Come this September, dream-pop maestro, Toro Y Moi, will be dropping a new EP titled Freaking Out. Below, you can get a FREE MP3 from that EP.

For the price of your email, you can download the tune "All Alone" which appears on the EP. The tune is filled with funky beats and synth blips that try their best to get you bopping in your seat.

Freaking Out arrives September 13 via Carpark

You can also catch Toro Y Moi at the dates below.

Enjoy at FILTERmagazine.com

“Sound check is always easy,” explains Daniel Balk lead singer for the young twenty-somethings New York City band, the Postelles. “When we play gigs we just plug in our instruments and play to have fun.  There's no synthesizer or computer to set up.  It’s about the songs, not the sounds we’re able to make.” This is a sentiment that distinguishes the band - bassist John Speyer, drummer Billy Cadden, and lead guitarist David Dargahi – from many of their contemporaries.  Of late, the New York city's music scene has been defined by a set of Brooklyn bands.  But the Postelles are Manhattan kids—born and raised in the city and influenced by a different lineage of music.  “We’re not trying to be different,” further explains John “We just feel that we’ve found the right medium for our music.” With the release of the “White Night” EP and their debut full-length to follow in June, the band defines itself both as an antidote to the dominant trend of quirky, self-referential rock and as a powerful new voice in the classic pop lineage.

The Postelles are part of an ideological bloodline that connects The Velvet Underground to the Ramones to Blondie and Television to the Walkmen, artists with unique and varied sensibilities, certainly, but who have in common an allegiance to the unabashedly unadorned rock song. In fact, it was during the late 90s, when New York had no unified sound to speak of and the members of the Postelles were just kids pouring over their parents' record collections, that the seeds of the band's sound were sewn. They were all reared on 50s and early 60s rock and roll – Buddy Holly, Sam Cooke – these were the bands they heard as kids, these were the bands they aspired to be, and these were the bands that initially brought them together. David and Daniel bonded over a mutual love for the Stones and the Beatles. Music also drew John into the fold. One day Daniel was walking by the music rehearsal room at school and heard John playing the Beatles "Yesterday" on the Cello. "Next thing you know, while everybody else is studying during free periods, we're spending ours locked in a music closet playing songs," John remembers.
 

Continue reading at FILTERmagazine.com

Every day that goes by, we're getting more obsessed with Joe Goddard's new single for Greco-Roman/DFA, "Gabriel." Now, "Gabriel" is a gutsy choice of title, if only because you're automatically falling in line behind Roy Davis Jr.'s song of the same name, also known as one of the greatest tracks of all time. (If you disagree, sorry, but we have nothing left to talk about here.) But Goddard, who you may know best from his work in Hot Chip, is clearly undeterred. Recruiting a vocalist named Valentina, he turns in a brightly hued, decidedly off-beat deep house number that calls to mind Caribou and Four Tet's dancefloor efforts. And the rest of the EP is well worth checking out, particularly "Jump," engineered by Jesse Rose, which sounds a little like Matthew Herbert remixing Philip Glass. Now Greco-Roman has released a brilliant, Rorschach-blot video that perfectly captures the vibe of the song. (And if you dig that, you might want to check out the t-shirt that Goddard has designed for Millionhands.) Keep your eyes open for the remix EP featuring Seiji, Juan MacLean, Compound One, and Hyperdub's Ossie; get the original EP on Beatport here.

Watch this video on Beatportal

Premiere number two! FILTER is proud to premiere Tokyo Police Club's cover of 2009's track, "Strictly Game," by Harlem Shakes as a part of their Covers Project with Polaroid recorded at Red Bull studios in Santa Monica, CA. Download*  the track and check out the cover art courtesy of Polariod film below! Graham Wright of the band also gives us 10 reasons to check out the project in our lovely clip after the jump. It's quite convincing.

In case you missed yesterday's premiere of TPC's M83 cover and our interview with member Graham Wright, click below!

For the last 9 awesome cover recordings and other information on the project, please visit www.polaroid.com/tokyopoliceclub.


* Right click and "Save As" *

| Tokyo Police Club (cover for 2009) - "Strictly Game" by Harlem Shakes  MP3 |

Enjoy at FILTERmagazine.com

The FCC today made it easier to move an FM translator from one location to another, but at the same time adopted new policies that seemingly restrict how far a translator can be moved.  Today's decision  uses a waiver process to relax the rules so as to permit a move of a translator a greater distance in a single application, but the decision also labels multi-hop moves as an abuse of the Commission's processes.  As translators have become more important to broadcasters as a way to bring AM and HD-2 signals to a wider audience, this decision will have an immediate and significant impact on many broadcasters, once it becomes clear exactly what are the parameters set by the Commission.

Under Section 74.1233(a) of the FCC rules, a minor change for an FM translator requires that the facilities proposed in an application have a 60 dbu contour that overlaps with the translator's current licensed 60 dbu.  In effect, this is saying that part of the protected service area of the proposed new facility must overlap with the current protected service area served by the station from its licensed facility.  As major change applications can only be filed during designated translator windows (and there has been no FM translator major change window since 2003), to make any move in a translator, it must be a minor change.  The decision today allows, through a waiver of the rules, a minor change application to be used if the licensed facilities preclude construction of the new facilities, i.e. if the interfering contour of the licensed facilities of the translator overlap with the protected contour specified by the application for new facilities.  A the interfering contour goes much further than the protected contour, this allows the FCC to approve in a single application a move of a greater distance than would be allowed under a strict reading of the rule.  However, there were significant conditions imposed on the application of this new waiver policy that may preclude longer moves that have been common in the last few years. 

In the decision, the Commission said that the waiver was justified based on four grounds:

1. The applicant had no history of "filing serial minor modification applications";
2. The proposed site for the translator was mutually exclusive with the licensed facility (see the description above)
3. The move-in does not preclude LPFM opportunities (see the freeze on certain translator moves in larger markets that we wrote about in our discussion of the pending rulemaking on the relationship between translators and LPFM stations)
4. While not "dispositive", the application was for the rebroadcasting of an AM station (the local service helped to justify the waiver, but that kind of service may not be necessary to take advantage of this new policy).

The big news is the fact that the waiver was conditioned on fact that the applicant had not previously filed "serial minor modification applications."  Because there have been no FM translator windows in so long, broadcasters wanting to rebroadcast an AM station or an HD-2 signal on a translator have had to find existing translators to use for such rebroadcasts.  In some markets, there have been no available translators to use, so deals have been struck to move translators great distances to the desired market.  Such moves have been done through a series of minor change applications (often referred to as "hops") - with the station being built and licensed at several intermediate locations before the station ended up at the desired location.  We have written before about the Commission's penalties for applicants who have not really constructed and operated their translators at some of these intermediate locations (see our articles here and here).  But today's decision goes much further, stating " We believe the filing of serial modification applications represents an abuse of process."  The decision admits that the serial applications do not violate any FCC rule.  But, the decision concludes that, as their purpose is to achieve through a series of applications an outcome that cannot be done on a single application, the applications are intended to subvert the purposes of the major change rules, and do not serve the public interest. 

This decision raises many questions.  Just what constitutes "serial modification applications?"  Is two hops to move a station a "serial modification?"  It would seem that this could not be the case, as the very application that was granted in this decision would, under a strict application of the rule, need two hops to complete.  So are they saying that someone who did it in a way that is permitted under the rules (using two hops) is bad, but someone who asked for an exception (as did the applicant here) to the rules is serving the public interest so much that they merit a waiver of the rules?  Or does it have to be more than 2 hops to be bad?  Is it bad only when the newly proposed facility is precluded by the current facility?   How was an applicant supposed to know that this was bad?  How can the Commission deny the use of this new waiver policy to applicants who may have been serial modifiers in the past, when these applicants did not know that serial modification was bad?  There are probably hundreds of cases where the Commission has approved serial modifications - never once indicating that these were inherently bad (except in those cases where applicants did not really do what they said that they had done - e.g. they didn't really construct the intermediate hops, or they did not leave the station running for more than a limited period of time at one of the intermediate locations).  The FCC even got complaints that they were processing these hops too fast for those who had concerns to protest - so the processing was slowed.  But even when the processing was slowed, there never was any expression that multiple hops were an abuse of process.  How can the Commission now retroactively say that what was approved by the FCC in the past disqualifies an applicant from taking advantage of a new policy? 

All these questions will no doubt be answered as others try to take advantage of this policy.  Watch and see what happens as the new policy is applied in cases coming before the FCC in the coming months.

PocoPoco is a delightful, fanciful device that takes music control into the realm of kinetic sculpture. Normally, the relationship of music controller is primarily about the operator making physical actions. With PocoPoco, the hardware itself moves. The essential musical structure is familiar: it’s the grid of light-up buttons, with strong similarity to the ongoing interaction design of Toshio Iwai in the 90s and (Tenori-On) past decade. Even aesthetically, there are similarities – perhaps not coincidentally as this team is also Japan-based.

But adding in the element of solenoid-powered cylinders popping out of the grid adds a major element of surprise. There is also an unmistakable similarity to a certain arcade game, Whac-A-Mole.

Whac-A-Mole might be ideal inspiration. The game itself is based on rhythm and time, and the ability (or inability) of the brain to deal with multiple simultaneous stimuli, much in the same way our brain has to track across lines of counterpoint in music. And Whac-A-Mole’s history might be instructive, too: it’s the creation of Creative Engineering, the pioneering kinetic and animatronic company behind Showbiz Pizza and Chuck E. Cheese. (Achievement unlocked: CDM legitimately references Chuck E. Cheese twice in one week.) Founder and design Aaron Fechter’s animatronic shows might not seem a likely source for futuristic interaction design and music, but with the computer added to the equation, simple mechanical effects take on an entirely new significance.

But back to the PocoPoco. As a musical instrument, I’m dubious. It’s fundamentally another a four-by-four step sequencer, so it’s not as though it actually solves a problem. (Well, if you’ve ever wished your step sequencer were also a game of Whac-a-Mole, it’s the invention you’ve been waiting for.) But even if it’s not actually useful, it’s no less intriguing. It could be seen as a tantalizing reminder that adding motion to interfaces could produce musical devices that double as moving sculptures, and performance tools that move rather than sit around waiting for you.

The timing seems right, too, as touch interfaces like the iPad make physical interaction fairly abstract (running your finger on undifferentiated glass), or gestural interfaces take away any touch at all (Kinect).

There’s a great interview at DJ Tech Tools. That’s fitting, as DJTT has popularized their own MIDI Fighter hardware, which accentuates the tactile feel of playing grids by swapping arcade buttons as the input, and likewise has a strong connection as this does to games and arcades. A must-read:

PocoPoco – The Motorized Controller [Interview, DJ TechTools]

Takaharu Kanai, one of the designers from the IDEAA Lab team at Tokyo Metropolitan University, has some good things to say.

Seen other kinetic hardware, or worked on a design of your own? We’d love to see it.

MTViggity has III in full.

Dada Life get bananas—literally—in the video for their new single, "Happy Violence." We'd like to be able to tell you that no bananas were harmed in the making of the video, but, sadly, that's not true. Squished and savaged, singly and in bunches, even in effigy—well, piñata form, anyway. Oh, the humanity. (Bananaty?) "Happy Violence" is out now on So Much Dada, exclusively on Beatport.

Watch this video on Beatportal

Paris' vaunted Circus Company label is 10 years old this year, and as part of their celebrations, they're taking over London's Cable nightclub tomorrow night for a Circus Company Club special featuring Guillaume & The Coutu Dumonts, D'Julz, Seuil, Sety, Alex Jones, and Cedric Maison. We asked Seuil to tell us about some of the records he'll be playing. Read on for his responses. (And, since he's too humble to promote his own records, we'll do it for him: be sure to check out his hypnotic, rippling approach to tech house on recent releases for Harry Klein Records, Supplement Facts, Culprit, and Eklo.) Check here for more information on the party.

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Here's the second part of Peter Chambers' controversial mnml ssgs post from earlier this year, in which he talks about "three Very Important Albums" that have been released this year.

In electronic music, as in every other genre, there's an overwhelming amount of, well, garbage that gets signed/sealed/delivered and passed off as product. However, as dire as the situation sometimes seems, there is a silver lining. This endless sea of four-to-the-floor McMusic cultivates a deep-seated appreciation for the records that rise above the blasé. Not because of how "sick" they sounded at the festival tent, but because even after repeated listens, there's still plenty more to discover. Balam Acab's "Wander/Wonder" is one such work. Composed by the 20-year-old Alec Kroone, and released, like his debut EP, on Brooklyn's hotly tipped Tri Angle imprint—home also to left-field R&B producer How To Dress Well, hip-hop beatmaker Clams Casino, and merchants of gloom like Holy Other and oOoOO—"Wander/Wonder" is a staggering "art-tronica" narrative seemingly frozen in glacial obscurity. Careening in and out of a boundless symphonic lucidity, it's warmly wreathed in helium angels, lapping waves, and a lush, snowy depth comparable to the endless tundra. This is what 6 stars out of 5 sounds like. Do yourself a favor and get it here. Read more about the artist on Altered Zones, stream the entire album on NPR, and get a free download of the album cut "Oh, Why" from the artist's SoundCloud page, embedded after the jump.

Read more on Beatportal