Music

Some of these covers may be older than our readers, but these Lego-ized Hip Hop Covers by Format Magazine have us wanting to crank up some Run-D.M.C., Dr. Dre and ODB.

If you liked Auditorium, chances are you’ll also find Boomshine interesting; you’re only allowed one shot per level to start a musical chain reaction that, when properly timed is very satisfying.

Brushed metal fetishists will love iRiver’s E50 PMP, due out in January; it’s pretty run of the mill otherwise, with up to 8 GB of space, an FM tuner, and a 1.8″ TFT LCD screen.

Auditorium is an intensely atmospheric musical instrument game with puzzle elements, with the payoff being a coherent piece of music; it’s best understood by simply playing it.

The Blizzards’ The Reason really lends credence to the phrase, “Hell hath no fury like a women scorned;” thank God most of them aren’t 100 foot tall monsters with flaming hearts.

We’ve seen plenty of stop-motion vids, but this music video directed by Cesar Kuriyama takes the cake, with 45,000 images shot by a Nikon D200 over the course of 14 months.

Putting Halloween costumes everywhere to shame, Casey Pugh’s Daft Punk helmet is made with a cheap motorcycle helmet and an animated, Arduino-powered 16×5 LED matrix.

Marching to the beat of his own drum “Egyokeo” reconfigured drumKat MIDI drumpads to act as virtual frets; it literally lets him bang out tunes on Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

With faint echoes of The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, we’re really liking The Boxing Lesson’s Dark Side of the Moog; trippy psychedelic visuals and interstellar trekkin’ = tasty eyecandy.

Professional dancers Del Mak and Tommy Franzen lay the breakdancing smack down on each other with this goofy stop motion video, which mixes slapstick comedy with scary jumpsuits.

Ideal for road warriors, the X-mini Capsule Speaker is a portable 2.4W speaker that fits in the palm of your hand; it features a unique expandable resonance chamber that ups bass response.

Gijs Gieskes’ Strobo VJ is a funky handmade animation sequencer; it uses a Game Boy camera to record animations, and then syncs them to music using LSDJ (also a GB app).

Say goodbye to clutter with GenevaSound’s Home Theater, which is essentially a massive iPod dock with FM radio and CD player; it packs 7 speakers, a 700 watt amp and a 12″ sub.

Classical guitarists are finally getting love with Blackbird’s Rider Nylon; the nearly indestructible carbon fiber body stays, but with nylon strings, side-address tuners and wider spacing.

New to Teac’s Esoteric line are the AG-H600 digital amp and PD-H600, both of which sport aluminum chassis and large toroid power transformers; an iPod dock will also play videos.

For Blizzard fanatics: Echoes of War; is an orchestral soundtrack with 90 minutes of music from StarCraft, WarCraft and Diablo, and will be available in standard and legendary editions.

Head Porter’s DJ Bag is top-loading tote for musicians: generously padded and constructed from ballistic nylon, it also has two extra compartments and side mesh inserts.

The glowing red LED screams Cylon, but this Tony Stewart NASCAR Helmet has peaceful intentions; it’s actually a radio with a CD tray in place of the mouth and a flip-up visor.

Gibson’s Dark Fire is a swoonworthy Les Paul-style digital guitar with three pickups, Chameleon Tone tech, FireWire, Hex and MIDI out; it even self tunes 500x on a single charge.