How nerdster-chic is this: a global convergence of the exploration of space exploration, ecological savvy, technological innovation, and musical-motional performance, in honor of Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin launching the first-ever human flight into space? Described as “Cinco de Mayo” for space, Yuri’s Night is a 35-nation cosmorave. It was big last year. It’s going to be much bigger this year.

What’s all this space stuff got to do with music and motion? Everything: music and visual performance are a big part of this party, as Sun Ra-loving, space-inspired, Space Age technologist artists push creative tech. (Amon Tobin is headlining, Will Wright is keynote speaker.) Winter Music what? I want my space fiesta.

Attention, Cosmonauts

CDM is involved, and you can be, too, wherever you are in the world:

California, here we come: If you’re anywhere near greater San Francisco, you’re going to want to clear your calendar on April 12 for Yuri’s Night Bay Area at NASA Ames Research Center. It’s the main party, right in NASA’s Earth-bound back yard. There’s a massive musical lineup and various live visuals and interactive installations, plus space geekery galore, and Will Wright (he wowed NASA’s real-life space scientists with his procedural virtual cosmos in his upcoming game Spore). Buy those tickets while they’re still available.

We need help, Californians! Photographers and videographers, we can use your help covering the event. Like much of this event, it’s volunteer-only, but if you send me a link to some of your past work, I can help secure an official press pass for CDM; if you’re a pro, I’m happy to help promote your work. Drop me a line. I can’t get press passes for everybody, so definitely send some samples — and everyone else, we’ll have a group on Vimeo and Flickr.

Online coverage: Stay tuned to CDM for the latest on how visual and sonic technology and artists are connecting to outer space. We’ve got a new, dedicated site in collaboration with the folks running the flagship Yuri’s Night Bay Area — yuricdm.com — so we can talk to the artists and cover all the projects.

In your part of the world: Wherever you are, you can launch your own Yuri’s Night party. Host a party and register it with the global network (see how to party info). It’s a bit late, theoretically, but we’ve thrown together some cool CDM events in short order and we’ll help you promote your event here on CDM. Judging by Google Analytics, I know we have a lot of CDM readers in London, Sydney, Paris, Chicago, Berlin, Melbourne, and Seattle. (No, really — in that order. Go figure. Moscow’s there, too — #42, getting beat by Atlanta, Georgia, so I think we need some Cosmonauts getting involved.)

Hello, Ames Research Center!

Yuri’s Night will be happening worldwide, but the lineup for the Bay Area flagship event is looking terrific. Amon Tobin joins Tipper, John Tejada, Lusine, Scuba, Digitonal vs. Posthuman, [a]pendics.shuffle, Deru, Tycho, Mr. Projectile, Dr. Toast and our friend Ganucheau — and that’s just electronics. Live vocal/instrumental music includes Freezepop (as made infamous by various Harmonix games), avant-garde cello and guitar, and the 17-member marching Gamelan X, among others. Game maker Will Wright joins NASA astrobiologist Jonathan Green and eco-friendly scientists.

We’ll be posting updates to the lineup at yuricdm.com — you’ll hear about it there before anywhere else. Check out the lineup so far, but I know of some interesting installation and art pieces that aren’t there yet.

“FOR JAPAN ONLY”

Correction: Despite what the website says, the DS-10 is in fact getting an international release!

Product info, specs, samples [AQ Interactive; English]

Blog [Japanese only]

Music sample

Via Music Thing and CDM comments (thanks, Thomas)

Features:

• Dual dual synths: Two patchable virtual synths, with two oscillators each
• Drum machine: Four-part drum machines loaded with samples of the virtual synth
• Sequencer: 2 synth tracks, 4 drum machine tracks, 16 steps
• Effects: Delay, chorus, flanger
• Input methods: Touch-control screen with real-time sound control, a keyboard screen, and matrix screen

As far as connectivity, you can “exchange sounds and songs and play multiple units simultaneously through a wireless communications link.” Now, if someone in the homebrew community were able to hack that, perhaps you could add MIDI compatibility, so you could use this alongside a DS running homebrew software, or perhaps bridge to hardware MIDI and plug in a Tenori-On. (See previous discussion of DSMIDI.)

AQ Interactive is a bona fide game development house and publisher in Japan. They haven’t exactly had a spotless record, producing Vampire’s Rain for Xbox 360, but they have worked on “Cry On” with Hironobu Sakaguchi (writer) and Nobuo Uematsu (composer) of Final Fantasy legend. (I think that game may have been delayed.) Update/revision: Cavia, the Japanese game house published by AQ, appears to be the actual developer of the engine and the title. They also worked on Cry On and the Dragonball Z DS game, along with various other titles. Nothing really related to a synth, but we’ll see how they do. (Not to be confused with Clavia, the synth maker!)

Take action

Anyone familiar with the legality of, oh, CDM importing a whole bunch of these and shipping them around the world? (You’d need a DS capable of playing Japanese titles, of course.) Or we could just all meet in Tokyo this summer. Airfare sales anywhere?

Never mind! The DS-10 is going international; stay tuned for details!

Availability: July 2008

Pricing: 4,800 YEN (tax included), which works out to slightly less than US$50.