Up above is a full album stream of the new LP by Gold Panda, we got the exclusive stream because you guys seemed to love it soo much on a recent post, nice one ISO50 readers! below is a small blurb about the UK producer.

““I didn’t want to write ‘beats,’” says UK producer Gold Panda, “I didn’t want bangers. I wanted songs with structure.” And yet, despite the artist’s protests to the contrary, his debut album, Lucky Shiner, is full of bangers—of a kind. “Lots of factors affected the way it came together,” he explains, “touring, mixing, moving houses and splitting with a girlfriend. Family, friends, and lovers, places I’ve never been.” It’s that mix of directness and emotion that characterizes Lucky Shiner, an album of beat-driven electronic music that’s easy to fall in love with, and to. In Gold Panda’s world, vinyl-static beats and heart-on-sleeve melancholia collide, and the results are breathtaking.”

FujiFilm has just released a gorgeous, large-sensor compact camera that was inspired by traditional analog film cameras. The camera, called the FinePix X100, has a 12.3MP APS-C CMOS sensor (approx. 1.6x crop factor). The X100 also has this new feature called the ‘hybrid’ viewfinder that allows the user to switch between optical and electronic viewfinders and project shooting information into the optical viewfinder. If all that was too much for you, check out this video.

More importantly than that though, I find the subtle design of the lip over the LCD, the viewfinder flip switch and the shutter and aperture controls to really sell me on the design. Listed below are also more of the features that are sending me head over heals. Oh wait a second, news just coming in: the camera ships March 2011 for $1000!

I’m very tempted to pre-order, but what are your thoughts on the camera?

Specs to consider:
• 12.3MP Sensor
• 1280 x 720 HD Video w/ sound
• F2-F16 Lens
• ISO 100-12800
• 5 FPS Shooting
• 2.8″ LCD
• 127(W) × 75(H) × 54(D) mm in size
• More info here

I’m always geeking out on music hardware and have a soft spot for DIY projects like the one you see above. I came across this custom MIDI controller by William Logo and was pretty impressed by the looks of the thing, especially considering that it was built with off mostly the shelf parts for under $400. I’ve been wanting to build my own custom controller for the Tycho live shows (to control VDMX, which runs the visuals) but I’ve never found the time to get anything started. It’s nice to see someone pulled it off with some aesthetically pleasing results. And I’m really loving the vibe of the photos, great tone.

For all you music geeks out there, I’m just decided to lighten my VDMX MIDI controller load by swapping out the big Akai APC40 and heavy Vestax VCM600 for a Novation Launchpad and a M-Audio X-Session that I’ve had lying around. We’ll see how the new setup works out for the upcoming shows.

MIDIBox Project Via CDM

You may remember Josef Schulz’s series Sign Out from a while back. I was a big fan of that series, but these photographs, that focus on the subtle details of architecture, are much more intriguing to me. It’s all about the lines and the color. I am reminded of the work of Philipp Schaerer — that or video game architecture, where environmental details are obscured just enough to allow you to focus on the bad guys (or reduce processor load).

Using digital image processing, the analogue picture produced is then “cleansed” of the few remaining hints pointing to age, location or environment of the buildings. All details that might possibly allow conclusions concerning the actual size, users, time or place of the buildings are completely removed. The physical reality of the buildings is changed in such a way that they seem to become virtual blueprints designed to perfection.
— Excerpt from an essay by Thomas Ruff.

Hard Format has some great shots of and original 12″ sleeve for Kraftwerk’s Autobahn (the brown tape just makes it that much better). This has to be one of my all-time favorite covers; I cut a picture of it out of Rolling Stone and had it on my fridge for years, but if I had this is would be framed in the middle of the room. What are some other great minimalist sleeves? Link them in the comments.

Source Hard Format

Everyday Magazine is a magazine that focuses on the behind the scenes of creative folks. I find the design to be quite relaxing and the inner pages to be nicely laid out. The project was created by Mikael Floysand as an assignment at Westerdals School of Communication.

In my opinion Kurt Vile is all over the place, I picked up one album and love almost everything and then others the one gem hits after multiple listens. Freak Train popped up and set such a good tone to my afternoon, I needed that boost, I love when music does that.

A great surprise for me at least is this Sufjan Steven glitch addition, I want to shake his hand, he could of gotten lost in my book and went into the bland well known folk world but instead he threw a high speed curve at me, much respect.

This Mark E and Matthew Dear marriage couldn’t make me smile any bigger, that synth line, the untouchable groove of 2010. Way to make that vocal work Mark, I feel like i’m stuck in a New Order break down and I love it.

I grabbed this Toro Y Moi track from the latest Daytrotter Newsletter, this talent is here to stay, you could put this song into any decade after the 50’s and it would of felt right.

This “brand new”, supposedly made for NASA, Hasselblad MKWE can be yours for around $34K if you win this auction. It apparently comes as new in the original packaging. I love the concept of new-old stock; something about the idea of a product sitting undisturbed for decades in the original packaging is pretty cool. I have seen some classic synthesizers still sealed in the original box come up here and there on ebay, I even once saw a Rhodes piano, in the box, still unassembled. But none of those really compares to this beauty. The hardest part about getting this would be deciding whether to even use it or to preserve it in some sort of airtight viewing cube.

Auction via Sam Valenti

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho2m2th66GE

This is the incredible video for Four Tet’s remix of Vessel by Jon Hopkins. Not only is it mega weird in the most perfect way, but it really suits the song perfectly. Hypnotic to say the least. I love it when the dancers are on a really short repeat loop: the shots between 00:16-00:45 and the very last are my favorite.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a video synced with music in such an interesting way. This was probably the last time.

via Carefully Selected Garbage

Moog just announced the new XL version of their Voyager synth. This is pretty exciting news considering the dearth of manufacturers these days willing to go out on a limb with a fully analog design. When I first saw the press shots I was really hoping it was going to be polyphonic, a modern Memorymoog maybe. But after checking the specs I was disappointed to learn that it’s just a mono synth like it’s Voyager brethren. What was even more disappointing was the price: $5,000 USD. While this is a beautiful piece of equipment and I appreciate the fact that they are produced on a small scale, that just seems like a lot for a larger — albeit still mono — Voyager with VX and CV tacked on. From what I can tell the same functionality could be had by getting a Voyager Rack and the expander boxes.

Also like the previous Voyagers, it’s pretty much in line visually with the original Model D design cues, which I adore. But I have a Voyager Rack and have always been disappointed by the body. The original Minimoogs had an incredible paint job and color scheme. Even the typography was amazing. The new stuff has a big sticker for the interface, as opposed to being screened directly on to the metal. It’s details like this that can really undercut an otherwise quality design. That being said, I’d have to say it’s still one of the prettiest synths out there, save for the Virus TI2 of course.

At any rate it’s still one of the most beautiful sounding musical instruments that you’ll ever hear.

And here are a couple of vintage Moog ads for good measure.