re Wrong (Benoit Piouluard Remix)”; and Christopher Willits’ “Orange Lit Spaces (Electricwest Remix)”.

Those were some obvious choices; there’s more in my inbox and pile of things to hear, so watch for more, and keep it coming, music makers.