Electronics

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Sun Araw | Ancient Romans

Sun Ark/Drag City (2011)
The hypnotic fifth LP by Sun Araw — the five-year-old solo project of Angelino Cameron Stallones — is a double-vinyl spiral through deep zones of neo-primitive psych-drone noise.
By LIZ PELLY | August 16, 2011

Slideshow: Drainspotting in Japan

Remo Camerota's photographs of manhole covers in Japan, where 95% of municipalities take pride in their artistic drains.
A collection of artistic Japanese manhole covers
By REMO CAMEROTA | June 07, 2010

Endless inquiry

Ghostly shapes and images at 37-A Gallery
Mikael Kennedy’s portraits of his maunderings through the American landscape harness a transcendental concurrence of vastness and intimacy.
By ANNIE LARMON | June 09, 2010

The Big Hurt: Reed goes to the dogs

Plus Weezy debudded, Ant derided, Michaels bandanna’d
More evidence of the sickening barbarity of America’s penal institutions: Lil Wayne is being hassled because officers found headphones and the charger for an MP3 player in his cell.
By DAVID THORPE | May 25, 2010

Fortnight to fitness

Shaping up for the summer — in two exhausting weeks
If you’re reading this now, it may be too late. It’s the middle of May, and beach season is right around the corner.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | May 19, 2010

The Big Hurt: Dialing up Billboard’s Ringtones Chart

Who Charted?
We may scoff at the very idea of Billboard ’s ignominious Ringtones chart, but mobile phones are one of only three viable revenue channels musicians have left these days (the other two being commercial licensing and crooked charities).
By DAVID THORPE | April 26, 2010

Thinking outside the Woodbox

Fiddler on the Rise Dept.
As Daniel Bernard Roumain was growing up in Margate, a small city in southeast Florida with a large Haitian population, he felt playing the violin was "a calling."
By MATT TEMPESTA | March 17, 2010

Holy Scrollers!

The future of e-publishing can be found in one of the world's oldest books.
It hadn't been a pleasant millennium so far for books. But then, lo this past month, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled his company's new iPad, and there was much rejoicing.
By CHRIS FARAONE | February 22, 2010

Bob Blank | The Blank Generation: Blank Tapes NYC 1975 - 1985

Strut (2010)
These days, Bob Blank spends his time in his Connecticut studio, producing profitable music for ads and ringtones for the likes of Susan Boyle.
By GUSTAVO TURNER | January 14, 2010

Tech Support

Stereo equipment is so passé. This year's unnecessarily awesome gadgets will stir coffee and turn T-shirts into guitars.
"Lo! Men have become the tools of their tools." So wrote Henry David Thoreau, a long time ago, in Walden .
By MIKE MILIARD | December 08, 2009

Basking in life

Two humans and two lizards, in Albee's Seascape
Nancy and Charlie (Kate Braun and Peter Josephson) have made it to the other side: Their kids are raised, released into the world, and producing their own offspring.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | November 18, 2009

Review: Pirate Radio

Richard Curtis’s boat rocks
A rusty, red-painted trawler bobs in the waves of the North Atlantic. Inside is a claustrophobic warren of rooms: tiny, brine-smelling bunks, a well-stocked bar, and, crucially, a broadcast booth, its shelves crammed with the latest 45s and LPs, its turntables manned in shifts by a motley squad of hirsute rogues.
By MIKE MILIARD | November 16, 2009

Sound words

Letters to the Boston editor, November 13, 2009
I appreciate the positive review Jeffrey Gantz gave to Bad Boy Made Good , the documentary film I produced, which was shown this week at the MFA.
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | November 11, 2009

Hacking into pie

Circuitry
John Duksta's latest bit of high-tech wizardry — a machine that would aid in the creation of circuit boards — fell a bit short.
By ABIGAIL CROCKER | September 09, 2009

Idealist views

Three shows at the PMA explore truth
The path through my various responsibilities has led me to the Portland Museum several times in recent weeks, and along most of the floors. While passing through the Julia Margaret Cameron exhibit of photography I was struck by thoughts about templates created by dominant illusions, and how a consistent sense of an ideal world flowed through Cameron's work.
By KEN GREENLEAF | August 26, 2009

Giant's steps

Merce Cunningham (1919–2009)
Merce Cunningham's death on July 26 wasn't unexpected. He'd been in frail health since this past winter. He was in a wheelchair for his 90th-birthday celebration in April at Brooklyn Academy of Music. In June, the Cunningham Foundation announced plans for the future of the company and the repertory after his death.
By MARCIA B. SIEGEL | August 04, 2009

Magnificent machines

Inside AS220's Fab Lab
A machine that can make everything. It's been the stuff of science fiction for decades. But now, it's a reality. In fact, there's one in Providence.
By CHRISTOPHER COLLINS | August 05, 2009

Familiar Fantasy IV

The After Years: If it ain't broke, remake it
Final Fantasy IV: The After Years started as a Japan-only cellphone game and has washed up on American shores in the form of WiiWare.
By MADDY MYERS | June 16, 2009

Inventing the Future

At MIT's fabled Media Lab, some will change the world with robots and computers, others with . . . Wii guitars
Has Boston found the new Eric Clapton? A shimmying, face-contorting successor to Yngwie Malmsteen? Not exactly.
By ABIGAIL JONES | May 13, 2009

Review: OMG/Hahaha

An ambitious attempt to incorporate new media
If e-mail or cellphones don't prove the downfall of film, maybe it will be text-messaging or blogs.
By PETER KEOUGH | May 06, 2009

Eat it, High School Musical!

Amanda Palmer and Lexington High take on Neutral Milk Hotel
It's a Thursday afternoon at Lexington High, and 20 or so students have congregated in a music room surrounded by racks of folding chairs and sporting a sleek black Steinway baby grand.
By CAITLIN E. CURRAN | May 06, 2009

FairPoint's finances are failing fast

FairPoint with state and federal regulators show that "stable" isn't exactly the right word for its current status
Two major safety valves in the financial house of cards that is New England's largest landline telecommunications service provider blew last week.
By JEFF INGLIS | March 11, 2009

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix

Puzzle Quest drifts off course once more
It's appropriate that the new Puzzle Quest game should take place in space. Just like a black hole, it's impossible to resist; you wind up crushed into a subatomic particle.
By MITCH KRPATA | March 10, 2009

Noir film

Jerry Berndt and Eugene Richards: The inescapable romance of decay
Fatalism and depression are consequences of life, not goals. Cheer up and don't let this dust-to-dust business slow you down.
By CLIF GARBODEN | March 03, 2009

Elvis Perkins | Elvis Perkins in Dearland

XL (2009)
Elvis Perkins is the third Elvis on my iPod, and he's also the least controversial of the lot: he doesn't shake his pelvis or appropriate the unsung musical styles of others, and he certainly hasn't engaged in an epithet-laced bar fight at a Holiday Inn.
By ZETH LUNDY | March 03, 2009

Brain damage

The dark side of the DS's Moon
Given all the trouble down here on Earth, it may just be a matter of time before we terrestrial residents begin to colonize space.
By MADDY MYERS | February 03, 2009

Short and bitter words of love

Six Little Words
People sum up grand concepts, thoughts, and plans in six words or fewer every day — in Facebook status updates, text messages, text-message novels , iPhone or Blackberry e-mails, Twitter posts, or analog Post-Its.
By CAITLIN E. CURRAN | February 02, 2009

Review: Chrono Trigger DS

Time capsule
The cartoonish æsthetic still looks better than what we get from games that came out a couple of years ago.
By RYAN STEWART | January 13, 2009

High-tech high jinx

Anybody can give electronics that do something useful, it takes imagination to air-condition a dog
Like being visited by the Grinch instead of Santa, it looks as if Barack Obama is going to have to give up his beloved BlackBerry not long after this holiday season draws to a close.
By MIKE MILIARD | December 12, 2008

Howlin’ Wolf | Rockin’ the Blues: Live In Germany, 1964

Acrobat (2008)
The fidelity of the recording is far from state-of-the-art, but its historical value - and sheer musicality - more than make up for any qualities that might peeve audiophiles.
By JEFF TAMARKIN | November 20, 2008