A drum kit sized to fit your fingertips, Sphero’s Specdrums 2 Rings are designed to detect colors and play an assigned musical note for each. Simply wear it with the screen facing down and tap everyday objects to make a beat. Whether using the device’s preset library of instrumental sets or recording your own samples, you can make songs during a commute, at your desk …
Initially obscure (with various sound effects and jazzy percussion) and shifting with delicate, layered vocals, Ty Segall’s “Ice Plant” is a “fever dream of my childhood,” he says. The majority of the song (from his forthcoming album First Taste) is occupied by Segall and Lay’s a cappella vocals—a far cry from the previous fuzzy, psychedelic, garage rock tracks from the record. It all floats along …
The dark post-pop tune “Pretty Bones” is the first single from the debut full-length by yeule (aka Nat Ćmiel). The track is layered, gauzy, glitchy and quite ethereal. Its Joy Song-directed video begins with opulent and odd still life images (pearl-encrusted fruit, raw octopus, jewels, flowers and candles) and descends dramatically with Ćmiel destroying everything—punching cakes, crushing sweets—until finally, the screen fills with time-lapse shots …