A fantastic rendition of Bob Marley’s Waiting in Vain by Karsh Kale.
Karsh recorded and arranged this track for a remix compilation in honor of Marley. Vocals by Susheela Raman and Vishal Vaid and guitars by Susheelas husband.

MTV News caught up with Next Generation DJ winners Maya Vanya at Miami WMC. In the interview, posted yesterday, the New Zeeland sisters talk about promoting themselves to get votes in the NGDJ competition – and how their career has taken a leap after winning it:

“There’s so much opportunity out there for us now. We’re just really excited just to go with the flow and see what happens. And stick to our sound, that’s our main thing as well.”

Next Generation DJ judge Sebastian Ingrosso, interview with his Swedish House Mafia partners-in-crime Steve Angello and Axwell, adds:

“They’re gonna move to Europe for the summer…we’re gonna work together. They’re doing tracks in the studio and getting ready to launch their tour. They’re doing stuff with me and they’re doing stuff with Deadmau5 in Ibiza. Hopefully we can get them to Pacha.”

Check out the full clip on MTV’s Newsroom blog.

The members of GunFight! are New York bred, but the band was formed in Boston in 2006 when members were attending Emerson College. They built up a following in the live settings of many a late-night basement party and moved to NYC in 2007. The band released the EP 'Hide Your Empties' in 2009 and is set to release the album Frontier Land in 2010. GunFight! has played with Those Darlins, Langhorne Slim, Beach Fossils, Local Natives, Motel Motel, Freelance Whales and more. The band has performed at Pianos, the Cake Shop, Bruar Falls, Cameo, Union Pool and loft venues like Market Hotel and Glasslands, in Brooklyn.

l  MySpace  l  "Broke With Holes" MP3  l 

GunFight! - "Sticks" on Vimeo.

The National's highly-anticipated follow-up to 2006's Boxer, entitled High Violet, doesn't hit stores until May, but the guys have slowly begun previewing the new material at their live shows. In March, they debuted "Terrible Love" for the Jimmy Fallon audience, and, thanks to Tennessee's Big Ears Festival, more new material has surfaced. "Afraid of Everyone," and "Conversation 16" were among the highlights of their set, and a more than satisfying taste of what's to come.

When things are classified as broken, responsibility needs to fall upon someone.  However, it’s tough to get someone to admit they’re at fault, especially when the blame is about a relationship at an unfortunate stand-still.

Canadian indie rock outfit, Stars, have returned with their first single since 2007.  Filled with dance grooves, guitar rips and slick vocals that make you feel like you're floating away, "Fixed", not only takes responsibility for it's relationship faults, but is making a conscious decision to walk (or dance) away.

Stars' fifth album, The Five Ghosts, is slated for a June 22nd release via Soft Revolution.  Download the single at Stereogum.

The waiting game is over. Though the Lollapalooza lineup has been hinted (and slowly revealed, via a Wheel-of-Fortune style word game), today marks the official release of the 2010 roster, with headliners inclduing Arcade Fire, the Strokes, Lady Gaga, Green Day, recently reunited Soundgarden, and recent festival mainstays Phoenix, set to take over Chicago's Grant Park August 6-8.

The headline says it all. Oh, sure, as if it isn’t enough to recreate the legendary EMS Synthi synth – one of the most creative vintage analog instruments ever devised – this artist takes it one step further, controlling parameters with a piece of colored paper tracked by a webcam. It’s an achievement of sheer patching genius, taken one step wackier.

The patch is entitled Le Synthé V5; the creator is Pierre Couprie. And yes, you can download this for Windows and Mac – even Mac PowerPC. Cost: US$15/EUR10, which is, I must say, insanely cheap.

Video in French with English subtitles.

Pierre Couprie | Le Synthé V5 [Description, download]

Thanks to Lee Ray for sending this in.

Robert Randolph
We Walk This Road
Warner
Release Date: June 2010

Tracklist

1. Segue 1
2. Traveling Shoes
3. Back To The Wall
4. Shot Of Love
5. I Still Belong To Jesus
6. Segue 2
7. If I Had My Way
8. Don’t Change
9. I Don’t Wanna Be A Soldier Mama
10. Walk Don’t Walk
11. Segue 3
12. Dry Bones
13. I’m Not Listening
14. Salvation

First Impressions

- Grammy-nominated and pedal steel guitar maestro Robert Randolph and The Family Band will be releasing their third studio album entitled We Walk This Road set to release this June on Warner Bros Records.

- Produced by legendary T-Bone Burnett, the album consists of 11-track funk and soul numbers including Randolph’s renditions of songs like Bob Dylan’s “Shot of Love,” “Walk Don’t Walk,” (Prince) and “I Don’t Wanna Be A Soldier Mama” (John Lennon).

- With his strong church music background, Randolph continues to write religious songs in tracks like “I Still Belong to Jesus” and “Salvation”.

- Randolph shows off more extraordinary pedal steel guitar talent and that soulful voice, giving the album a swagger that makes you get all-pumped up, especially in the song “If I Had My Way.”

- After a list of consistent up-tempo music, the comedown is exquisite: “Salvation,” a gospel ballad that speaks of being free and finding the best in you. And just like the title, somehow the album ends giving you the feeling of being blessed and safe. That’s the magic of Robert Randolph and the Family Band.

- The album also features a number of collaborators including folk rock hero Ben Harper in the song “If I Had My Way,” Leon Russell (“Salvation”) and Jim Keltner (“Shot of Love”).

Key Tracks

“If I Had My Way,” “Shot of Love,” and “Salvation”

Predictions

Four years is quite a long wait for a new studio album and just like its predecessor Colorblind, We Walk This Road will definitely be a force to be reckoned with. Randolph's reinterpretations of classic numbers like John Lennon’s “I Don’t Wanna Be A Soldier Mama” and Prince’s “Walk Don’t Walk” were perfectly covered, he's already made them his own.
 

That didn’t take long – there’s already a how-to video for using an iPad as a multi-touch controller for Ableton Live. Great work, Atlanta music tech wizards! You can thank RyanNoise.com. Note: See notes for why they’re using this combination of software. Code is online in GitHub. Updated: the video has been refreshed (clips needed re-arranging), and we’ve got more details and some good discussion happening in comments.

Wrote this in haste and didn’t get to really point out why it’s cool:

• OSC provides control of clips – a feature the open source project used here will continue to develop.
• For everything else, you also get MIDI support, translated in this case by Osculator for Mac but possible with other Mac/Windows tools and soon also the Live API.
• More will come in the future – the project is open on GitHub so anyone can contribute, and more sophisticated integration is planned. That means a nice rival (or companion, if you’re really lucky) to JazzMutant’s just-released Mu. The competition could spur lots more to come in Live performance.

TouchOSCiPad info is at http://marshall-law.co.nz/touchoscipad/
Code on GitHub: http://github.com/willrjmarshall/AbletonOSC

Of course, I have to make a few observations, just to observe that there are a number of different directions all this technology can go – not necessarily that one alternative is superior to the others, so much as we have lots of choices ahead.

1. This would be a lot easier if Ableton had native OSC support. Via Zeroconf and built-in support for OSC, this actually could be made as easy as turning on the iPad (or another device) and having instant control of Ableton.

2. Alternatively, who says you wouldn’t just run Live on the tablet instead of carrying two devices?Details are murky, but with gadgets like the HP Slate coming later this year, there’s nothing saying you won’t soon be running both control and Live (or another performance tool) directly on your tablet-style device – no separate controller needed. And with actual USB support, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be routing audio through a lousy, underpowered headphone jack, either. The downside – and it’s a big one – I’m not yet convinced any of these devices this year will come close to the quality and responsiveness of the iPad touch input. Then again, maybe you’ll be willing to sacrifice some of that in order to run Ableton (albeit a CPU-optimized set); time will tell.

3. And it’s not just Live you may use live. For anyone who’s been waiting for Live to have some competition for your onstage time, check out videos like the one after the break. I’m still concerned by the reliance on the iPad’s headphone jack, though, which could mean, again, some of these alternative tablets become interesting over the course of 2010.

So, anyone complaining about this being “all iPad news,” it’s not – it’s about more than the iPad. What’s evolving now can lead to a variety of options. If there’s an angle you want (controlling traditional apps with multitouch, using new apps on a tablet, remaking traditional apps on more powerful tablets), it’s happening.

And keep in mind, there’s really no reason the iPad will be the only platform in this game – Linux-, Windows-, and more mature Android-powered tablets are all in on the act, too, each with their own strengths and weaknesses for developers and users.

For a glimpse of some of the new ideas people are exploring with touch-controlled music interfaces, check out this video of the promising-looking chipPad for iPad, from Earsmack. It’s a fascinating variation on the grid concept – really, not quite the monome’s MLR, but something else.

chipPad for iPad from earsmack on Vimeo.