For a long time, technologists have described a world of in which computing experiences naturally incorporate touch and gesture. The question is, how do we bridge the intuitive desire for those interactions and the actual technologies that get us there?

Few activities test the expressive potential of interaction quite like music. It’s in our cultural DNA; musical activity may even predate written language. So it’s fitting that the story of touch in computing and digital music would be intertwined, as they are with touch pioneer JazzMutant. Years before well-known Apple products, the Lemur, prototyped in 2003 and shown as a musical multi-touch screen, suggested the importance of fusing display and touch, and of tracking more than a finger or two at a time.

The history, and products like Apple’s iPad and iPhone, you may know well, though. The question on everyone’s mind now is, what’s next? (And for some impatient futurists, the question may even be, what’s taking so long?)

To begin to answer that question, I turned to Guillaume Largillier, original co-founder and CEO of JazzMutant, now Stantum Technologies. There aren’t many people on the planet closer to where touch has been and where it might be going. Even as the Lemur gets new features like integration with popular music production and performance tool Ableton Live, Stantum is working to bring the same enabling technologies to other device makers. And even though this is “Create Digital Music,” it’s telling that that technology is showing potential in everything from phones to aviation, not just DJing. Musicians have had a role in technological history before, from Leon Theremin’s work to Max Mathews and computer synthesis. It may be musicians who invent the future, again. This time, the trick is who delivers that future to the hardware makers who can popularize it.

http://jazzmutant.com/
http://jazzmutant.com/behindthelemur.php
http://www.stantum.com/en/
http://www.stantum.com/en/offer/technology-ip

To accompany the story, we also have an exclusive look inside Stantum’s labs, all the way back to the original 2003 prototype of the Lemur.

On Designing for Touch, and the Music Tech Industry

Peter: I remember when I first talked to Darwin Grosse about Lemur, when it was being distributed by Cycling ‘74. Darwin just kept saying, “You know, I just think Star Trek: The Next Generation.” (That’s my recollection, Darwin; I hope I’m not misquoting you.) I tended to agree. It’s a cliche, perhaps, but this was clearly hardware that brought into our century part of an imagined vision of a much further-off future (the 24th Century). Was that a conscious influence? In an industry that has sometimes been aggressively traditional, is there a way to channel ideas from something as far out as science fiction?

Guillaume: Before answering your question, allow me to challenge your statement about the computer music industry. I think “ill nostalgic” would describe this industry much better than “aggresively traditional.” Most music software companies have kept being innovative over the last decade, but their creativity has been a slave to this nostalgic obsession. Emulating an analog channel strip, a tube amplifier, or a vintage synth is far from a trivial job. It actually requires as much engineering time and resources as developing a disruptive product such as Ableton Live or Max/MSP/Jitter! On the hardware side, the innovation killer is the price pressure. Despite a common misconception, the computer music industry is not and will never be a mass market. Companies such as M-Audio [Avid], Behringer, or Native Instruments may look like giants compared to JazzMutant, but they are nano-particles compared to large consumer electronic brands such as HP or Nokia. The volume and the gross margins are too small to amortize ambitious research and development plans. When we launched the Lemur in 2005, a lot of people predicted, and somewhat hoped, that Behringer would release a similar device at $200 within the next eighteen months. Five years later, the first serious competitor of the Lemur is about to land – Apple’s iPad – and its entry level price is $500.

Back to the USS Enterprise, whether we want it or not, this parentship is likely to follow the Lemur forever. This is kind of ironic insofar as I’ve never been acquainted with science-fiction culture. I don’t even remember having ever watched a full episode of Star Trek. That being said, I acknowledge that this association has settled spontaneously and durably in people’s mind. Does this association come from the product concept itself? I don’t think so. In my opinion, it comes first and foremost from the fluorescent graphic design of the UI objects, not from the tactile technology.

So, the real question would rather be: “Why did we design the graphic interface this way?” First, we wanted to stand clear of those boring pseudo-vintage brushed-aluminium graphic skins – the cutaneous symptom of the nostalgic flu! Moreover, we anticipated that converting users to virtual controllers would be a difficult task and that trying to mimic the appearance of real-life objects would generate frustration; hence, impeding the adoption of the product.

Having said that, the main purpose of this flashy design was pragmatic and ergonomic. The Lemur is ontologically a live controller, though it might be used in other contexts. This requires that the interface must be visible wherever and whenever a user might be performing, from night clubs to outdoor venues. This is particularly tricky with a touch screen laid horizontally, because the display backlight cannot compete with the specular reflection of sunlight. Human-factor sciences taught us that contrast perception prevails over brightness perception. Hence, highly contrasted graphics- ie, flashy objects on dark background – is the most efficient way to ensure a consistent readability. This is something the aerospace industry has understood for decades. So, if there was one conscious influence behind the Lemur, it would be the Boeing 747 dashboard, not the USS Enterprise.

“If there was one conscious influence behind the Lemur, it would be the Boeing 747 dashboard, not the USS Enterprise.”

I know for me, the appeal of the science fiction aspect was more conceptual than superficial, the idea of the ubiquitous touch interface. But I agree, having experimented with this, that the high contrast, light foreground, dark background formula is really an essential solution. I’m seeing some interfaces on a white background that look aeshtetically lovely, but that I can’t imagine using onstage. I’d at least want a switch for dark environments, when you’re not at your desk.

That reminds me a funny episode of JazzMutant’s story. As early as February 2004, we started showing early prototypes of the Lemur to our friends at [Paris sound research center] IRCAM. At this time, the graphic skin was based on a palette of blue shades, with a few touches of warm yellow for emphasizing elements that needed to stand out, such as text, levels, etc. One day in July of 2004, about one year before the commercial launch of the product, we brought them a new prototype, featuring a brand new touch panel along with the final graphic design. Their only reaction was, “wow, this display is much brighter!” They did not even comment on the tremendeous improvement to the touch panel! That being said, there are other approaches to improve the psychological perception of readibility. I sometimes regret that other developpers are reluctant to dig into them, and mimic the “Lemur style” instead.

Talking about drawing on screen, did you know that Iannis Xenakis’ Upic project has been my main source of inspiration – and also my main motivation to step from music making to technology creation ?

I didn’t know that, but it makes a lot of sense. [UPIC is a tablet-based, visual composition system developed by ground-breaking experimental composer Xenakis. It is now decades old but continues to evolve in new incarnations.]

Below: DJ Mike Relm demonstrates the Lemur for G4 Tech TV. Yes, this is the video to show all your friends who aren’t regular CDM readers and have no idea what the heck this is all about.

Lessons of Lemur

Let’s talk about the place of Lemur’s technology in the current landscape. How does it hold up in 2010? I know a lot of people do get hung up on the price, but can you talk about how it differs from other options out there, or what the source of the cost is?

Once again, the music market being a small niche, it’s hardly possible to be both innovative and affordable at once. In addition, the Lemur is still manufactured in France with components imported from various locations around the globe – not to mention that the US dollar’s agony doesn’t help [when exporting] the manufactured product! Lastly, a large part of the product assembly is still handcrafted. For all the reasons above, the product is far from cost-optimized. I cannot disclose further our plans now, but we are working hard to address most – if not all – of these issues.

Have there been uses of the Lemur in performance and creation that surprised you, or went beyond what you imagined?

Oddely enough, and despite of what I said before, the most surprising uses of the Lemur are sometimes the most conservative ones! As an example, for Björk Volta tour, Damian Taylor and LFO made the most archaic interface layouts one could imagine — a fistful of colored labelled pads and eventually a pair of faders –- nothing more. Their brilliant idea was to create one unique interface for each song. This way, at each moment of the gig, they just had at their disposal the few commands they did actually need. The other big surprise came from video performers. Whereas most musicians are reluctant to use the advanced features of the lemur during their live performances – such as the objects’ physics – video artists do not hesitate to play the Lemur as an instrument, rather than a remote control. For instance, I warmly recommand you to visit Ali Momeni’s website. Of course, it would be unfair to forget all the advanced users who have developed inspiring and unique instruments, but this is less surprising, since the Lemur was designed specifically for that purpose.

OSC is a technology that many of us have advocated, but there’s also, admittedly, a big gap between where we believe it could be and where it is, especially in regards to the lack of mainstream music tech adoption. That said, what would an ideal implementation of OSC look like? What could the protocol do to be better? And what might you imagine could be a tipping point in adoption?

Indeed, it’s fair to say that OSC failed to become the industry standard we hoped it will be! I can see a few reasons for that. First, there is an obvious chicken-and-egg issue, as with any protocol. At JazzMutant, we’ve done our best to evangelize OSC in the industry for about 5 years now, without success. Why should a software company implement OSC if there is no hardware to support it, apart from a $2k product? Why should a hardware manufacturer develop an OSC-compatible controller if there are no mainstream applications to support it? Finally, there are also some intrinsic technical reasons that prevent OSC from becoming a standard anytime soon. In order to overcome them, we started developing a new protocol a few years ago called “Minuit” (“Midnight” in French), as a successor to OSC and MIDI (“Noon” in French). We were discouraged from pursuing this project after assessing the amount of human resources its evangelization would require.

The Big Picture, Stantum, and the Future

We’re looking at an explosion of interest in multi-touch display surfaces in the consumer space. Are any of these, in your view, promising for music? Are there ways in which some of these technologies are deficient for musical performance applications?

The responsiveness of a touch system is the most under-estimated parameter, even though it tremendously influences the perceived usability, transparency and trustworthiness of an input device. This is why a vast majority of Multi-touch systems available fails to meet music makers’ expectations.

Absolutely — you mean responsiveness in terms of latency, accuracy, precision in tracking multiple points, or (I presume) all of the above?

I was pointing out the latency more specifically – even though the perceived responsiveness is a complexe imbrication of all these parameters.

Can you talk about Stantum’s role in the evolution of multi-touch? What can we expect to see in the future?

We envisioned the real potential of the technology we invented long before the iPhone announcement, though we could not imagine that Steve Jobs’ crew would accelerate the market demand [to the extent they did]. We started investigating how we could bring our technology to OEMs in parallel to our computer music activity as early as 2005. We finally made this step in 2007. The role of Stantum in this ecosystem is quite singular. However pretentious it may sound to you, Stantum is still the only company beside Apple to have developped a real multi-touch product, top-down, including all the software and hardware technology bricks. So, despite the small size of our company, we are better placed than any other player in this field to understand the complexe imbrication of software and hardware. You might ask, “Aren’t all these Windows 7 convertible notebooks real multi-touch products?” In my opinion, they are not, insofar as the only multi-touch services these devices offer so far are rotating videos or ten-finger painting. I do not want to offend anyone, but watching videos is much more pleasant fullscreen and if Neanderthal people gave up painting with ten fingers 45,000 years ago, there might be a good reason. At JazzMutant/Stantum, we’ve always considered the multi-touch technology as a milestone, not the final destination. With what we’ve been incubating in our labs for a few months, we expect to reach the next big milestone quite soon.

Do you mean that these PC vendors are missing the actual application of the multi-touch technology in the software they ship with these devices? Certainly, no argument there — the demos, the marketing, the demo apps outside of Apple have just looked horrendous and awful to me. But surely there are developers out there who want to do better? Hasn’t what’s held them back simply the lack of available hardware?

I do agree with you. Unfortunately, that leads to a chicken-and-egg situation; insofar as developing a meaningful, multi-touch-capable application requires a preliminary awareness of the objective capabilities and limitations of a given hardware solution. On the other side, a vast majority of multi-touch panel providers doesn’t look willing to raise the bar until the market identifies a “killer app” requiring full multi-touch capabilities with zero performance tradeoff. Hopefully, the iPad will contribute to reschuffle the cards. Unfortunately, Apple decided to stand clear of handwriting capability – which, I believe, is a huge limitation for creative and productive applications.

“I do not want to offend anyone, but … if Neanderthal people gave up painting with ten fingers 45,000 years ago, there might be a good reason.”

Let’s assume Stantum is successful in popularizing the technology. At some point, will the Lemur be obsolete – and could that perhaps even be a good goal?

The Lemur as it is today is likely to become obsolete at some point – the pet is more than 5 years old in an industry that usually sends hardware products to retirement manu militari at 18 month old! Having said that, there is much more to develop on the hardware side than what we have done in the past. If we succeed in what we are working on today, I believe the Lemur will keep playing in its own category for quite a long while.

Now, that said, how do Stantum’s efforts to engage the larger electronics industry impact these issues of scale and cost?

We understood as early as 2005 that there was only one path to spread this technology – and the underlying vision of how computerized equipments should work – out of the small niche of professional musicians and Max/MSP users. Then we did what we had to do : we licensed the technology to tier-one semi-conductor companies such as ST Microelectronics to embed our multi-touch know-how into dedicated chips. We also teamed up with some of the largest and most trusted touch panel makers to bring our solution onto the consumer market place. The whole supply chain is now in place and you’re likely to see a few Stantum-based multi-touch tablets shipping in the coming months. Will these products match musicians’ expectation ? That’s too early to risk an answer at this stage, since we have no control over what OEMs will make out of our technology. And as you know, a good user experience does not only depend on the quality of the touch system – it’s also a matter of CPU and OS choice, hardware optimization, not to mention the software application running on top of it. That’s why we believe there’s still some room for a dedicated hardware that takes in consideration the very specific needs of electronic musicians and visual artists. In a not-too-far future, we expect the hard work we have done with our partners will have a positive impact on the cost structure of our music products.

Stantum’s Latest Technology, and What it Means

Guillaume is a bit limited in what he can say about his future plans, but that leaves me free to do a bit of (informed) speculation. This is largely my own analysis, so it’s my message, not necessarily Stantum’s.

First, unless it isn’t already clear, JazzMutant is Stantum. Stantum is JazzMutant. Stantum is now the official name of the company, and JazzMutant is just the brand by which their technology caters to musicians. It says something about the company’s lineage – all the founders have a background in electronic music – that they have in the past, continue now, and plan in the future to keep a strong connection to musicians. That’s meant that the rigorous demands of live music have informed their touch technology and made it a better product.

The idea that Apple’s iPad would drive JazzMutant out of business, therefore, is the opposite of correct. JazzMutant is Stantum. Stantum is in the business of licensing its specialization to OEMs. The Lemur shows just how potent that specialization is, in a way that literally gets rooms full of people dancing and gaping at projections. Apple’s technology is available only to Apple. With Microsoft, Google, phone vendors, and PC vendors all getting into the touch business, that means Stantum just became very big news – even if that’s something musicians and VJs figured out years earlier.

Part of the challenge of multi-touch development is that you have to get a lot of pieces working together. You need the physical surface of the controller, the sensors built into that surface, and the firmware that interprets the sensors all to work in tandem. Apple does it, and does the OS and applications, too. 3M is working on a product for OEMs, also working with multiple touch points. But the other big source right now is Stantum.

It’s also significant that Stantum’s technologies are heavily patented (a fact that they advertise on their site). While I’m no big fan of patents, unlike Apple, Stantum is licensing their technology into the marketplace. Given the need to have a patent portfolio just to protect your work, Stantum’s patents give it effectively the right to play ball. By licensing their technology to the manufacturers big enough to make this stuff on a grand scale, Stantum’s OEM program could provide ready access to touch for software developers beyond just the iPad platform. Even if you’re a huge iPad fan, that means greater accessibility in the market, and more than one vendor to provide that access. I’m a great advocate for DIY, but making displays isn’t yet a garage operation. (Yes, I know people building their own multi-touch tables, but they don’t make their own cameras or projectors.)

Stantum’s technology itself is also unique. Their sensing approach supports pen input and even handwriting recognition, features Apple leaves out. For many of the world’s languages, handwriting recognition is a “killer app,” which could further drive touch adoption. For the rest of us, until we evolve smaller fingers, the ability to use a pen can mean amplified accuracy for painting and writing, and yes, even pen-driven music applications. (Somewhere in the great beyond, Xenakis smiles.)

This is not an advertisement for Stantum, either – the list of companies anywhere close to being able to provide this functionality is short enough to count on your (ahem) fingertips.

So, okay, you buy into the concept – when can you get it? (After all, even the Lemur doesn’t quite count. It isn’t set up for pen input, even if its sensing method could work. And the Lemur is a controller, not a computer.)

Right now, Stantum’s technology is available in a series of multi-touch demonstration kits, including one with the guts of a Dell netbook inside:

">http://www.stantum.com/en/offer/evaluate

In other words, we’re waiting for someone to ship a product that incorporates their technology. Windows 7 already includes multi-touch APIs out of the box in all but its Starter edition, so the Windows platform is a major candidate. Windows, while proprietary, has none of the developer, language, software, or hardware restrictions that the iPad platform does, so if your application doesn’t fit the iPad model or needs pen input, Windows’ stock just rose. Free software is possible too. Linux already supports the Stantum Slate PC and a number of other digitizers, support that will be baked into the kernels shipping in this year’s major Linux distros. We’re not just talking drivers, either: the whole Linux community is working on everything from libraries for environments like Java to support in the windowing system to touch-centric distros. (More on the Linux situation later this week.) Google’s Android has a multitouch API, too. I’ve used it, and got frustrated quickly not because of the OS, but because the hardware on current phone handsets just doesn’t work well with more than one finger. That could change if Stantum’s tech starts to appear in licensee products; Android as a touch OS could take off.

For specifics on the Windows 7 aspect (old news, from way back in November – but of course, everyone is taking a second look because of the iPad phenomenon):
2009-11-03 Windows 7 Certification

Right now, the one thing Stantum doesn’t have a lot of – aside from OEMs shipping their tech – is competition. Most of the other touch competitors either can’t accurately track fingers in close proximity, or limit tracking to two fingers, or lose tracking fidelity around the edges of the screen, or can’t handle pens, or some combination.

You need musicians, creative artists, and gamers to tell you this, because the mainstream computer market thinks multi-touch has something to do with pinch-zooming their photos. If that were all you could do with multi-touch, this would indeed be an over-hyped technology. But the responsiveness of the Lemur and the demonstration technology from Stantum is something that can be powerful and expressive.

Apple has already brilliantly demonstrated what happens when scale, creativity, and technical competence meet. Now the question is, who else will be able to put this formula together, thus making other options available to developers? Stantum has the competence, and the connection to creative artists and music specifically. If OEMs start to sign on with Stantum’s tech and build useful hardware, we could see both off-the-shelf machines – and cheaper JazzMutant-branded products – for musicians. Indeed, with this larger Stantum perspective, whatever happens with OEMs could in turn be good for JazzMutant-specific, music-specific customers, too. Even with competition from the likes of 3M, the technology is so specific to certain hardware devices, and the emerging markets so large, it’s hard to imagine Stantum not having a big role.

What might surprise people in the larger tech world is how important music has been – and will continue to be – to the big picture.

When it all comes together, the days of computer musicians, DJs, and visualists standing behind screens, able only to stare blankly into them but unable to manipulate what they see directly, could become a relic of the past.

This plug-in (Mac/PC) provides accurate emulations of three original RS124 hardware units from Abbey Road’s outboard collection

MMM and Berghain man Fiedel gets his rave on with the help of Skream, Roska and Shed. We suggest donning a vest for this one - it's quite the fist pumper.

Score one for standards. According to second-hand sources and a post to a public mailing list, the upcoming Apple iPad accessory adapter for cameras, the iPad Camera Connection Kit, will support audio interfaces that are compatible with the USB Audio Class. I don’t have official confirmation from Apple, and the adapter itself appears not to be shipping until later this month, so file this as “likely, but unconfirmed.” But it’s one to watch, and comes as a surprise to me. (Generally, camera accessory kits aren’t a way of providing audio expansion.)

Let’s assume, as these sources suggest, that USB audio devices were available via the standard stereo output (or even input) for the public Apple APIs for audio I/O. In that case, the other good news is that iPad apps would be able to support your third-party hardware without special modification of the software, or a signed hardware license agreement.

Most pro audio interfaces are not class-compliant; it’s more common to use custom drivers, even for USB 1.x-compliant interfaces. Custom drivers would be out of the question. But there are a number of interfaces that do provide class compliance, like the M-Audio Fast Track or Edirol UA-25. (I have a Cakewalk-branded, Roland-manufactured SPS-25 that works as a class-compliant device with the “advanced” mode on the back switched off.)

Incidentally, devices that support this spec will also easily work with Linux, and possibly upcoming updates to Android, if the latter adds similar USB host support. That means there’s now ample incentive for audio interface vendors to investigate providing class support, as it could mean more customers not only from iPad owners, but owners of other slates and tablets, too – including those we don’t yet know about. (Google tablet, anyone?) That further illustrates why up-to-date class descriptions for hardware are so badly needed (though it also, sadly, reminds us how much isn’t covered by these generic classes).

Before you get excited about connecting a MIDI keyboard to your iPad, I don’t know that this will mean support for the MIDI device class. But it’s nothing if not a reminder of the power of standards. (See also the Nintendo Wii remote, which enterprising musicians have used as a controller on multiple operating systems, thanks to its support for the Bluetooth spec.)

And yes, this means the prospects of the iPad becoming an all-in-one, live performance machine are looking brighter. DJs are still likely to be unsatisfied, as I doubt that this will allow separate audio cuing, but given that I didn’t see this coming, who knows?

Supporting evidence:
Re: iPad USB Audio Class 1 and Update on OSX Class 2 [Apple Core Audio API Mailing List]

Thanks to Art Gillespie for pointing this out. He’s got a connection kit coming, so expect a full test.

As if playing shows night after night wasn't tough enough, rock outfit Generationals are upping the stakes on their cross-country tour with indie vets, The Apples in Stereo. The ancestrally-named group—which released its latest album, Con Law, on Park the Van Records last year—will contribute an exclusive weekly blog on FILTER in between sets and late-night shenanigans. In addition to the updates, we will be offerring ticket giveaways for the band’s shows in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Detroit and Chicago. Check back weekly to follow the Generationals' escapades as they trek across the country!

Look for the first blog post from the road TOMORROW, APRIL 15. And if you really want to get your Generationals fix, go to their tour blog HERE.

Catch the Generationals in these cities...on these dates:

April 16: Lexington, KY; Cosmic Charlie's*

April 17: Morgantown, WV; 123 Pleasant St*

April 18: Washington, DC; Rock & Roll Hotel*

April 19: State College, PA: Chronic Town

April 20: Philadelphia, PA; Johnny Brenda's*
 
April 21: New York, NY; Bowery Ballroom*

April 22: Hamden, CT; The Space

April 23: Cambridge, MA; Middle East *

April 24: Ithaca, NY; Castaways*

April 25: Rochester, NY; Bug Jar*
 
April 27: Cleveland, OH; Grog Shop*

April 28: Pontiac, MI; The Pike Room*

April 30: Chicago, IL; Lincoln Hall*

May 01: St. Paul, MN; Turf Club*
   
May 03: Milwaukee, WI; Turner Hall*

May 04: St. Louis, MO; Vintage Vinyl in-store

May 04: St. Louis, MO; Biliken Club*

 

* With The Apples in Stereo

In what feels like a nice sequel to our interview with him back in 2007, Ryan Elliott talks to Skruff about giving up his job in finance to pursue DJing full-time, and taking on a management roll at Spectral Sound.

Delta Spirit
History From Below
Rounder Records
Release Date: June 8, 2010

Tracklist

1. 911
2. Bushwick Blues
3. Salt in the Wound
4. White Table
5. Ransom Man
6. Devil Knows You’re Dead
7. Golden State
8. Scarecrow
9. Vivian
10. St. Francis
11. Ballad of Vitaly


First Impressions

- San Diego-based Delta Spirit will be releasing the follow up to their critically-acclaimed debut Ode to Sunshine with the band's sophomore album on June 8 on Rounder Records.
- Produced by My Morning Jacket’s Bo Koster and Eli Thomson, History From Below starts off solid with a jangly guitar number “911,” and moves to a more upbeat second track “Bushwick Blues,” which shows the band's trippy indie rock flavor mixed with its usual country rock vibe.
- The boys of Delta Spirit start to get a little bit experimental in this album. However, “White Table” is an upbeat track full of relentless percussion beat that sreminds you of Vampire Weekend.
- “Vivian,” the ninth-track from History From Below, is perhaps the most beautiful yet heart-wrenching song in the album. Vocalist Matthew Vasquez deliveres a solid vocal performance that will make you cry, reminding of your loss loved ones: “Sleep oh sleep my Vivian/Heaven is too cold without you/Well I’ll stay right here/Above your house/Waiting to see heaven with you.”

Key Tracks

“Bushwick Blues,” “Vivian,” and “St. Francis”

Predictions

It's difficult to live up to expectations after a critically acclaimed debut album, but with History From Below, Delta Spirit continues its rootsy Americana rock that doesn’t just sound good to the ears, but can move a crowd. They come with sing-along verses, but leave with deep and moving sentimentality.   

Vieux Farka Touré is a musician’s musician, always on tour, never a half baked show, always full throttle and then on to the next record; leaving behind a trail of amazing live shows, enthralled audiences and vivid memories of his electrifying performance and stage presence. This month Vieux touches down in the States for gigs in Chicago, St. Louis, Hattiesburg, Tallahassee, Athens, Miami, Washington DC and New York, all dates are on his Myspace. We just got the pics above from photographer Wheelz Wheeler from Dingwalls in London, which capture the spirit of his live shows in these shots. Look out for the new album Vieux Farka Touré Live dropping in early summer on Six Degrees Records. In the meantime, check his back catalouge and grab this great free remix from Sabbo of Cherie Le from his remix album!

Phantogram, the indie-electro pride of Saratoga Springs, NY, have announced additional tour dates to lead into the middle of May.  The duo will continue to support The Antlers, with their own headlining date at the beginning and concluding with an appearance at Sasquatch.

Phantogram's debut record, Eyelid Movies, is out now via Barsuk.

Tour Dates:
April
15 Buffalo, NY - Soundlab
16 Columbus, OH - The Basement *
17 Urbana, IL - Canopy Club *
18 Madison, WI - High Noon Saloon *
20 Minneapolis, MN - Varsity Theatre *
21 Iowa City, IA - The Blue Moose *
22 Chicago, IL - Lincoln Hall *
23 Ann Arbor, MI - Blind Pig *
24 Rock Island, IL - Rock Island Brewing Company *
26 Boulder, CO - Fox Theater *
28 San Diego, CA - Casbah *
29 Costa Mesa, CA - Detroit Bar *
30 Los Angeles, CA - Troubadour *

May
1 San Francisco, CA - Independent *
3 Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge *
4 Vancouver, British Columbia - The Biltmore Cabaret *
5 Seattle, WA - Neumo's *
18 Hoboken, NJ - Maxwell’s
19 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom
31 George, WA - Sasquatch! Music Festival

* with The Antlers

Issaquah, Washington's own Modest Mouse will hit the road again this summer. At the beginning of July, the band launches a U.S. tour, which includes a headlining festval stop at Chicago's Pitchfork Music Festival. Also on the agenda of the Pacific Northwesterners this Saturday, is a special Record Store Day re-release of their 2000 classic, The Moon & Antartica.
 

Continue reading at FILTERmagazine.com

The most poignant line from the morning benders’ latest single also seems to work as inspiration for the Berkeley quartet’s new video.  As frontman Christopher Chu sings, “I can’t help but think we grew up too fast and I know this won’t last”, the video relates a pre-teen version of the infamous Bonnie and Clyde.   Despite their violent reputation, the gun toting, band robbing duo also manage to show their childlike innocence as they jump on a bed as airborne cats and cash go flying.

As they spend their days drinking wine and tying up adults in secret rooms, tragedy strikes and as the lyrics foreshadowed, we’re at the unfortunate end.

Catch the guys on the road with Broken Bells next month and don't forget to snag a copy of their sophomore record, Big Echo.

Enjoy at FILTERmagazine.com

"Bloodbuzz Ohio," the first that we've heard from the eagerly-awaited new album from The National, is a somber, yet grand track, with frontman Matt Berninger's signature barintone vocals soaring throughout. Well, a new taste of High Violet has emerged in "Afraid of Everyone," more of a ballad, featuring Sufjan Stevens on background vocals. In true National fashion it's a beautiful, slowly building track, that can hopefully satiate fans as we anticipate High Violet's release May 11th, via  4AD.

Enjoy at FILTERmagazine.com

There are undeniable hints of summer embedded within the music of Best Coast.  And nothing screams a California summer more than the beach, backyard bbqs, In-N-Out burgers (or grilled cheese for some of you) and unlikely romance.  As lead singer Bethany Cosentino laments reasons why her red-and-yellow dude is the cat's meow ("the world is lazy, but you and me were crazy"), the Peter Ohs-directed video cements such cute affections.

Check out the sun-kissed video and entertain thoughts of summer romance below.

Enjoy at FILTERmagazine.com

It’s almost impossible to come upon an electronic musical colleague – indeed, regardless of their personal genre – without some lament of the state of dance music. But electronic sound has long depended on the connections between experimental and dance, all the vibrations that can move people. Don’t complain – do something. Reaching across national borders, some people are doing something to make dance music better. Biatch Corp makes its connection between Colombia and New York, and for the last three years has put together a label and a successful series of parties. Whatever your stylistic tendencies, there’s something to learn from their international strategy, one born in Colombia that uses New York as its cultural broadcast center. Alvaro Bueno tells CDM:

We basically liked the idea of being facilitators (first as party promoters, now as a label) of good dancefloor music and some of the artists we are been sharing in this healthy ecosystem of Techno that is being formed, artists like fong+Julio own the Sheik n’ Beik series of parties, Vadim is the head of Less, Deepak & Dieter are the bosses of Hidden Recordings, Thomas Hildebrand is part of Brooklyn-backyard parties called Backseat-buzz. We like collaboration and how synergy keeps scene healthy. Another artists we have in past and current releases are vets like South african Brendon Moeller, Hamburg’s Ascii.Disko, Jussi-Pekka hailing from Finland and Perc, who lives in London. Bleepolar, Nicolas Ovalle, Karraskilla and Me (Pito) are the South-American quota of the label, probably is there that resides the path for a more flavorful music in techno, a more organic one. Nico is from Uruguay and we Colombians.

Now celebrating three years in action, Biatch Corp has a new compilation out entitled “Auditoria” coming out on Saturday. Karraskilla, Ascii.Disko, and Peter Corvaia, all of whom have done releases with them in the past, are included, but so are various other friends and locals. Thomas Hildebrand from LA is a highlight for me among others, as his work with found sound and field recordings adds other textures to his work. This weekend, I’m in Boulder, Colorado for Communikey, but the Biatch Corp is doing a party back here in New York. And wherever you are, there’s the release, plus a free live mix by Karraskilla. Karraskilla Auditoria Set by KARRASKILLA Direct download link [SoundCloud] More information: http://www.biatchcorp.org/ Auditoria Release Page [Music + Party; warning - audio auto-plays]

Though a little over a month separates fans from This Is Happening, the highly-anticipated new album from LCD Soundsystem, which hits shelves May 18 via DFA/Virgin, is available to stream on the band's site. First single "Drunk Girls" has surfaced already, as have a few other standout tracks, but starting today, each and every one of the album's nine tracks is streaming in its entirety. Think of it as just a little hump day treat from James Murphy.