Maximo Park: Lukas Wooler

British alternative rock band Maximo Park just released their fifth studio album (and follow-up to 2012's critically acclaimed "The National Health,") "Too Much Information" on February 3. Synth-driven single "Leave This Island" is already burning up my iTunes.

Maximo Park is gearing up for maximum success.

The new album is called "Too Much Information." Are you implying here that we're just bombarded with info via our computers and smartphones all day? Yeah, that's definitely a part of it. Being in the music industry, we became quite aware of people's attention becoming so much shorter, because you have so much information to assimilate from so many different mediums. And we were wondering, "Does that make the album extinct? Do people have enough attention to listen to a whole record?" But we believe in the album as a body of work.

Why write "Leave This Island," essentially a song about an urban hermit? It's either about an urban hermit who's afraid to leave his own island and enter the wider world, or maybe the wider world is the island and he wants to leave but feels stranded. It's about being overwhelmed with modern society like the too much information theme. So it all kind of gently ties together.

How does software enter the recording process on your albums? It play... [Read more]

Tales2Go 4.0 features an iOS 7 makeover and some handy new search options.

There's a Netflix for everything these days. Oyster is "Netflix for e-books." Next Issue is "Netflix for magazines." GameFly is "Netflix for videogames." There's even a Netflix for high-end wristwatches.

It may come as little surprise, then, that there's an audiobook service that likewise emulates the Netflix all-you-can eat model: Tales2Go lets you stream unlimited selections for a flat monthly rate. But the app has a special niche: It's all audiobooks for kids.

The name may not ring a bell, but Tales2Go actually made its debut back in 2010, then offering around 900 children's books -- for streaming only. Now, the library numbers in the thousands, and the app allows for downloads so you can listen offline.

Earlier this week, the company introduced Tales2Go 4.0, which brings a variety of updates and new features to the iOS version of the app. (... [Read more]