First names announced for Ableton Loop. SoundCloud lays off nearly 200 staff in bid to be profitable. Experimental music pioneer Pierre Henry passes away.
In the Loop. The names for this year’s edition of Ableton Loop have been revealed and Jlin, Machinedrum, The Nile Project, Susan Rogers, William Basinski, Teenage Engineering and more are all set to appear at Funkhaus Berlin in November. Register here.
UnSoundCloud. The streaming service has decided that in order to be profitable it needs to lay off 173 staff and consolidate to just two offices in Berlin and New York. Founder Alex Ljung has released a statement on the matter, here.
Whacky. You can now pre-order experimental and chaotic new synth, softPop, from the Noise Kitchen webstore. It is an adventurous bit of gear that has unmarked sliders, feedback-heavy oscillators and cross modulation amongst other features, all of which are designed to help you get weird.
Life of its own. Inspired by Steve Reich, Ableton and Coldcut have released MidiVolve, a Max For Live arpeggiator, riff generator and sequencer that allows you to create patterns that then automatically evolve. Find out more in the video above.
RIP. French composer and musique concrète pioneer Pierre Henry sadly passed this week. The 89 year-old was an experimental musician who made music for stage, combined rock and electronic sounds and studied piano and percussion at the Paris Conservatoire, amongst many other things. Read more here.