Nik Gomez

Skream – Finally (feat. La Roux)

La Roux’s debut album is a perfect example of a sleeper hit. It was released over a year ago, but only recently did the song “Bulletproof” get any serious air play. It’s a perfectly-paced record, that puts singer Eleanor Kate Jackson’s voice on top of bouncy electropop beats.

Producer Skream makes the kind of dubstep that proves that the genre deserves some credence. His music seats itself in the fog of night dripping in reverb,  and it stays far away from the strain of dubstep regurgitated over and over by producers like Rusko.

This new song from Skream is his second piece that involves La Roux, the first being a remix he did of the band’s first single: In For The Kill. Both songs are amazing, so take a listen.

Skream – Finally (feat. La Roux)

La Roux – In For The Kill (Skream’s Let’s Get Ravey Remix)

Got 17 free months? Make a Daft Punk Helmet!

A Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo helmet to be exact. This video made my day, and I love that DIY projects like this exist.

I think that I heard, back around the time of the Alive 2007 tour, that the real helmets cost thousands of dollars to make. Check the link below for a more detailed explanation of how this was done.

Daft Punk: FINAL! -Volpin Props

Robyn – Hang With Me (new single)

The radio-rip of Robyn’s new and first single off of Body Talk Pt. 2 has been unleashed, and it just so happens to be the dance version of “Hang With Me.” I think this new version of the song sounds akin to Body Talk Pt. 1′s “Cry When You Get Older.” This second installment of what’s supposed to be a three part release will see the light of day on September 6th.

Body Talk Pt. 1 was released a little over a month ago. It’s the best pop release of the summer so far, and it featured the acoustic version of “Hang With Me.” I can’t wait to get my hands on parts 2 & 3.

Robyn – Hang With Me (Single Version)

Robyn – Cry When You Get Older

The Game of Life in HTML5

Conway’s Game of Life is a pretty sweet game. Well, it’s more like a set of rules that, when run, can result in some pretty awesome patterns.

Simply put, you start with a grid of boxes. The boxes are in either of two states: alive or dead. To play the game, you start by turning some boxes alive, and running these rules over and over:

• A living cell with 0 or 1 neighbours dies, by underpopulation
• A living cell with 4 or more neighbours dies, by overpopulation
• A living cell with 2 or 3 neighbours survives
• A dead cell with 3 or more neighbours becomes alive, by reproduction

I’m not sure why, but we learned about the Game of Life in one of my computer science classes a few semesters ago. I thought it was interesting at the time, but it (sort of) came in handy when I interned at Microsoft. Every year the company puts on “Puzzle Day” which is a program-wide competition between teams that are solving puzzles all day. One of the puzzles was just a wide grid with seemingly random boxes colored black. It came with some clue about “life”, and I figured that it was simply Conway’s Game. Little did I know that there were custom rules that we had to figure out to solve what the boxes revealed… Sadly, this wasn’t one of the puzzles we solved, but we came close, right?

Conway’s Game of Life in HTML5

Upcoming Shows: Hercules & Love Affair, The Chemical Brothers, and Vampire Weekend

While it doesn’t look like I’m going to get to any shows during my time up here in San Francisco (ok, the South Bay), I WILL start going to shows the very first day I come back down to LA.

The first show I have tickets for right now is Hercules & Love Affair at the Echoplex. I seem to have great luck when it comes to interships ending and H&LA’s touring schedule. Last year I got to see them in New York my last weekend there, and this year I get to see them in LA on my drive back down from here up north. I’m pretty sure Andy Butler will have the same lineup with him in LA as he did in NY, even though this is considered the “new” lineup that’ll be featured on the album (I assume).

Hercules & Love Affair – Blind

The second show I have lined up features YACHT and Chromeo opening for The Chemical Brothers at the Hollywood Bowl in late August. This show is bound to be incredible. I (and just about everyone else) consider The Chems to be one of the electronica greats*, and I’ve been dying to make it to one of their live shows after seeing them do a DJ set at Coachella last year. While I haven’t ever seen YACHT, their last album got great reviews. And it’s been a long three years since I’ve seen Chromeo at Steve Aoki’s one-off Neighborhood Fest, but their new material that’s been leaking sounds great.

The Chemical Brothers – Saturate

Chromeo – Don’t Turn The Lights On

Finally, I’ll also be going to see Vampire Weekend, Beach House, and The Very Best at the Hollywood Bowl in September. I’ve seen Vampire Weekend three times now, and they bring it every time. I saw Beach House on a whim at Coachella a couple months ago, and while I thought they were great in the Mojave Tent, I’m sure I’ll enjoy them more now that I’ve gotten to know their material better. I haven’t ever seen The Very Best, but their mixtape and album were both given BNMs from Pitchfork. Now that I think about it, of every album released by all three of these artists, only Beach House’s first album didn’t receive the title. Damn.

Vampire Weekend – Walcot

Beach House – Walk In The Park

*My list of ‘electronica greats’ consists of The Chemical Brothers, The Prodigy, Basement Jaxx, Daft Punk, and Underworld