CONTROL VOLTAGE

February 27, 2012 – Part of the charm of chiptune, a micro-genre that uses obsolete technologies like Game Boys and Commodore 64, is its quaintness. Kitschy, bleepy, and almost deliberately enfeebled, it can feel like the equivalent of a singing Lite-Brite. But there's nothing rinky-dink about the music of Finland's Huoratron (Aku Raski), who infuses his seething, 8-bit fugues with the energy of punk at its grottiest and rave at its most deranged.

February 25, 2012 – Where 4Chan had "All your base are belong to us," the dance-music underground has long operated according to the principle, "All your face are belong to us." Every week seems to bring yet another producer toiling in secret under an assumed name — at least until the invariable outing by London's tabloid press (or, barring that, the Discogs hive mind).

February 24, 2012 – Welcome to CONTROL VOLTAGE, SPIN's new blog dedicated to electronic music (for dancing and otherwise). Hopefully, you will have figured out the subject from the blog's title, which is a reference to CV/Gate, an old-school method for controlling analog synthesizers, sequencers, and drum machines. Until MIDI came along in the 1980s, CV/Gate was the primary way for hardware devices to "talk" to each other.

February 15, 2012 – Since last Sunday's Grammys ceremony, featuring Skrillex's hat trick (but, alas, no Best New Artist trophy) and a colossal head-scratcher of a spectacle featuring dance icons David Guetta and Deadmau5, one question has come up repeatedly across Internet message boards: What does it all mean for electronic dance music? I'll tell you: not much.