...listening to dope podcasts from the Gaslamp Killer, Slug & Droid, Ramadanman and Glasgow's Numbers crew, plus a proper bendy hardware set from Hand of the Plow's Spandex, and, erm, this little beaut. We've also been trying hard to think of a tenuous bullshit excuse to post this vid.

 

Other than all that, we've been sitting on our arses, smoking prison rollies and engrossing ourselves in mindful discussion about the term shrimping (but that's a whole nother blog post).

Spannered would love to meet the man who persuaded Microsoft that this was a good idea for a marketing campaign.

 

 

Better quality version here

 

Courtesy of Kode9.

Certainly no shortage of festivals in the UK this year — or anywhere else by the looks of it. However, if the thought of flat pear cider, James Blunt, mud and paying the best part of ten quid for a foil dish of veggie slop doesn't pop your cork, allow us to suggest a jolly to Bristol's Venn Festival — an ever-expanding, multi-venue annual fixture in the city's calendar, that pulls together a line-up so fresh you can almost see the flyers wriggle.

2008's event inhabits some of the city's coolest venue spaces — Bristol harbourside being the epicentre of activity. Highlights include Mexican laptop legend Murcof spacing out listeners in a planetarium, revered experimentalists Pole and Matmos at the Arnolfini contemporary arts centre, an explosive Saturday night rave in a skateboard park with Moritz von Oswald (Rhythm & Sound), Black Devil Disco Club, Errorsmith and Afrikan Boy, among others, and a closing party on the good ship Thekla with shows from Flying Lotus, The Heliocentrics and Sunburned Hand of the Man. Renegade artist Ergo Phizmiz will also be unveiling a three-day installation at the harbourside Scout Hut, consisting of 'twigs, cutlery, mechanical birds and constant, ever-evolving sound'.

Sound good? Well it will be. For more details about Bristol's most idiosyncratic musical showcase, check the site.

Not content with making some of coolest dance music on the planet, Vienna's Stereotyp does a nifty job of demo-ing Masayuki Akamatsu's iPhone app akaRemote and artificialeyes.tv's i3L midi bridge code.

 

Ableton DJs take note! Why look like you're checking your emails while djing when you can now look like you're djing while checking your emails. Or something.

Mago Bo, Spannered's favourite Rio de Janeiro-dwelling masher of world styles, has a hot new mixtape out as part of the current Blogariddims run. The selection is, in Bo's words, '50 minutes of transnational bass — dubstep grime cumbia hip hop ragga kuduro baile funk dub chaabi soca crunk'. Get in. Bo's debut full-length album, Archipelagoes, is dropping this month on Soot Records (head to his MurdochSpace for clips). He's currently gigging in North America, with plans to tour Europe this summer...

 

Following a similar trajectory, Spannered faves Hanuman and El Kano have been rubbing their laptops up against each other of late, resulting in a rather spendid mix that's being hosted over on the Mashit site. El Kano's awesome artwork comes as standard — grab the whole package here.

Ok, so last week we finally got around to doing our first mailout of the year. If you missed it and feel left out, it's just here for you.

 

If you'd like a relatively bullshit-free breakdown of what's new on Spannered delivered in your inbox once in a blue moon, head over to the homepage and sign yerself up!