The Kraftwerk documentary aired by the BBC tonight was a pretty grim experience. Billed as an examination of Kraftwerk as ‘total art’, it was a promising proposition, with interviews with Can’s Holger Czukay, Detroit techno star Derrick May, and Kraftwerk pal Francois Kevorkian. Along for the ride was, almost inevitably, …

Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh has a studio on Sunset Strip called Mutato Muzika where he and his team of composers knock out an impressive amount of soundtracks for Hollywood films, TV shows and adverts, and the games industry; ‘The Lego Movie’ for one, and most of Wes Anderson’s films also. The …

Back to claim the terror-electro high ground, The Prodigy have released a video for the title track of their new album ‘The Day Is My Enemy’. The album is due out March 30th, and on the evidence of the two tracks they’ve put out so far, it’s a spectacular return …

Last night Wolfgang Flür entertained a packed house at the monthly Campfire (http://www.playworks.tv/campfire/) event in London. The audience – which included luminaries like Neil Arthur of Blancmange, Jon Fugler of Fluke and Kermit, formerly of the Ruthless Rap Assassins and, of course, Black Grape – lapped up the wide-ranging discussion …

Last summer, Devo played a handful of dates to the devoted in the USA, performing songs from their so-called ‘Hardcore’ era, the strange, mutated and twisted songs they wrote between 1974 and 1977 before they became a major label post-punk phenomenon. The whole shebang was recorded and filmed in Oakland’s …

The release date, Friday, January 18, 1980, made John Foxx’s debut solo album one of the first of the 1980s. It was a statement of electronic music that was put together relatively quickly, and with a simple set-up (“an eight track cupboard in Islington”), but one that would continue to …

Kraftwerk continues to wow audiences with multi-date residencies at venues across the world. Ever since they installed themselves at MOMA in New York in 2012 and London’s Tate Modern in 2013, their eight-night 3D Catalogue performances have been quite the electronic music fan’s hot ticket, always selling out within a …

Watch this great footage of Public Service Broadcasting playing the Electronic Sound-sponsored opening show at the Norwich Sound And Vision convention late last year. Their new album, ‘The Race For Space’ was pretty much finished when they took to the stage, but they were tight-lipped about it back then. Read the …

If you’re a fan, no doubt you’ve already forked out for the five-disc DVD release of Depeche Mode’s ‘Live In Berlin’, directed by the band’s long-term collaborator, the master photographer and director Anton Corbjin. The second DVD disc on the bumper pack includes back stage footage and two acoustic songs …

What is Craftwife? We first stumbled across them a couple of years and put them on our watch list. The promo video for their app first drew us in, then we saw videos a few of their shows, or rather, presentations. Craftwife occupy a unique space somewhere between being software …

We love Kickstarter. We’ve lost count of the number of albums and live films and documentaries we’ve supported via the platform. We missed this when it came out, though, the Ototo “all-in-one musical invention kit”. They were looking for around £50,000, but bagged an impressive £73,589 back in March, 2014. …

As we type, Kraftwerk are in the middle of their second night of another all-album (well, from ‘Autobahn’ on) eight-night residency at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie. All seems well so far, with German media outlet Deutsche Welle having vox-popped a selection of suitably erudite Berliners outside the venue who variously praised …

They Might Be Giants are a difficult group not to like. They’ve been around for over 30 years, and have worn many crowns throughout their long existence; kings of alternative rock, kings of Accordion rock, kings of the Dial-A-Song (they would advertise a number, when you rang the answer machine …

Have a look at this video, brought to our attention by friend of the magazine and synth enthusiast of considerable standing, Matt Berry (Toast of London). It’s an all-ARP synthesiser blowout featuring Michael Brigida. Brigida is now an Associate Professor of Electronic Production and Design at Berklee, and if you’d …

For anyone outside the UK, the fact that we have a general election looming is unlikely to be of much interest. It’s not until May, but already the knives are drawn and campaign teams are feverishly creating meme-ready slogans with suitable images. And that’s when Kraftwerk got dragged into it. …

Recently here in the UK the entire nation (well, it was trending on Twitter for an hour or two) was glued to their TVs for the BBC’s documentary about the year 1980, as seen through the filter of Top Of The Pops, the once-essential, now-cancelled weekly pop music show. The …

Was it today that you put aside to listen to two speech synthesisers doing Monty Python’s ‘Argument Sketch’? It was? That’s great, because here it is. The Dectalk (on the left, which is taking Michael Palin’s part) was developed by Digital Equipment Corporation in the early 1980s and later produced …

Here for your New Year’s Eve entertainment is the Mode playing ‘Enjoy The Silence’, two months before its release. for a Peter’s Pop Show New Year’s Eve special, broadcast on December 31, 1989. Recorded during the sessions for the ‘Violator’ album in 1989, the single went on to win a …

The split single is a fine institution. Who can forget the Sonic Youth/Mudhoney 12-inch when Sonic Youth covered Mudhoney’s ‘Touch Me I’m Sick’ and Mudhoney the Sonic youth track ‘Halloween’? Sonic Youth ran away with it, to be honest. The ploy of introducing bands to each others fanbases makes a …

Merry Something to all, from us at Electronic Sound. And from our Texan pals Hyperbubble, here’s a Christmas song that echoes how many of us will be feeling. Hyperbubble – A Synthesizer for Christmas from Ambar Navarro on Vimeo.