CONTROL VOLTAGE

October 12, 2012 – I rarely have explicit themes in mind for the Friday Five when I begin putting together each column, but they still have a way of gathering in the margins. This week is all about classically-minded house and techno—big surprise, given that underground dance music is deep in the throes of a retro fetish.

October 11, 2012 – It can't be April 1, because Eric Prydz just announced a New York show at the Roseland Ballroom for November 21, a.k.a. Thanksgiving Eve.

October 10, 2012 – Richie Hawtin is no stranger to the North American electronic music scene. Growing up in Windsor, Ontario, just across the border from Detroit, Hawtin and his Plus 8 crew threw some of the Midwest's most legendary parties in the early 1990s. As Plastikman, Hawtin played raves from coast to coast, sharing bills with the likes of Moby and the Prodigy.

October 9, 2012 – Last time Dan Snaith took on a new alias, it was because of a lawsuit — here's looking at the Dictators' Dick Manitoba, a man who truly lives up to his given name — but there wasn't any real, categorical shift between Manitoba and Caribou.

October 5, 2012 – My partner is out of town, it's grey and rainy here in Berlin, and I spent two hours trekking to and from an interview on the outskirts of the city (in a rehearsal space owned by Rammstein, at that). There's no way in hell I'm leaving the house again anytime soon. Cue up the drones! Today's selection is all about ambient music, from no-fi improv dub to a must-hear reissue from the mid-1970s.

October 5, 2012 – "Music is a language. I prefer a clear, understandable, calm voice," says Ricardo Villalobos, sounding particularly clear, understandable, and calm himself.