Since starting on classical guitar around 2000, Diego has become a multi-instrumentalist at heart, but specializes in keyboards and electronic instruments. A sometimes member of various At the Drive-in-adjacent El Paso-based bands, Diego fell out with the scene/sound and does his own things now. He’s worked as a staff writer for the zZounds Blog and a product specialist at zZounds for well over 10 years. If you ask Diego’s significant other, his true talent is cooking.
303 State: A History of the Roland TB-303
The Roland TB-303 houses one of music’s most singular sounds. Scroll down a bit and hit play on Phuture’s “Acid Tracks.” What do you hear? That knocking beat of the TR-707 gives way to what sounds like a bass line contorting itself from within. Slippery, percolating, and squelchy, it’s the sound of an unique instrument being pushed to […]
Neon Bunny – 서울 하늘 Romance in Seoul
Though we’re already two months into 2016, I’d like to take some time out to note two releases that struck the most chords with me last year. Without a doubt I’ve been gobsmacked by my favorite single of 2015: Neon Bunny’s 서울 하늘 Romance in Seoul, and it’s the first release I’d like to talk about. How come? […]
Beat Connection: Footwork
Welcome to zZounds Beat Connection. Beat Connection is a series dedicated to promoting modern and vintage dance styles the only way we know how. We do so by providing you a musical starting point to get you going in that direction. Today we focus on a style unique to our fair city of Chicago: Footwork.
Maurice White of Earth, Wind, and Fire Dead at 74
Maurice White’s battle with Parkinson’s may have ended on Feb. 4th, but something vastly important will live on in the legacy of his music. Turn on the radio, maybe to that side of the dial you tend to neglect, or listen to more voraciously than others, and before today you’d be bound to hear something […]
Arturia MatrixBrute: An Avant-garde Analog Synth
The MatrixBrute’s product description opens up with plenty of questions: When was the last time you felt your heart beating faster? When was the last time you heard sounds you had never heard before? When was the last time you met an instrument that truly inspired pleasure and creativity? The only question I have is how. How […]
David Bowie at 69
David Bowie will rise again. Much like the biblical Lazarus, I believe it won’t be from his own doing. Something we’ve learned from our modern world is how vast and varied the places and people are that have been touched by his living record. As news of his passing goes around, we start to feel how […]
Interview: The ASMR Series — GentleWhispering
Building on the questions we posed to Dmitri the Massage ASMR, we dive even deeper with arguably the most popular ASMRtist out there. Maria, aka GentleWhispering, took some time to speak with us, in her natural voice, about what exactly ASMR means to her and how she goes about creating content for this field. GentleWhispering’s 3d-sound ASMR Video: […]
Interview: Yasuaki Shimizu of Mariah
No album has astounded listeners this year quite as much as Mariah’s Utakata no Hibi. From websites like Pitchfork, Resident Advisor, FACT Magazine, all the way down to the Quietus and the Vinyl Factory, not many albums released today could top such varied tastemakers’ “Best of 2015” lists, let alone with something originally released upwards of three […]
The ASMR Series — Massage ASMR
If, you’ve traveled our world wide web recently, you’ve probably run into videos like these. Videos where someone is either whispering in a very soft voice, brushing something, or tapping at some other thing. These videos are now known as a new type of content named for the physical feelings they produce: autonomous sensory meridian […]
