Roland 50 Studio

Japanese musical equipment powerhouse Roland turns 50 years old this year, and they’re celebrating the milestone with some pretty cool festivities. They’ve taken their 808303.studio online real estate, which previously housed a pretty cool brower-based version of two of their legendary instruments – the TR-808 drum machine and TB-303 bass synth – and added a […]

XTC’s English Settlement at 40

This year marks the 40th anniversary of XTC’s fifth album, English Settlement, a record that represents the inflection point in the band’s career between the frantic, high-energy post-punk they made their name with to the more orchestrated, pastoral sounds that defined the remainder of their active years. It also marked the final record that the […]

The Making of The Jesus and Mary Chain’s Psychocandy

The Jesus and Mary Chain released their landmark debut album Psychocandy way back in November 1985, which means despite putting together a remarkable career and releasing a number of good to great records, Jim and William Reid have been talking about Psychocandy for over 35 years. I went down this particular rabbit hole after seeing […]

Synthesizing Men I Trust

I guess there’s just something about Men I Trust’s smooth, synthetic sounds that makes you want to close your eyes, drift away, and then obsessively reverse-engineer their creative process. How else to explain why there’s not one but two pieces online deconstructing their songs down to the synthesizer settings. Not that I’m complaining – I […]