Designed by Owen Osborn and Chris Kucinski, Critter & Guitari’s musical instruments encourage play and experimentation. Their portable Kaleidoloop, for example, records sounds and manipulates them by altering playback speed and direction—so you could try to recreate that famous “reverse speech” scene in Twin Peaks, or beatbox up an epic percussive symphony to accompany your solo act. Composer Mark Mothersbaugh is a Kaleidoloop fan and …
Much of Onyeabor’s identity remains a mystery, but crate-diggers have been fans for years, and 2013 saw Luaka Bop finally bring his songs to the (curious) masses. Discovering Onyeabor’s music is like being let in on a very special secret. Rich with playful hooks, repetitive melodies and strange electronic sounds, the Moog-driven songs lean more toward spacey Germanic techno than the raw Nigerian Afro-beat of …
New York-based littleBits has been making big waves in the design industry since their electronic modules-maker took over the MoMA Design Store. Instead of building talking puppets or electric toothbrushes, this time around the two-year-old startup is concentrating on breaking down barriers in the electronic music-making realm; seeking to make it more accessible to those who aren’t fluent in the language of wires, circuitry and …
