Tone Madison
A sampling of Madison’s finest beatmakers
Beats sold over Soundcloud may have a huge influence on hip-hop in this day and age (if it be Chano’s will, at least), but the appeal of in-person, local, on-the-ground collaboration is tenacious. It certainly shows in Madison’s hip-hop output, where producers ranging from young upstart Engelwood to platinum-certified DJ Pain 1 keep a hand […]
The world of “Digital Aura,” part II
On last week’s Tone Madison podcast, contributor Brett Schlough brought us two conversations about Digital Aura, a show of video, digital, and installation art running through August 6 at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art and through July 29 at Arts + Literature Laboratory. This week’s episode concludes our two-part series on the show with […]
The world of “Digital Aura,” part I
Madison has its share of gifted visual artists and valuable art spaces, but digital art and video art lack a strong presence here. And what is digital art, anyway? The ongoing show Digital Aura takes a broad approach to exploring that question, with a series of three works showing at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art […]
Rocket Bureau’s anxious basement anthems
On this week’s podcast, we’re revisiting a conversation we had in 2015 with Madison-based musician Kyle Urban, also known as Kyle Motor, about his latest musical project, Rocket Bureau. Urban is a multi-instrumentalist, singer, and recording engineer. He’s also a bit of a stickler for power-pop—so of course he favors loud guitar hooks, classic song structures, […]
Lovely Socialite get leaner and louder
Lovely Socialite have embraced a few different kinds of maximalism since forming in Madison in 2009. The instrumental band’s initial name was Lovely Socialite Mrs. Thomas W. Phipps, eventually truncated to what people always call them anyway. All six members contribute to the band’s compositions, drawing on backgrounds and musical tastes that span jazz, rock, […]
Trading notes on two rapidly changing cities
Conversations about Madison and Milwaukee often focus on how different the cities are, or how strangely disconnected they are despite being only 70 miles apart. Tone Madison‘s Scott Gordon recently got a chance to trade notes with two journalists in Milwaukee about the challenges and opportunities that Wisconsin’s two biggest cities have in common. Matt Wild […]