School of Seven Bells - Babelonia

STEREOGUM is currently premiering Babelonia on-line; the track is the first glimpse of SVIIB's forthcoming album Disconnect From Desire, which comes out July 13th on Vagrant Records. Here's what SVIIB guitarist Benjamin Curtis says about the track:

We realized something else about our music, which is that there’s this heavy quality to it, this powerful quality that we weren’t really aware of because we were just writing at home. Going out and playing every night and discovering that, we got really inspired.

Check it out!

Lost & Found: New York City Nightscapes

This highly unusual Reason ReFill is powered by six years of live nighttime field recording footage captured at various locations all over the Big Apple. Hand-selected gems were processed, resynthesized, combined, mangled and then processed again to produce a truly one-of-a-kind set of sounds for your Reason and Record productions.

Haunting carriage rides through Central Park, ships docking at South Street Seaport, the chatter of tourists and traffic in Times Square, street performers and other "interesting" folk, cars, trains, busses and more from the darkest hours of night in New York, transformed into a diverse, usable, weird and wonderful collection of sonic tools.

Rex Powered

At the heart of every sound in this ReFill is a Rex file. From the drum loops, to the musical elements, to the evolving ambient soundscapes (some nearly two minutes long). Using Rex files to power this collection brings about an entirely new level of sonic potential for your music.

Long-playing field recordings are sliced and diced for instant access to the most interesting elements. The included Combinator instruments, loops and drum kits only begin to scratch the surface. Around every corner is another opportunity for you to take them to entirely new places of your own.

Tech Specs:
Format: Reason 4 ReFill - Instant Download

Contains: 30 Combinator Instruments, 10 Combinator Scenes, 2 Combinator Sound Effects Racks, 3 ReDrum Kits, 40 Drum Hits, 12 Drum Loops, 23 Field Recordings, 11 Field Rhythms, 10 Long Play Soundscapes, 34 Music Elements, 90 Rex Files

Audio Quality: 24 bit Audio and Rex

Soundscapes Demo - Lost & Found NYC Nightscapes by Rackflip

Damn! This looks fantastic, and at $19.99 the intro price is just right. I'll be picking this up ASAP. Go to Rackflip.com for more information and more audio demos.

How to Destroy Angels

How to Destroy Angels is Trent Reznor's new band with sexpot wife Mariqueen Maandig (ex West Indian Girl) handling vocal duties. Wonder if the name is a nod to Angelology? Anyhow, I never could get into Trent's voice but always loved NIN music, so I'm looking forward to this new outing... According to their website they'll have a "Self-titled six-track EP out this summer. Exact date TBA". Apparently Trent isn't auctioning off everything on Ebay. Guess I'll save up for when he auctions off Mariqueen at the end of the Angels tour, because every hipster needs an Asian girlfriend.

UPDATE:

Evidently How to Destroy Angels was the name of Coil's first single, which let's face it is so much better of a name than United/Zyklon B Zombie.

Orbiter: collisions driving sampler #3

This looks like a pretty cool Reaktor ensemble Matt Mower is working on,
a sequencer based on particle collision - collisions trigger sample slices:

Now optimised to handle up to 64 particles at 50Hz. With 8 voices collisions can trigger one of two samples.
mattmower.com

UPDATE, new video:

Particle energy now determines particle speed (brighter particles move faster). Further CPU optimisations to make 64 particles feasible.
mattmower.com