You know, I just love self-reflexivity from a humor standpoint, all critical analysis aside. Here’s two recent favorites:

The funny part is that the Onion has been including realtime RSS feeds on their main page, meaning if you search for key terms you get thrown to the Onion home page and barraged with parody. Brillz.

Who’s the campaign about?

Love it.

Moar!

McCain’s top words appear to be country, work, fight, Americans, make, and going.

Obama’s top words seem to be promise, America, time, McCain, American, and work.

The word clouds were made with Wordle, a free online tool that lets you create word clouds from pasted or linked-to text.

M_nus label owner and minimal techno pioneer Richie Hawtin has eschewed the “trade secret” mentality (and ridiculous toupe-combover hairstyle, thank god!) and shared brief videos on his myspace blog explaining his live setup.

Traktor lies at the base of his arrangement, and in particular he makes use of Traktor’s Four Decks. Much in the way Ableton Live enables live syncing of basic elements, Hawtin uses elements of unfinished tracks, such as a partial demo track from label-mate Marc Houle, as building blocks in a live set.

And in a move that some people consider controversial in the DJing world, he admits to using the Sync function, as it allows him to focus on other things such as four-deck manipulation and playing with effects, a view to which digital musicians are more sympathetic.

Richie Hawtin: My Setup

CDM picked up the story and it generated some discussion in the comments. Go and check it out.

Oliver Hacke is one of Germans young techno producers who where not socialized by Detroit. His music is oriented on Europeans like Vogel and Isoleé rather than on the early Detroit masters. And if a young producer already hits the top 50 with his 5th release, it some kind of sensation. We are talking about ‘Polar’ released on Traum Schallplatten. In his productions he combines traditional with New School / Dsp Production techniques, always looking at the clubbers needs. So its not a surprise that he is being called ‘Wunderkind from Düsseldorf’.

And all that even though he just started to get into music in 1998. His releases on Background, Traum and Trapez along with his ‘Vegetable

Orchester Remix” release on Karmarouge, embed Olivers wide ranged production style which he also reflects during his DJ sets. As an experienced dj his repertoire reaches from “clickish three- dimensional micro-house” to “straight-up contemporary techno” and merges his various faccets to an individual style. A DJ who is able to fill a techno floor as likely as a house floor with a mixture out of very danceable electronic music.

Oliver Hacke has alredy appeared on Trapez, Traum, Background, Eleganz and Karmarouge.

Ramp Chicago resident Liz Revision supports.

Oliver Hacke Promise Mix

This ultra-nerdy video made the rounds a while ago when the large hadron collider dropped onto the scene as it neared completion, but strangely the existence of the educational rap that extolled its inner workings and inherent scientific virtue seems to be sadly non-pervasive. To help it’s reach, there are some viral-friendly resources available. If you’re interested in doing a remix or want a higher-quality downloadable video,go to Large Hadron Ramp Links and Lyrics, and here’s a set of mindblowingly awesome photos. If that’s not enough to convince you to hit the play button, Steven Hawking makes a guest appearance. Sort of.
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visualist, who extrapolate on how they work together in a live environment. Considering as the musician half use Max / MSP with a custom patch by Apparat, one would suspect that their audio / video interaction might involve something equally complex, along the lines of Jitter or whatnot, but that appears not to be the case.

An interesting bit of trivia comes from the divulgence that Modeselektor was the result of a veritable German alt-tronica DIY endurance match, where the last men standing in a collective of audio and visual producers teamed up to form the current lineup.

Modeselektor plays tonight in Chicago at Sonotheque, a venue that might not be able to withstand the chaos that is Modeselektor’s live performance.

Bouncing from his native New York to Vancouver, San Francisco, and finally Chicago over the last 10 years, Emulsion’s Nathan Koch has watched the evolution of electronic music in North America from a number of vantage points. “It seems like in the last few years electronic music has really merged with indie culture, something I was wary of at first but I’m learning to embrace it.” This renewal of interest in melody and harmony prompted a sea change in Nathan’s listening habits, and reinvigorated him as a producer and songwriter. A year later, Emulsion’s new album Blue Sky Objective, full of pretty, emotive melodies and 8-bit beats, was released to critical acclaim on Chicago’s Lens Records.

With recognition everywhere from Chicago’s own New City and Time Out to (inter)national press like Textura and Igloo Magazine, and with new EPs on Fludios (part of Spanish net.label Flumo) and Xynthetic Netlabel coming this year, Emulsion has been surprised to find he’s not the only one harboring an eight-bit fetish these days.

Emulsion has shared the stage or DJ booth with a wide variety of artists, including Tycho, Cepia, Machinedrum, Arctic Hospital, and The Flashbulb.