A blast from the electronic past:

The program in the Phillips pavilion during the World’s Fair consisted of Edgard Varèse’ Poème Electronique played through 400 loudspeakers, projected images and colored lights created by Le Corbusier, and Iannis Xenakis’ Concrète PH played as an interlude between shows.

As Varèse later described it, the sound followed paths through the loudspeaker arrays, and groups of speakers were used to create effects such as reverberation. He said, “I heard my music literally projected into space.”

via EMF

Electronic Musician magazine has published an interesting overview of the state of modular synthesizers.

In the last few years, modular synths have experienced a renaissance, and there are more manufacturers than ever before and a larger variety of modules available. Gino Robair’s article looks at new releases from a variety of manufacturers, with a focus on unique modules.

The article is also available as a pdf download.

According to reports from MI-6, glam electronica band Goldfrapp are close to being confirmed as the title song artists for the forthcoming James Bond film Casino Royale.

No singing “Goldfrapp” to the tune of Goldfinger, now.

Goldfrapp, a British electronica duo from Bath, Somerset, consists of Alison Goldfrapp (lead vocals. keyboards, synthesizer) and Will Gregory (keyboards, synthesizer).

The duo released their debut album, Felt Mountain, in the winter of 2000 to much acclaim. The album was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize the following year and produced two minor successful singles in the UK.

Their second album Black Cherry was released in the beginning of 2003, and took the group into a new, more commercial direction. Their third album Supernature was released in 2005 to great success, peaking at number two in the UK and achieving platinum status, becoming Goldfrapp’s most successful commercial release to date.

Cool Wii music demo - looks like this will be useful for more than holding swords and BFG’s.

Warning - big ass video file!

Tired of blowing space aliens?

Probably not, but you still may want to check out Fijuu2, a 3D, audio/visual installation that takes a PC with a PlayStation-style gamepad, and turns it into a game platform where you can dynamically manipulate 3D instruments to make improvised music.

Here’s a YouTube video of Fijuu in action:

fijuu is built using the open source game engine OGRE and runs on Linux. in the future fijuu will be released as a Linux live CD project, so players can simply boot up their PC with a compatible gamepad plugged in, and play without installing anything (regardless of operating system). This effectively turns the domestic PC into a console for game based audio performances.

Details and downloads are available at Fijuu.com.