Moby showed up on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno Friday night to perform the song "The Day."

The new Titus Andronicus video for "No Future Part Three: Escape From No Future," off of the album The Monitor.

Apple's purchase of the iCloud.com domain name could signal the launch of a new Apple iCloud product, which would fit nicely as an Apple music service.

The year: 2006. The sound: electro house. Switch, Hot Chip, Tiga and MSTRKRFT are all linked together by Headman on the latest of our podcasts from the vaults.

The duo of He Is We are best known for their unpredictable melodies, catchy choruses and overall charming appeal, all recently heard on their release My Forever (Universal Motown Records). They strike a major chord amongst their fans, constantly taking the time to give back to them, so it's no surprise they've teamed up with FILTER and JanSport for a He Is We prize pack. 

He Is We's album 'My Forever' is out now on Universal Motown Records. Click here to purchase the release.

Enter to win a He Is We prize pack comprised of a simply stlyish "infinity" wood-like charm necklace, signed poster, a red owl He Is We T-shirt, all bundled in a sleek retro-edition of JanSport's Heritage backpack (originally produced in 1967). Ride into the summer with style.

Contest winner will receive:

1 - He Is We, My Forever CD

1 - Wood-like infinity symbol necklace with album title "My Forever" bound with a metal chain

1 - Cardinal Red Owl He Is We T-shirt

1 - He Is We signed Owl poster

1 - JanSport Heritage: Ski Hike backpack

 

     

 

Enter the contest below.

Enter at FILTERmagazine.com

Tune in tonight to see Moby perform his brand new single, The Day, from his upcoming album DESTROYED.  The new album is set to release on May 17th via Mute Records .  Moby will have a 10 piece band and choir joining him for tonight's performance. 

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno will air 11:35 ET on NBC, but please check your local listings for your areas broadcast. 

 

With all the beautiful weather we’ve been having in Southern California recently we think it's safe to say that most of us are going stir crazy. Whether you’re sitting in an office staring off into distant digital sunsets, or stuck in the classroom taunted by the slow tick of the clock as you feel your skin cooking through the window you know its too nice to be inside.

We have compiled the list below to aid you in achieving the total summer experience no matter your other commitments. Take a break from the social networking site you are currently cruising and read through Part 1 from our two-part series of this essential guide to summer living.

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Delorean - "Stay Close" from Subiza (2010)

 

Fake Accents ( specifically Australian, New Zealand, French)

Why: Why not? When you see the same people in your office everyday it's nice to give them something new to hear. Why not talk like you're from another country? It's great over intercom systems because people may really think that they are talking to someone else. Be careful if you have internationals in your office though, it may be considered disrespectful or something.

Theophilus London - "Flying Overseas" from Lovers Holiday EP 

 

Candy

WHY: Candy... which actually ties back into "fake accents" because it is so colorful and gets you so jazzed up, you forget that you are even at work. Not sure what the connection between watermelon jolly ranchers and an Australian accent is, but we're itching to find out.

 

Stay tuned for Part 2 of the of our "Essential Guide To Summer Living", appearing on FILTERmagazine.com on May 6th.

This short music video looks more like a trailer to what could be a summertime sci-fi thriller and box-office smash. "Shellshock," off of Noisia's 2010 full-length appearance on Split The Atom, stars the exquisite capabilities of the Foreign Beggars. As members from both groups try to eliminate a seemingly bulletproof threat, they also provide one hell of a soundtrack. Hollywood should take note.

Watch this video on Beatportal

Joe Sib, co-founder of Sideonedummy Records, host of Complete Control Radio and currently performing his one-man show "California Calling" has teamed up with FILTER to deliver a weekly feature we have deemed, "Question The Answers." 

So what's the point of all of this? You, the reader, can ask Joe anything and he will answer your questions with his own brand of wisdom. Sometimes intellectual, sometimes hilarious, but always entertaining, you can always depend on Joe to deliver the goods.

Summertime is quickly approaching and with that comes a slew of festivals and tours. That also means that the possibility of meeting your favorite band or an artist you may have idolized your whole life, is significantly higher. Sometimes these things happen without any warning and we figured that if anyone had some insight as to how to handle this situation, it would be Joe Sib.

We recommend you listen to Joe talk to get the full Sib experience, but if you are at work, or would rather read his words, look below.

Joe Sib On Meeting An Idol by timfilter

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So you find yourself face to face with the person you most admire in the world? What do you do? What do you say? What can you say to this person of you worship that has not been said or asked before? You don’t want to say the same old thing that everyone says like, “I love you, I mean, I love your music, I love your lyrics, I love your hair, your pants your shoes… oh god I think I am passing out...can you help me.. I feel dizzy” Splat! 

Are you following me? Instead, why not talk about something that you and your person of admiration both worship.  Quick story, I am a RAMONES fanatic.  From the first time I saw them in “Rock and Roll High school” at age 12, I was hooked!  To me, everything about the Ramones was cool. From their leather jackets, to their haircuts, to Dee Dee shouting 1-2-3-4 before each song and the fact they were all brothers (yes I believed they were brothers! Come on, I was only 12 years old!) was everything I wanted in a band.  

Now, fast-forward to five years later and I find myself face to face with Johnny Ramone backstage after their show in my hometown of San Jose, California.  My ears were still ringing from the 90-minute audio assault the RAMONES had just put me through.  Still covered in sweat from the show, I snuck backstage and made my way over to Johnny Ramone in hopes of meeting him.

What would I say? At that very moment, I remembered Johnny was a huge baseball fan.  As he stood there signing some autographs for fans I shouted out “How you feel about the Yankees this year? Boston is looking pretty good!”  Johnny did a complete 180 right to me and hit back, “What do you think, kid?” and then he added with a laugh,  “I know your San Francisco Giants aren’t looking too good.”  Ouch!  That hurt! But, before I knew it I was in a full on conversation with Johnny Ramone about baseball both past and present that lasted over 20 minutes. 

As I walked out of the backstage area with autographs from all four Ramones (still have them to this day) I saw a group of fans being escorted in to meet The Ramones and heard one kid say to his friend, “I know what I am gonna ask them; are you guys really brothers?”   Guaranteed, their experience wasn’t like mine. That is it for me, until next week. - Joe Sib

Send any questions you want me to take a crack at answering to Joesib22@gmail.com

Sickday Safety Net, a new program launched recently by Sickday Medical House Calls, is presenting “A Fuzzy Sock Hop” benefit concert on Sunday, May 8, 2011 at Terminal 5 in New York City featuring INTERPOL and special guest Blonde Redhead.  All proceeds will go directly to raising Sickday Safety Net’s awareness in Manhattan, expanding into Brooklyn, and increasing the number of community heath care partners and providers to offer acute urgent medical care to patients in the privacy of their homes, offices or hotel rooms.  Tickets to the show can be bought here.

For New Yorkers by New Yorkers, Sickday Medical House Calls is launching Safety Net specifically for New York’s creative community.  Safety Net is dedicated to providing members of the New York creative community with that “warm and fuzzy feeling” that comes from knowing that you’re covered and you have access to quality, affordable medical care. All benefit attendees will receive “Sickday Fuzzy Socks.” Sickday Safety Net is not the average health care provider.  Naomi Friedman, a lifelong New York resident, founded Sickday as a boutique company dedicated to providing quality, affordable patient care via the house call model. Sickday Safety Net represents the organization’s attempt to offer affordable house calls on a broad basis.  Friedman says, “First and foremost, we’ve heard countless stories over the years about creative, uninsured New Yorkers facing price gouging just because they’re vulnerable to it. New York wouldn’t be New York as we know it without this creative energy, and we think we can help keep this community healthy while proliferating the medical house call model. We believe in the house call model for patient care, it’s just a better experience for both patients and practitioners. We’d like to see a resurgence of this old concept, which dominated care delivery for decades. In order for that to happen, house calls need to be affordable.”

Sickday Medical House Calls has been serving New Yorkers for ten years and has grown its active patient base to over 10,000.  The Sickday Safety Net is free to join and open to any uninsured New Yorker working in the creative arts including musicians, actors, painters, dancers, photographers, models, art directors, dancers, filmmakers, writers and visual artists.  Members of Sickday Safety Net have access to Sickday’s medical house call services and will never again need to get out of bed, find a babysitter or cancel a meeting to get quality, affordable medical care and no crowded waiting room, no blank forms, no inflated pricing – quality care, delivered via a medical house call. Medical professionals come directly to you, in your home or office, at a fixed Sickday Safety Net rate of $75. It's free to join and you only pay when and if you need services.  Sickday guarantees same-day service.

For more information, please call 212-SICKDAY (212-742-5329) and visit http://www.sickdaysafety.net.

With a full length record, we also get a glimpse into sound design and live touch control, along with a cross-media event involving photography and sculpture. It’s the latest Amon Tobin, and for lovers of digital sonic manipulation, it’s big news.

Amon Tobin’s ISAM arrived this week, and it’s an epic opus of ambience and digitally-sculpted sound candy. It’s digitally-distorted without being glitch, off on cinematic reveries through noise before breaking into the odd deep-bass break. It’s also a virtuoso solo album on digital control via the Haken Continuum Fingerboard. Like that instrument, it seems free in its exploration of sound space, totally untethered from gravity.

A lot of it is pure synthesis, says the artist, though there are plenty of recorded vocals, too. (I assume when Tobin says there are “no samples,” he means “…of other people’s sounds,” as there’s definitely a lot of recording, unless he’s been holding off on us and he actually is a robot, thus making a direct digital connection to his computer.) I could imagine some finding the endless digital stretching effects and morphs and punctuation fatiguing, but tracks don’t overstay their welcome; each is a miniature sonic tableaux, and delicate moments balance the bass-ier staccato scenes.

You can have a listen without any particular narration, but Amon makes use of the commenting feature on SoundCloud to provide little annotations about what he’s doing and what you’re hearing. The full album is available on SoundCloud and sounds reasonably listenable as a 128k MP3 stream – certainly good enough to determine whether you love or hate this, and whether you want to buy a proper, high-quality download.

‘ISAM’ – Full album with track-by-track commentary from Amon Tobin by Amon Tobin

‘ISAM’ – Full album with track-by-track commentary from Amon Tobin by Amon Tobin

Via Topspin, there’s also a download of one track available. (See our notes on Topspin earlier this week.)

Want the album?

Buy direct from Amon Tobin if you’re in the US or most parts of the world or –

Buy from Ninja Tune if you’re in the UK/EU to save a few euros/pounds

The other unique aspect of this release is its multimedia versions. In addition to the digital release and t-shirts and whatnot, we get:

• The installation. Saatchi Collection artist Tessa Farmer works with Amon Tobin on a collaborative installation that employs the creepy, beautiful organic dead insects and other creatures in her sculpture. May 26 – June 3 at (aptly) The Crypt Gallery in London – let us know, readers, if you’re in London and can make it.
• The AV show. Amon Tobin has made a lot of doing audiovisual performances. These promise to be particularly involved, however. The artist will be presenting a live audiovisual show for Montreal’s MUTEK on June 1, which I expect may prove to be a real highlight of this summer’s event calendar. Also in June, he’ll take the show to Berlin, Brussels, and London’s Roundhouse.
• The photography. Working with the same materials, there’s some heavily evocative photography to enjoy, too, available on the site. Put that in full screen, crank the album, and bliss out.

All of this is covered on the official site for the album:
http://amontobinisam.com/

Making Of…

Spectral morphing is at the heart of the work on this album. As such, I would view the record’s process as an extension of a continuum (cough) with some of the landmark electronic albums of the 90s and 2000s rather than something wholly new. But I think it can be enjoyed just as that, as a kind of Baroque take on lush digital sound design. A making-of video explains the sound production work:

Here you can see the artist playing on the aforementioned Continuum instrument:

I’ll be curious to hear thoughts on this.

Los Angeles' Fei-Fei is on fire with a string of hot releases on her own Feided imprint. Having released on Armada and Vandit in the past, Fei-Fei is keepin' it real and serving up some serious bass for the true underground. Fei-Fei—aka the bad girl of EDM, as dubbed by Tiesto himself—is bringing the heat, and "Mosh Pit" is a downright aggressive beast. Is it trance? Techno? Dubstep? To be blunt, it's kind of like getting your face kicked in, but in a good way. Every now and then we come across a track that has some serious cojones. Already hammered all over Radio 1 courtesy of Judge Jules, "Mosh Pit" is the hottest secret weapon of all the top jocks, wracking up some heavy reactions from all across the board—Armin Van Buuren, Mat Zo, Leon Boiler, Tydi, Christopher Lawrence, Super 8 & Tab, and John Askew. Whatever genre it is, we love it. Get in the pit…and get Feided. Click "Keep Reading" to check out more where that came from.

Watch this video on Beatportal

Digital musician and artist Josh Silverman began the Synplode process with something familiar – a checkerboard. Play a game of checkers on its computer vision-equipped playing field and beats and loops triggered in Ableton Live generated a responsive soundtrack for the game. But as it’s evolved, Synplode has become a general-purpose musical grid. Whether with little robotic insects (the Hexbugs here) or full-sized human persons, the grid can turn any space into a dynamic, interactive dance floor. (I think I may actually prefer those cute little bugs to the people and dancers and whatnot. Robot rave, anyone?)

I prodded Josh to write up more description of what’s going on, so he’s created lots of documentation on the project Website.

The basic interaction:

At the start of the Synplode demo video, it is easy to see that a wave passes over the basic projected grid, flashing one column at a time, each containing 8 trigger regions. When a participant (or microbot) is present on a region, it is activated. When the wave intersects with an activated region, it causes a Synplosion, expressed through a splash of color and a distinctive sound. In the grid, each row represents a distinctive color and pitch or audio sample.

The basic ingredients:
1. Computer vision in OpenFrameworks, the fully open-source, artist-friendly C++ toolkit inspired by Processing.
2. Ableton Live, triggering clips in Set Mode and modulating them with MIDI effects and racks.

For more detail:
How it Works (details, in particular, of what’s happening in Ableton)
Why it Works (some of the thinking behind the interaction)
Synplode Project Page

Josh first demonstrated this system publicly at our Handmade Music series here in New York, and this is just the kind of experimentation and iteration I like to see. Here’s the original, checkerboard version:

Paris' Tristan Garner first broke into the house scene in 2009 with his hit "Last Forever," produced with his pal Norman Doray. Since then he has kept climbing the ladder with releases and remixes for labels like Vicious, Ministry Of Sound, WePlay, and Armada, expertly balancing tribal and progressive house strains. Tristan has recently launched his own imprint Xtra Life Records, a joint venture with Strictly Rhythm, and has already planned several big releases in the upcoming weeks. His new release, "Bounce," is due out May 5, exclusively on Beatport, and is currently being supported by a range of producers including Chuckie, Steve Aoki, Bob Sinclar and David Tort. We caught up with Tristan Garner to find out the tunes that are firing up his floors.

Read more on Beatportal

Let’s get straight to the point (as it’s a sunny Friday again). We have for you today a frankly awesome mix-tape by Death Grip called Ex-Military.

Rumored to involve legendary underground drummer Zach Hill, you can stream or D/L the mix using the embedded Soundcloud player below. It’s an intense, slightly unsetttling, but nonetheless enjoyable ride across a land of crashing beats, movie samples and angry men who shout.

Once you’ve been sonically assaulted with that you can get down the park and enjoy a beer. Just like we are going to.

Happy weekend.

EB Team x

Death Grips – Exmilitary by deathgrips