By continually pushing the creative limits of sampling technology, Meat Beat Manifesto have managed to remain just as innovative as they were when they unleashed “Storm The Studio” back in 1988. Elements of such styles as dub, hip hop, industrial and jazz have been heard in Meat Beat Manifesto’s music throughout the years, but their sound has never been derivative of any particular style. Rather, founder Jack Dangers and whomever he is collaborating with at a particular time use electronic music technology to get around any type of musical boundaries that a more traditional band may encounter. Meat Beat Manifesto are back with a new CD, “Autoimmune,” and are hitting the road with a truly multimedia live. We recently did another phone interview with Jack, where he talks about the beginnings of the band, video sampling technology, and more.

After a decade long absence, trip-hop pioneers Portishead are back a new album. Appropriately title ‘Third” (it’s their 3rd release, if you don’t count the live album), the disc will be release on April 28th in the UK and the following day in America.

We did an interesting interview with member Geoff Barrow back when the first Portishead album, “Dummy,” was released. Barrow spoke about the creative processes within the band, their interest in film music, and more. The article is available in our archives- check it out here!

For a taste of “Third” you can visit the Portishead myspace page and hear a sample of the track “Machine Gun.” For even more, check out the “Portishead in Portishead” video at current.com. It features performances of 7 songs from the new album.

The Young Gods will be releasing a new acoustic album, “Knock On Wood,” on April 18th in Switzerland / April 21st in Europe. They have posted some music samples from it on their myspace page. While known for their creative use of digital sampling, The Young Gods have in recent years been doing acoustic performances that prove their sound can adapt to a non-electronic format. When we spoke to member Franz Treichler last year, he said that the experience would probably lead to an acoustic release. And now it has!