Kori Gardner, 1/2 of the sickly-sweet indie-pop duo Mates of State (which also features her husband Jason Hammel) has created a tour diary at Babble called “Band on the (Diaper) Run”, covering their experiences as a touring band with their two year old daughter Magnolia accompanying them. The entries are extremely cool, showing the steps the band’s crew, nanny, mother and father take in making sure the environment and experiences are as enjoyable as possible for the two year old. So far the band and family have played together with Madonna (who I’m sure enjoyed meeting their daughter), swam together in the fountain of youth in Iceland, headed to Australia, toured with Death Cab for Cutie (who are now Magnolia’s best friends) and enjoyed lots of rain and mashed peas in London. An awesome adventure for any two year old and I have to give much much credit for the care that the parents put into giving their child an awesome experience starting at such an early age. Watch their latest video for the track “Like U Crazy” over at our little brother-blog Tropics and Meridians and watch for the shout-out to their daughter, which is a regular easter egg throughout Mates of State’s songs and videos.

Read more: Band on the (Diaper) Run 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 | Mates of State

Many have been asking, “where is the future?”, and although most of those are bi-spectacled nerds (who we wholeheartedly support), many others are starting to wonder where we went wrong. I mean, where are the flying cars, the stainless steel towers in the sky, the motorized walkways? Apple is starting to take us into the right direction for technophiles and now musicians have the University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona to thank for the Reactable, a multi-user electronic music instrument built into a tabletop interface. Imagine if you will, a life-size Elektroplankton! Yeahhhhh. With it, users are able to create complex and dynamic sonic “topologies” (music compositions) by moving physical objects over the table, controlling virtual generators, filters and modulators in a graspable flow-controlled programming language.

Enough techno-bibble babble, take a look at the Reactable in action after the jump..

Read more of ”Reactable is hopefully the electronic music instument of the future“