Boys and girls alike can feel free to crush musically on Au Revoir Simone. In a gloomy world of sound-alike synthpop, the Brooklyn trio has forged their own, unique sound, a peerless breed of sensitive synthy goodness. The songs are relentlessly intimate and honest, genuine rock writing instead of overburdened pastiche. I think a lot of us growing up wanted to be able to sound like this, when we picked up that first electronic keyboard.

And yes, for keyboard lovers, there’s something really special about seeing three keyboards, with no guitars, no drums, and no boys in sight. Love the Beatles as I do, there was apparently some point in the 60s in which everyone decided we’d be stuck with one instrumentation and any females present would be vocalists only, but Au Revoir Simone is a sign of hope.

On my first listen, the new album “Still Night, Still Light” has more and more clearly polished ideas than any of their outings so far. I have to spend some more time with it, but I find it’s impossible not to just feel good listening to their work, and that’s a nice thing for music to do.

On to how you can grab the album: physical CD pre-orders and vinyl are available from the band’s website, but Amie Street has an absurdly good deals on the music, available right now:

Au Revoir Simone: Still Night, Still Light [Amie Street]

(and yes, apologies for those outside the US – if you spot deals in your neighborhood, let us know)

Update: Note that all four albums, including the new one, are also on emusic. (Thanks, zenzen in comments!) Emusic albums may not be available everywhere, but that could help you out in at least some parts of the world.

Amie Street uses flexible pricing based on popularity. When I picked up the album, it was at US$5.90, but that price will creep upwards as more people grab it. Here’s why it’s cheap, though: for 24 hours, you can subtract 25% off the price, and for some unspecified period of time, when you buy this album, you get the first three albums from the band free. In other words, you’re talking around six bucks for all four albums, as 320 kbps MP3s. I have no affiliate relationship with Amie Street and there’s no one from ARS’ PR and publicity calling me to bug me to say this. I just expect you’ll get a couple of bucks in value from each album. If you’re not sure, Amie Street has full streams of each album.

Now, keyboard spotting anyone? The Nord Electro 2 is always front and center, there’s a Novation BassStation, I think, the KORG microKORG, lots of drum machines… carry on.

We’ve heard lots of ideas for alternative musical distribution in the digital age, but this has to be a less popular idea:

How about “releasing” your album as a blank, recordable CD-R?

If you think about it, it’s the natural evolution of CDs. After all, in the age of widespread digital download stores and file sharing, if you bother to buy a physical CD, aren’t you really buying it just for that jewel box and liner notes and packaging, for that satisfying snap as the disc hits the plastic spindle? Aren’t you just doing it to flirt with the CD shop girl … erm, or to look into the morose, cynical eyes of that guy who knows way more than you do?

In this case, though, the blank CD has a simple function: it’s the only way to get around legal troubles with record label EMI.

New Danger Mouse CD Released As A Blank CD-R Due To Legal Fight With EMI [techdirt, via atariboy on Twitter]

Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse unveil new album – a blank CD-R! [guardian.co.uk]

Danger Mouse has flirted with legal troubles before, with the landmark Jay-Z – Beatles Black Album / White Album mash-up, and has flirted with success as Gnarls Barkley with Cee-Lo Green. The new album is a departure, an audiovisual experience that adds photography by David Lynch inspired by the music. Yes, that’s the David Lynch, he of Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet and Eraserhead.  Danger Mouse works with Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse and a host of guest vocalists.

Update: Whoops. Danger Mouse just isn’t as ground-breaking as The Residents, who tried Internet distribution with accompanying blank CDRs way back in 2006 on “The River of Crime! Episodes 1-5.” (And I imagine there may be other cases of this, too.) Of course, The Residents were just being creative – they didn’t have an unspecified legal battle with EMI. From Discogs:

This 2-CDR set was released as blank media, to be burned as eventual hard copies and packaging for the River Of Crime tracks, that were distributed via the internet, in a subscription series, each “CrimeCast” episode being released every two weeks, over a 10-week period. These subscription downloads also included exclusive material, including scripts, icons and CRT wallpaper, as well as unrelated bonus tracks. The track marked * was not released on the “standard” release (CDL38).

Thanks to B.C. Thunderthud for the tip (and I see a Boing Boing reader caught the same thing).

The news came over our Twitter feed via Jaymis, which also prompted a discussion of how to get and decompress the tracks.

The simple interface of Ableton’s Operator belies some truly lovely soundmaking capabilities. Our friend Francis Preve, a principle Ableton sound designer who has contributed hundreds of presets since 2004, has a new single out that makes use of some of those sonic possibilities, combining Operator with juicy spectral and granular effects in Live 7. As a gift to Ableton users on CDM, he’s giving us both the rack he used and some tips on squeezing noise out of the Ableton instrument. (By the way, I’m open to tips for other platforms, not just Ableton — ask for what you want!)

First, the EP: “Hasown / Less Cowbell” is out as a Beatport exclusive on Josh Gabriel’s new label, Different Pieces.
Hasown / Less Cowbell EP

Lots of the sound of “Less Cowbell” comes from some creative recreations Fran made of the 808 Cowbell, using Operator and Live effects (hello, grains). This is the actual patch he used. If you think this is some generic cowbell preset, think again: give the knobs a twist, and some wild sounds come out. I asked Fran to walk us through the patch:

We’ve been lucky enough to break the story of Circle, a new soft synth with a creative user interface, and to take you behind the scenes of its creators thinking process in creating the software. But maybe you don’t buy into the idea of a synth that focuses on flow and working method, or its wave morphing, modulation and effects, and quick MIDI learn features. Well, now you can give Circle a try for yourself, because it’s publicly available:

Future Audio Workshop Circle

It’s obviously something a lot of people are eagerly anticipating, because, having missed the announcement only by a day, my inbox is full of tips. (Thanks to all of you for the reminders – and seriously, don’t hesitate to nag me on a story; sometimes I get distracted!)

Normally, this is where I’d put the specs, but the specs you’ve seen before: wavetable plus analog-modeling synthesis, with lots of modulation and effects. That’s the formula we’re seeing in plenty of new synths. The difference here is an unusually clean interface with color-coded assignments and bright, friendly graphics that have been optimized to support touch should computers go that way. (Windows 7? Snow Leopard?) There’s drag-and-drop assignment, much like what I loved in Native Instruments’ Massive, but with a distinct, graphical approach here. And, incidentally, you get this graphical goodness without the latest OS – Vista and Leopard are supported, but so are XP, Tiger, and Panther. Thank cross-platform libraries in the software’s foundation – it’s the Other Platform.

The creators also tell us this release is just the beginning, with additional features in store (like OpenSoundControl support, which I’m personally eager to try out).

I’ll be playing with this in the coming weeks. Stay tuned. But I’m very eager to hear your feedback – and sound designs, if you go that route.

And if anyone sees a cheap airfare from New York to Ireland, I may have to go visit FAW myself. Hmm … Farecast?