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Some years ago, I met a builder who told me about this method of contruction, using long sandbag tubes which are filled with a mixture of dirt and small amount of cement. I found this instructional video from calearth where architect and author Nader Khalili explains their Superadobe building method.

Ever since the days of being the mad scientist/sound wizard with “Roxy Music” the English art rock band, Brian Eno (Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno) has been an inspiration to many artists, musicians, sound engineers & composers. His experimental approach is in the line of composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen & John Cage, challenging the way music was perceived, written and recorded. Well known for his “sound treatments” modulating instruments with electronic devices and synthesizers, he has collaborated with artists like Genesis, Ultravox, Television, Talking Heads, , John Cale, David Bowie, Robert Fripp, U2 and many others. Wiki has an good bio on his work.

Artscape – Brian Eno In Conversation 2009 from Johnny Darko on Vimeo.

LAUNCHPAD is the new dedicated controller for Ableton Live music software by the guys at Novation. Yes you could say it is styled after the “monome” but with waiting lists and the expense to get a monome, the LAUNCHPAD is a great option along with the AKAI APC 40 MIDI controller. Take a look:

The Reactable is a fun collaborative electronic music instrument with a tabletop tangible multi-touch interface. Sevral performars can gather around the table and place objects on the luminous round table surface. These physical objects represent classic modular synthesizer components, users can turn and connect these objects to create multiplexed sonic landscapes combining oscillators, filters and modulators. Here’s a video of the Reactable experience:

The race is on to create the most ergonomic and user friendly MIDI controller. For those who don’t know, a MIDI controller is used to send performance signals to any MIDI enabled computer, hardware sequencer or electronic musical instrument. There are many types of MIDI controllers, your common (piano style) MIDI keyboard, a MIDI guitar controller, a MIDI wind controller and many bizarre MIDI controller experimental designs. Leading the race are cutting edge MIDI controllers using multi-touch screens with user-friendly software like the Lemur (by JazzMutant).

MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is the industry standard communications protocol (started in 1982) which allows (MIDI capable) electronic musical instruments and sequencers (or computers with MIDI interface and music software) to communicate with each other. A typical use in the early days would be to use a sequencer to record and play one or more hardware synthesizers. Nowadays, musicians are using a variety of MIDI controllers and computers with music (sequencer) software to record or write musical ideas and play them back on software (virtual) instruments (installed on the computer) or through external hardware synthesizers, audio samplers or drum machines.