Kraftwerk

Denver's ten best Memorial Day weekend shows

THE HEAD AND THE HEART @ MAGNESS ARENA | SAT, 5/25/13 Formed in Seattle in 2009, this project started out playing open mics and within a year after playing countless shows, the Head and the Heart independently released its debut album. The band, whose self-titled album came out on Sub Pop in 2011, i ... More >>

See Space Lab supergroup rework the music of Kraftwerk for free this weekend at Civic Center

Feel like partying in the park this holiday weekend? Here's your soundtrack, courtesy of Jay Bianchi's Summer of Serendipity series. The two days of free music this weekend at Civic Center Park features The Space Lab: Kraftwerk ReAmped, a supergroup of sorts comprising Jesse Miller from Lotus, Steve ... More >>

Dan Boeckner of Divine Fits on being inspired by the sprawl of L.A. but put off by $5 cupcakes

Diving Fits formed when Britt Daniel of Spoon and Dan Boeckner formerly of Wolf Parade got together with their friend Sam Brown of New Bomb Turks. The music that came out of that union was a kind of power pop infused with a strong electronic undercurrent, like something that could have happened in t ... More >>

Dyad

Cyberia
Self-released

Techno pioneer Kevin Saunderson on how dance music has gone from an analog to a digital world

Widely recognized as one of the originators of techno and a giant in the evolution of electronic-music culture, Kevin Saunderson (along with childhood friends Derrick May and Juan Atkins) began creating and performing his own unique style of kinetic, heavily percussive, sample-based dance music in D ... More >>

Jana Hunter of Lower Dens on how the term "freak folk" is an inept description for her band

See Also: Lower Dens at Larimer Lounge - Tuesday, July 10 There's something both unnatural and superhuman about the new Lower Dens album, Nootropics. True to the Baltimore quintet's Facebook bio, which reads only "dark nerds," the band delved deep into social, moral and technological issues on its ... More >>

Brian Williams of Lustmord on how you have to be a little bit crazy to be creative

See Also: • Q&A with Nick Zammuto • Q&A with Morton Subtonick • CMKY brings electronic arts and music to Boulder for a fourth year Lustmord (due Saturday, April 28, at the ATLAS Institute during the Communikey Festival) is the long-running project of Brian Williams. In the late '70s and early ... More >>

VNV Nation: "We wanted to offer people an alternative of substance over pure style"

VNV Nation (due tomorrow night at the Black Sheep in Colorado Springs) started as a kind of bedroom project for the band's singer and co-programmer, Ronan Harris. By 1995, he had developed his music to the point that it was becoming part of the next wave of underground electronic pop. Some may dismi ... More >>

Howard Jones on performing Human Lib and Dream Into Action in their entirety on this tour

Fredrik SvenssonHoward Jones​Howard Jones (due Saturday, October 15, at Summit Music Hall) was one of the most successful and popular synth-pop artists of the 1980s. Jones's songs were uplifting, but never saccharine, and he had a knack for articulating the concerns and hopes of people regardl ... More >>

Andy McClusky of OMD on Dazzle Ships, the influence of '70s Krautrock and Peter Saville

​ Orchestral Manoevres in the Dark (due at the Bluebird Theater on Tuesday, March 22) is perhaps best known for its song "If You Leave," featured in Pretty in Pink, the classic 1986 John Hughes movie. But the band first made waves in its native England with its first two albums, a self-titled ... More >>

Constellations

Bicycle Tropics/Savage Orb
Self-released

Our new robot infatuation is plenty "Tuff Enuff"

Man, do we love robots. Especially when those robots are bringing us the latest and greatest DFA sounds. We've been wearing out our copies of LCD Soundsystem's This Is Happening for a while now, and just as we're thinking it's time to give it a rest comes a new slice of brilliant DFA goodness, in ... More >>

The weird, wonderful world of Loke Wilson

​There's something admirable about an artist who just does their own damn thing, who doesn't give a fuck about trends or tastes, and who couldn't care less about how cool they look -- or don't look. Ladies and gentleman, Loke Wilson is just such an artist. In the cold, dark hinterlands of Nor ... More >>

Read this book: How to Wreck a Nice Beach

​ I've been obsessed with the vocoder for a long time. From the first time I heard Kraftwerk's "Autobahn" to watching Clockwork Orange in high school -- the sound has fascinated and amused me to no end. Until last week, I didn't know Dave Tompkins' book, How to Wreck a Nice Beach, which detai ... More >>

Erykah Badu, Brian Eno on our playlists this week

​As people who think about, talk about, listen to and make music, the most common question we encounter is, "What are you listening to right now?" So whether you're looking for recommendations, trying to get a feel for our individual sensibilities, or are just curious, we've compiled a list of ... More >>

Top Ten Best Chiptune Pop Demakes

As you may or may not be aware there is an entire scene of people demaking popular songs into 8-bit blips and bloops. While chiptunes, in general, have always attracted the most circuit-minded of musicians, the demakes themselves are a genre all their own. As the Tron clip above demonstrates, they ... More >>

Freeloader: Sexy mix from CacheFlowe just in time for Valentine's Day

​Just in time to get you in the proper mood for Valentines Day, CacheFlowe drops a free mix of sexytime music called This Year is For Lovers. It's full of swinging tracks of sexiness -- "ninety minutes of sexy jams in the genres of techno, dubstep, downtempo, hip hop, experimental and more" as ... More >>

Heavy Rotation, our top spins for the week of January 4, 2010

​As music critics -- and people who generally think about, talk about, listen to and make music -- the most common question we get asked (and ask each other, for that matter) is, "What are you listening to right now?" The pervasiveness of this query is precisely what inspired Heavy Rotation. F ... More >>

Top 10 Reissues of the Decade

This Heat finally makes it Out of Cold Storage​Reissues are a difficult breed, on one hand they seek to garner a new audience, on another they have to pay heed to what fans are looking for. The best reissues not only remind you why you liked the band in the first place, but help in keeping tha ... More >>

Heavy Rotation, our top spins for the week of December 1, 2009

​As music critics -- and people who generally think about, talk about, listen to and make music -- the most common question we get asked (and ask each other, for that matter) is, "What are you listening to right now?" The pervasiveness of this query is precisely what inspired Heavy Rotation. For t ... More >>

Ten band inspired costume ideas

​Halloween, the time when adults decide to don their favorite witty getups, whether it be the intellectual "Freudian slip" or the pop culture driven "Christian Bale Yelling." We're sure some of you are short on ideas, so we've compiled a list of band inspired costumes to wear to your favorite part ... More >>

Last Night: Daedelus at the Bluebird

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CacheFlowe's "Computer World" video

If you weren't lucky enough to catch CacheFlowe's performance of his awesome, dubsteppy cover of Kraftwerk's "Computer World," today's your lucky day because he has released a video of the performance, and we've got it for you. Actually, even if you did catch it, you're still lucky, because along w ... More >>

Beyond Playlist: Eric Skiff

Eric SkiffResistor AnthemsSelf releasedReleased last year, Eric Skiff's charming Resistor Anthems is a nine tracks of chirping, lo-fi electronic beauty. Reportedly created almost entirely on a borrowed Gameboy hacked into a musical instrument, the album displays an impressive grasp of melody, space ... More >>

MP3 Freeloader: Tonight, CacheFlowe CD release party at Beta

Tonight at Beta, local experimental electronic auteur CacheFlowe is releasing his new dubstep EP Cache, Stacks and Queues. It features a collaboration with Brer Rabbit of Flobots and a remix by Planet Mu dubstep artist Starkey, who will be headlining the event. And as an extra special treat for thos ... More >>

The Westword.com blog shortcut, May 8, 2009

Photo by Adam PerryThey're not quite Dead... Big as life. Today in Backbeat Online: • Last night: The Dead at the Pepsi Center. • The 38th annual CHUN Capitol Hill People's Fair line-up announced. • 3OH!3 breaks top ten on Billboard Hot 100. • Freaky Friday: "Obama Flashback" -- Autotune t ... More >>

Time-tripping at Kazmos Lounge

Mix It Up

Explicit Electronica takes synthesizer sounds back to the future.

Beaten by Them

Thursday, August 21, hi-dive, 720-570-4500.

Last Night... Kraftwerk @ Fillmore Auditorium

The Best Soul-Blues Album Covers and Other Assorted Goodies

Kraftwerk

Wednesday, April 23, Fillmore Auditorium, 303-830-8497.

The Unstoppable Pulse of the Motorik Beat and Other Assorted Goodies

The Disorienting Post Modernity of Rutlemania and Other Assorted Goodies

Mahjongg

Tuesday, February 26, Larimer Lounge, 303-291-1007.

DJ Chloe

Limón

Swift Response

Gravy Train!!!!

Tuesday, July 10, hi-dive, 720-570-4500.

Cred Sheet

What you need to know to be in the know.

Porsches on the Autobahn

Saturday, February 3, Bender's Tavern, 303-861-7070.

Junior Boys

Wednesday, September 20, hi-dive, 720-570-4500.

Scratching the Surface

Freq Nasty

Scratching the Surface

Solvent

Coldplay

X&Y (Capitol)

Let's Clash

Old and new collide to create the next wave of electronica.

Señor Coconut

El Gran Baile (Emperor Norton Records)

Beck

Midnite Vultures
(Geffen)

Playlist

Plugged In

Just in time for Lollapalooza, a list of the albums you need to understand electronica.