The ability to harness new technology, of course, is a mighty power. That Buffy Sainte-Marie was using synthesizers and quadraphonic sound to upend conventional narratives about North American colonialism only made her more terrifying to the status quo. Perhaps that is why she has continued to make her life’s work bringing computers and digital technology to indigenous communities, as she has done with her Cradleboard Teaching Project or her 1999 manifesto “Cyberskins.” Emerging technology, she writes, can “counterbalance past misinterpretations with positive realities, and past exploitations with future opportunities. The reality of the situation is that [indigenous people] are not all dead and stuffed in some museum with the dinosaurs: we are here in this digital age.” Fifty years ago, Illuminations was a declaration of that same life-affirming truth, and so it remains. It’s a portal to another world, as full of possibilities and alternative realities as that telephone-switchboard-like matrix into which Sainte-Marie plugged cord after cord. Lay down your cool cynicism, your rationality, your linear Western thinking, Illuminations instructs, before leaning close to whisper its secret: “Magic is alive.”

Every Noise at Once is an ongoing attempt at an algorithmically-generated, readability-adjusted scatter-plot of the musical genre-space, based on data tracked and analyzed for 2,923 genres by Spotify as of 2019-04-16. The calibration is fuzzy, but in general down is more organic, up is more mechanical and electric; left is denser and more atmospheric, right is spikier and bouncier. Clones of the Queen is the selected artist for 'Hawaiian Indie.' ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This is a list of compact disc albums with tracks hidden in the pregap of the first track.

Up until very recently, I'd recount my online experiences with some degree of shame or sheepishness, but in this apocalyptic year of 2012, that embarrassment is beginning to fall by the wayside. I've been having more and more conversations with people grappling with what is gained and lost by how some of our most meaningful musical discoveries-- not to mention life experiences-- have happened in front of, or facilitated by, screens. We're starting to come to terms with the fact that modern life is a constant, awkward/elegant oscillation between the digital and physical, faces and FaceTime, and we're starting to hear music that reflects this reality, the beginnings of a new ordinary.

The experimental pioneer's groundbreaking work with computers in the 70s and 80s helped lay the foundation for many of today's electronic noise makers.

Our consciousness and memory are moving into the ether, so the need for our senses is diminished. And the interface for this transformation turned out to be text.

“I set myself a half-day project to write music specifically for shuffle mode — making use of randomness to try and make something more than the sum of its parts. Over an hour or so, I wrote a series of short, interlocking phrases (each formatted as an individual MP3) that can be played in any order and still (sort of) make musical sense.” The reference points here to electronic music (glitch and dubstep, obviously) are interesting, as are his integration of skipping noises as percussive elements and how the skip itself can be used as a musical device. Hat-tips to and reminders to look further into the work of pioneers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Brian Eno, and John Cage.

"Commercial concerns are both implicit and invisible in the consumption of content."

"Adaptable, minimalist interfaces." Oh. My. God.

A diagnostic engineer's collection of his electronics and music experiments, including the "Ambient Addition" music concréte headphones.

"The reactable, is a state-of-the-art multi-user electro-acoustic music instrument with a tabletop tangible user interface."

"The musical brain is learning."

An article on sound quality for Stylus Magazine.

Reviews, headphone wizard, catalog, etc.

How to make speakers out of headphones. "The sound’s a little tinny, but loud enough for making out."