We want one! How amazing is this, song could do with a bit of work though!! 

Behold the awesome majesty of the Lego Sequencer MR II. This brilliant instrument is the work of Yoshi Akai, an avant garde artist/musician/audio mad scientist from Japan currently blowing the minds of folks the world over from his base in Sweden. Akai has turned a background in textile art and design and an interest in sound into some of the most unusual musical instruments ever.

In this particular design, the colors of the blocks determine the sound being played. Stacking multiple blocks into a three-dimensional design creates weird, complex sounds. As he says of the instrument, “This is building sound more than playing sound.“ Yes, it is. And it’s also building awesome.

Well now you know! We absolutely love their new Remix of LOTP’s  “Best in the Class”. Erol played it recently on BBC6, top top top tune! They’re still the best remixers in the business! One of us, possibly both of us, are heading over to Barcelona for Sonar this June. The Dewaele’s are playing, they got us pretty excited at EP will they do it again? Can they still deliver?!

Here’s the new Video for Justice and Lenny Kravitz’s “Let Love Rule”. We heard this track ages ago and forgot about its existence, remembered liking it at the time, but probably like it more now after watching the video. Directed by Keith Schofield, great video, watch it til the end, we love it.

After years on the software side of DJing, it appears that Native Instruments is finally producing its own DJ controller. Richies got a new toy to play with and we want one too! Here he is trying it out last week in Berlin @ Saturday Adventure Club and we’d imagine he used this at the Contakt show too. No news on a release date yet.

excerpt from djtechtools.com

“In this video he is using:

2 of the new controllers for FX and loops

+ 1 Maschine (for  sample triggering)

+ 1 analog mixer for levels and EQ

= A modular FX/transport controller  for Traktor Pro?

Normally Ritchie uses the Allen & Heath Xone 3D, and it looks like these two NI controllers may make a good replacement for the now aging Xone 1D. It might also be very useful for people with two deck controllers who need extra control over one more deck or the additional FX units in Traktor 1.2. Don’t hold your breath on a release date; this is an early teaser with no word on when it will hit shelves, so chances are high it won’t come out until some time next year.“

Also here is an amazing video of Richie Hawtin during his 7hr set! at Time Warp Mannheim 2009 this year. Here he is messing round using NI’s Maschine. Only he could pull this off, he’s the most hands on dj going!

What a gig, oh I hope there’ll be another contakt show again! ILT 2008 was good but this was better. The Visuals were amazing as always but where it really beats all other shows was the sound. Brixton is a massive venue and at some points if you looked up, you’d actually think the gig was outdoors because you couldn’t see the roof, and the sound travelled brilliantly throughout. We always feel that if the bass makes your nose tickle than you know its a good soundsystem! It was full but quite easy to get up the front if you wanted. Bizarrely they had no smoking area so there was at first a massive queue of people waiting to get out for a smig. But by the end of it, everyone was smoking inside, nobody gave a fook! The music certainly seemed more techno than the show at ILT2008 but i could be wrong. Federico Maurizi and Barem as support acts were great too. Here are some vids i got on the phone, there suprisingly ok actually! But i’m a retard as i brought my camcorder this time only for the thing to die on me as i walked in the door.  Grrrr!!

Æther, the six piece Cadenza collective headed up by Luciano have just been confirmed by Resident Advisor to play Electric Picnic this year! They have them down to play Fri September 4th.  Excerpt from Resident Advisor:

“Billed as, “the synchronisation of sound and colour,” AEther is in fact a twelve person outfit when both audio and visuals are taken into consideration. The basic premise of the show is a live laptop jam session, conducted by Luciano, using a colour coded convention. Five musicians from the Cadenza stable—namely Reboot, Lee Van Dowski, Mirko Loko and Digitaline along with percussionist Omri Hason—play instruments via Ableton Live with selected colours of the light spectrum assigned to each instrument. Luciano will drive the performance through a touch screen interface used to trigger colours as he sees fit, with Todd Graft and Loki from Micro Chunk group pitching with the visual accompaniment. It’s no wonder the project has been four years in the making. “

Very nice, more techno for the Picnic, albeit ambient techno me thinks, Hailfairy is not complaining. It looks fantastic judging by some of these videos we’ve seen of them at Monegros Festival, last week in the deserts of Spain.

Clickbox are the collaborative pairing  of  Brazilian lads Marco AS and Pedro Turra who originate from Sao Paulo and they’re gonna be playing in Dublin this weekend. Sadly Hail Fairy won’t be here to see them and we’re absolutely gutted, but that shouldn’t stop us talking about them. Resident Advisor have them down as “Brazilian techno with colur and spice” and we’d have to agree with them, its a pretty spot on description! Click Box, are signed to the universally known Minus label of techno’s head honcho, Richie Hawtin, and were spotted by Magda and Troy Pierce who invited them to become part of the family with open arms. A Clickbox track is never too far from a Magda or Richie set with one track in particular been on repeat almost since I Love Techno late last year, we know this thanks to Richie Hawtin and his brilliant twitter application!  That track is Berlin shades and it has just been released on Beatport, if you like it then of course  buy it, anyway here is a 128kps version to start you off!

Clickbox – Berlin Shades (Buy)

and a song equally as catchy and memorable…

Clickbox – Fun K Mouth

The Venue this Friday for all the magic is a recently taken over club on South William Street, now called Pygmalion. It’s had an amazing turnaround since getting in new management a few months back, and the lads who run it are quickly making it one of the premier nights out in Dublin. Its now fully kitted out with a banging soundsystem and brand new dj booth as good as any. Tickets for the gig are a recession busting price of only €10.

Bloc Party have just released the video for their latest single ‘One More Chance’  which goes on general release on August 10th. Rumours of a more electronic feel to the next album have probably surfaced from their collaborations with Phillipe Zdar of Cassius. Expect to see this track blared out from the main stage at Oxegen on July 11th.

Bloc Party – One More Chance (Mediafire)