Old School vs. New School Gadgetry

The pursuit of newer and weirder sounds never stops. It also goes in two directions: analog and digital. Bands like Comets on Fire use analogue tape to repeat certain sounds; Ratatat goes for more straightforward digital looping. Below is a video of Mr. Quintron performing live with his famous "drum buddy," a homemade analogue synthesizer. The first minute or so is pretty garbled, but the man erupts into a heavy soul-funk groove then, three-minutes in, takes a solo with the peculiar-looking gadget. After the jump there's a video of the "reactable," a beat machine and synthesizer so digital it'd look out of place in The Matrix (also: it's used by Bjork).