Yet another reason to love Barcelona, snapped last week. [Thanks, ES]
With that in mind, check this out.

Heck yes! Uncle Rico's sweet time machine modulus + crystal on eBay now. [Thanks, Damon]

Lynnel's extraordinary scan of the pope feeling a bit...well, "horny". Courtesy of our friends at Burnlab.

Today, Monday April 18th at 10am PST pre-sale tickets go on sale for the following Fischerspooner shows:
6/1 Henry Fonda Theater, LA
6/2 HOB - San Diego
6/3 HOB - Anaheim
6/4 The Fillmore, SF

Go to http://www.fischerspoonertickets.musictoday.com

The loveable, wacky Euro-duo better known as Stereo Total will be on tour this May. Mark your calendars now:
26.05.2005 USA-San Francisco, CA - Bimbo's 365 Club
28.05.2005 USA-Los Angeles, CA - Knitting Factory Hollywood

SF Robots, don't just sit there tonight. Get Activ.
LA Robots, head to create:fixate downtown.

This is your brain.
This is your brain on Sony.

If you missed out on the Fischerspooner record release party at Cinespace, you missed out on free Absolut vodka, and euphoric electro escapism. Both Casey and Warren were in LA to celebrate the release of Odyssey, and the crowd was enthusiastically down for the cause (read: free liquor) grooving to massive electronic beats being dropped by an array of guest DJs.

Julia, we don't know you, but we like your style.

LAVoice has a good writeup on Saturday night's SRL performance, and there's a nice, big, clear QuickTime movie of the event here.

Last night Los Angeles was host to a beautiful symphony of destruction courtesy of Mark Pauline's Survival Research Laboratories (SRL). SRL was started nearly 30 years ago, and consists of artists and creative technicians dedicated to re-directing the techniques, tools, and tenets of industry, science, and the military away from their typical manifestations in practicality, product or warfare. The show was pure carnage - all robots and fire billowing from the downtown arts district near the 4th street bridge, just south of SciArc. The sleeping giants began to thrash about, spew fire, shoot cannons and systematically destroy one another until there was nothing left but smoldering piles of ashes, twisted metal and mutilated faux goats. It was beyond amazing (and unbelievable they did it in the middle of a public street). I managed to snap lots of pictures from my vantage point, but you really get a good sense of the experience from the movies on the SRL web site. Thank you organizer Susan Joyce, Dangerous Curve, Mark Pauline and SRL!

Felix da Housecat dates: San Francisco, Saturday April 2nd @ Mezzanine. Los Angeles, Saturday April 9th @ Avalon.

Our friends over at This Is A Magazine just released their most original and interesting project to-date. It's their "EVERYTHING WILL BE OK" performance art edition, which consists of a 300 page PowerPoint presentation from artists including Pamela Anderson and George W. Bush.

Both Unix and Bep of Electroboobies are bustin loose. They're breaking out of the Training Bra, and launching a whole new electronic experience in the heart of Downtown LA. Starting this Saturday and continuing every month head down to ULTRALUXX at Litle Pedro's (901 East 1st Street @ Vignes). You'll be treated to DJs dropping the beats of electro, indie, brit-pop, 80's, new wave and more - tell 'em BitBoy sent you!

First it was Apple. Now it looks like both Apple and Sony are getting pretty good at prying me away from my hard earned dollars. The new PSP is charging right now!

Old school party fliers. Awesome [via Newstoday].

I'm not sure exactly what this whole Japanese Kumauta singing polar bear PS2 game is about, but it looks just weird enough to be a winner. My Japanese is bad enough to where I can just make out the "ku" on his uber-stylish tracksuit.

04/05/2005 Fischerspooner "Odyssey" Record Release Party
Cinespace, Hollywood, CA. Details: Casey will DJ. Open to the public on a first come-first serve basis.

SF Robots, tonight head over to Active at 9th & Folsom for a very special visit - direct from the Hague in western Holland Legowelt will be bringing his analog synth grooves to hungry robot masses. Legowelt is not to be missed!

Just a quick note for all LA robots, get your gears in motion and head down this Saturday night to Data Age. Not only is it LA's exclusive venue to see drum machines, sequencers, and computers along with their live counterparts, you'll just may also get a glimpse of neighbor and friend Mike, as he fires up his keytar. Check out more information at Curious Recordings.

Rockstar Games launches Beaterator, a real-time, online Flash music sequencer and sampler, complete with loops from Ghostly artist Matthew Dear.

The rain they promised for LA never came, so it proved to be a nice day to head out on foot and take the Lensbaby and the D70 out for a spin in the 'hood. Lomography has nothin' on this combo!

I've been listening to an advance copy of the new Fischerspooner album, Odyssey and it's really grown on me. The art troupe extrordinaire have returned to prove that they're for real, with some incredibly catchy melodies and lyrics. It's clear "Just Let Go" will be the breakout single, but equally fab is the sassy "Never Win" or the more contemplative "All We Are" with rifts that harken back to the Cure's "A Forest". Definitely worth picking up when the album is released in April 2005. For now, you can check out Casey and his new Napoleon Dynamite coiffure in the "Just Let Go" video here.

Anyone who knows me knows I am obsessed with music and images. I have also harbored a secret desire to explore the relationships between sound and image; to "see" what a song sounds like, and to "hear" what an image looks like. Blogger and software engineer Tim Omernick takes my obsession one further with his innovative SoundOfAnImage software, which converts images into music. Sometimes the music even sounds like music, especially if you play images with a lot of structure and/or symmetry to them. Here's the results of some experiments with recent pictures from Rem Koolhaas' and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture's amazing Seattle public library. They might not make your iTunes playlist, but they're very interesting nonetheless.


Listen


Listen


Listen

All work and no posting makes BitBoy an unhappy robot...
All work and no posting makes BitBoy an unhappy robot...
All work and no posting makes BitBoy an unhappy robot...
All work and no posting makes BitBoy an unhappy robot...

Robot DJ. 'Nuff said.

Robots!
So many things going on, as John Stewart would say, "Man, you are blowing my mind." Here's a quick update of LA musts:

Droid Behavior is on fire - so much electro goodness coming to town it's going to make you short circuit. Kick things off with our favorite Berliner, DJ HELL accompanied by LA's own Mount Sims and Savas Pascalidis. It all happens at Circus Disco on Santa Monica Blvd. this Saturday night from 9-4 am. Do not miss this event! More events including some of your favorite Kompakt DJs coming soon!

On Feb 17 catch DJ Carlos from Interpol as he spins at the Beauty Bar. Hopefully he'll bring a little left over Detroit party mojo to the City of Angels.

And for all you SF Robots, don't miss Julian Destrukt, Teflon Jacket and Audioelectronic tear things up at their all new night of Synth, Acid and Electronic Bass at ACTIV. It happens Saturday, Feb 19th at The Shadow Lounge - 9th & Folsom.

Target promotes Design for All.

Oh, Lemur. You will be mine someday. You're so very beautiful, and you can control Traktor. Another chink in the armor of vinyl. Just imagine yours truly rocking the spot like this, this or this.

Feeling a little uninspired by the dearth of new music out there, robots? Never fear, there's a musical tsunami on the horizon and it's headed this way. Here's a little sample of what to expect in the coming months from some new players and old favorites:

Daft Punk
New album "Human After All" expected to hit stores in March 2005.

LCD Soundsystem
Their first self-titled album will be released February 15th. Until then, check out the video for their single 'Daft Punk Is Playing At My House' is now available for viewing at lcdsoundsystem.com.

Tiefschwarz
New album Misch Masch is released domestically on February 8th, 2005.

Fischerspooner
In addition to the recent news about their new album, Odyssey due to be released on April 5, Fischerspooner and gallerists Deitch Projects have announced the re-opening of their evening Salons held at the FS studio space at 110 North First Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn every Thursday. The opening party will be held this Thursday, January 27th.

Mu
Out of Breach: Manchester's Revenge - if you haven't already heard clucky, punky electro sounds of Mu, check out her single "Paris Hilton" download it for free from Index Magazine.

Portishead
In an interview to the BBC 6 Music they are in the process of writing a new album, that was well on its way to completion. On the rumoured break-up of the band, member Geoff Barrow commented, "We've just had our heads down really, we've never actually broken up, or parted, or whatever. So for us it just seems, even though we haven't played for years, we still see each other and write - we just haven't released a record for a long time."

New Order
New Order returns with their eighth studio album in the spring, and join the class of 2005 by taking their inspiration from... classic New Order. The album, "Waiting For The Sirens Call" is divided between guitar tracks in the vein of previous album "Get Ready" and the synth-based tracks that are their trademark. And yes, as normal, sleeve art will be designed by Peter Saville. Check out their single "Krafty" with your RealPlayer here.

Depeche Mode

In addition to being featured in this month's Q / MOJO magazine, with "The Complete Depeche Mode Story", the band has already started work on a new studio album on Monday, January 17th along with with Daniel Miller, Jonathan Kessler and Ben Hillier at the production console.

All this comes from a varitey of sources, including our friends at Burnlab, Index Magazine, XLR8R and others.