Tireless electro-philanthropist QXTC (aka Gavin Bradshaw) has never been a man to rest on his laurels. Over the past few years or so he has released almost five and a half hours of free music, via six albums and four EPs- the latest of which, Reality On Charles Street, was released recently on the Vorbic netlabel.

Inspired by a sudden sense of life felt whilst walking through his native Manchester, the EP sets ambient synth colour-washes and occasional, disjointed vocal samples to skittering beats which sound akin to buckets of marbles being dropped down the stairs. The EP is available to stream or download from right here– if you enjoy it then look forward to his seventh album, released imminently via hippocamp.net (home to former RvD performers Domestication of the Dog and Scrubber Fox, amongst others) which will feature reworked versions of EP tracks AngleDrive and Spitting Bullets, the second of which you can find in the embedded player at the bottom of this post.

Meanwhile, check out his myspace if you’d like to have a nose through the rest of his considerable back catalogue- won’t cost you anything, after all…

Robot vs Dinosaur will be DJing as part of Brum-based creative media network Project X Presents‘ next event, entitled “Digital Dystopia”. Taking place on Saturday 13th September at newly-unveiled Birmingham club BUSK, the performance will further develop and explore the group’s remarkable “Omnimedia Experience” format, presenting a seamless flow of art, music and visuals via three stages.

As well as our good selves (well, one half to be specific- I’ve got a wedding to get to), the event also features a performance from former RvD highlight Arc Vel alongside a diverse range of artists and DJs of all genres including Marc Reck, Mixmaster Morris, Steve Loopz, Rich Batsford, Shana Tova, 360 and many more. Meanwhile, those of a slightly more experimental bent can expect to have their appetites sated by the many art installations, spoken word pieces and VJ performances on offer. Believe me when I say that the above description merely scratches the surface of what this event has to offer: the promoters ask you to “leave your expectations at the door” and, for once, I would pay heed to that advice.

Entry to the event costs £10, and doors open at 8:00pm with the night running ’til 3. Meanwhile, BUSK can be found on Gough Street, opposite Island Bar and the Alexandra theatre. For more info, please check out the Project X Presents website.

Thanks to everyone who turned out to the last Robot Vs Dinosaur, after a slightly patchy Summer it was the best night we’ve had for quite some time- hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did! Special thanks are of course owed to Mike In Mono and Girljoy (pictured) for coming down and playing some blinding sets- if you liked Girljoy then buy her album immediately, and we’re also beginning an email campaign right here to try and pressure Mike into finishing his album as we really want to hear it! While we’re waiting though we’ll console ourselves with the superb ZX Spectrum Orchestra stuff currently available from Warm Circuit.

We’ve also got photos from the event up in our gallery, please do make sure to check them out. Thanks to Andy Bullock, Pete Hodgson and Stu Roland for contributing photos, you all did a bang-up job- and yet, at this point I have to express some disappointment. Island Bar was awash on the night with photographic equipment, there were digital cameras, phone cameras, lomographic cameras, even someone wielding an old game Boy camera and yet we’ve only received photos from the above-mentioned few. If you’ve got photos taken at any of our nights then please email them to us via info [at] robotvsdinosaur.co.uk and we’ll proudly feature them in our gallery (yep, replace the “[at]” with an “@”, unless you’re a spammer!).

Anyway! Keep your ear to the ground, we’ve got lots of stuff in the pipeline: Robot vs Dinosaur returns to Island Bar come Friday September 19th, plus there’s also a few other developments which we very much want to talk to you about shortly. More info very soon, we promise! Keep it salty…

Consider this a warning: less than 48 hours to go now ’til Robot Vs Dinosaur stomps back to Island Bar come this Friday (the 15th)! As well as top-notch brain-blowing live electronic action from Mike In Mono & Girljoy, we’ll also be DJing everything from Manitoba to Merzbow- expect electronic music of all flavours, some of which you never even knew existed… We’ll also be giving out free pin badges on the door too- get ready to choose your allegiance!

Entry is £3 or £1 if dressed as a robot or a dinosaur, with doors opening at 8:30. Check out our events page if you need to know more, and we’ll see you on Friday. Drop us a comment if you’ve any last-minute requests…

Not content with having created a blogging empire including the superlative Created in Birmingham blog (for which he jointly won a Guardian media award this year), setting up his own digital consultancy and being a vocal advocate of the benefits of the social internet, Brum-based bloggerati Pete Ashton is now branching out into avant-garde electronic music following his purchase of a Thimgamagoop.

To the uninitiated, the Thingamagoop is a anthropomorphic analogue mini-synth cum sound toy featuring a single oscillator controlled by a photocell, alongside a simple low-frequency oscillator. The amount and type of light hitting the photocell affects the pitch and harshness of the sound produced, whilst further modulation via the afore-mentioned LFO allows a dizzying array of bleeps, skronks and zaps to be coaxed out of the cute-yet-rather-sinister lil’ fella.

Following a fateful encounter with a Thimgamagoop at last year’s SXSWi, Pete finally managed to get his hands on one recently and in the space of just over a week he’s already documented his experiments with the unit in great detail, won sponsorship (via Live Brum) and is now ordering more to create a crazy-mad monster micro-synth orchestra, the debut performance of which may well take place at a future Robot Vs Dinosaur. It’s quite frankly such a dizzying rate of progress that I half-expect him to have landed a multi-million dollar record deal by next week.

For more info on the Thimgamagoop and it’s self-assembled bigger brother the Thimgamakit, check out the Bleeplabs website. And being hand-made, you can even pick your own colours!

Robot Vs Dinosaur will be returning to Island Bar on Friday August 15th, with live services resuming following July’s free entry DJ-only event.

This time ’round we have a headline set from ex-Plone and current ZX Spectrum Orchestra/Modified Toy Orchestra mainstay Mike In Mono, a man who’s passion for bubbling analogue synth-pop and gorgeous vocodered vocals is matched only by his unswerving penchant for binary and hexadecimal numbers.

In sharp contrast, Milton Keynes-based Girljoy‘s cute yet nerve-shredding chipcore assault will be coming at you like a goomba on fire, taking us back to the good old days when high-scores meant everything and (more often than not) you had to blow into the cartridge to get it to work.

And as per usual we’ll also have DJs playing the likes of aphex twin, autechre, battles, the books, broadcast, ceephax acid crew, chris clark, cornelius, cylob, dntel, the flashbulb, four tet, germlin, holy fuck, matmos, max tundra, mouse on mars, the notwist, OOO, plone, polysics, polygon window, the postal service, prefuse 73, pulseprogramming, ulrich schnauss, squarepusher, stereolab, amon tobin, to rococco rot, tortoise, venetian snares, luke vibert, xiu xiu, susumu yokota and whatever else we can find knocking about in the dark corners of our hard discs.

Entry is £3, or just £1 if dressed as a robot or dinosaur, with a free badge on entry! Doors open at 8:30, with the night going on ’til last man standing! Massive selection of cocktails available! Got any requests? Drop us a line!

Given that every electronic musician in the UK is seemingly on holiday at the moment (and who could blame them!), our next event at Island on Friday July 18th will be a free entry DJ party! As per usual we’ll be DJing a skull-cracking selection taking in breakcore, laptoptronica, chipcore, drill ‘n’ bass, J-pop and most other pigeonholeable electronic genres- pretty much everything from Raymond Scott to the Streets of Rage soundtrack. As ever, we love getting feedback on what we play (or ought to be playing?) so if you’ve any requests then please don’t hesitate to leave a comment or drop us an email via info [at] robotvsdinosaur.co.uk.

Doors open at 8:30, with a free badge on entry and msasive cocktail selection available from the bar. Since this is a free event there’s no real incentive to dress as a robot or dinosaur although we’ll be your best mates, father your children and invite you to our birthday parties should anyone decide to make the effort!

This weekend sees the return of Capsule‘s annual Supersonic festival. Running the gamut of avant-garde and experimental music, the event features performances from acts as diverse as Battles (pictured), Efterklang, DJ Scotch Egg and Max Tundra as well as a set from reformed ’70s Krautrockers Harmonia. Put simply, it’s quite possibly the most culturally important music event Birmingham will see this year.

Which brings us to the crux of this post: no doubt there will be many in Brum this weekend, myself included, who don’t have a ticket for various reasons. So, what the hell are we going to do this weekend? We’ve decided to come up with a few suggestions…

Thursday: Ok, it’s the day before Supersonic but we thought we’d get this one in anyway! Connect Four takes place at Island Bar on Thursday 10th July, bringing live synthpop stylings from Uninvited Guestz, Codette, The Audacity and Motorbikes In Tokyo, plus DJs and visuals.

Friday: given the competition there’s quite an overwhelming display of choice on offer here. Freakin’ Legend will be bringing the rock to Island Bar, with sets from Fillmore Gears, The No Tomorrows, HINGe and The E-Gos. This Is Tomorrow‘s new venture New York Noise kicks off at the Yardbird with DJ sets from Dr. Rubberfunk as well as residents Matt Flux, Mustapha Dance and Waler DJs. Alternatively, pop in to Rooty’s where Cog are laying down a spread of minimal house and underground techno stylings.

Saturday: top indiepop shindig The Autumn Store has gone international, hosting a set from Japanese folk collective Andersens alongside Glaswegians The Starlets and Bavarian Country Singers and Comrades, who in a rather curious twist actually hail from Birmingham and Wolverhampton. I guess “West Midlands Country Singers and Comrades” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it? On a slightly different bent, Trailer Park Beats are holding their dubstep all-nighter The Big Dirty at the Rainbow Warehouse, although the none-more-hardcore amongst you will probably be watching Mary Poppins at the Hippodrome.

Sunday: all worn out from that little lot? Good, because there’s not a great deal on today. Drop us a comment if there’s anything interesting happening over the weekend which I’ve not covered…

We’ve finally got ’round to sticking the photos up from our June event. Check them out via the gallery, and thanks to Andy Bullock for doing such a great job taking them, as ever.

Top UK-based electronic imprint Ai Records have released a triple split EP, featuring fresh tracks from Plant43– headliner of our very first night way back in Feb, if you remember- alongside brand new cuts from labelmates The Third Man and Najem Sworb.

Sounding like a snapshot of electro’s past, present and future, the release as a whole epitomises the atmospheric yet propulsive sound which the label is currently becoming famous for. Influenced by the likes of Drexciya, Underground Resistance and Kraftwerk, the artists utilise a diverse palette of skittering techno rhythms, organ-rattling bass and melodic yet subtle synth lines to create a record which immerses the brain as well as moving the body.

No expense has been spared as far as the presentation’s concerned, either: the blue version (pictured, above) sadly sold out in no time, but the black edition is still available to order via Juno, Rough Trade, Norman Records or direct from the Ai shop… for now. Not to worry if you miss out: it’s available digitally via Bleep and Beatport.

Meanwhile, vinyl-haters and Ai novices should check out their recent label sampler CD, featuring tracks from the afore-mentioned Plant43 and fellow RvD alumnus Datassette amongst others from the Ai roster- available now for a mere £6. What are you waiting for?