Lukewarm all-roads-lead-to-Rome jokes aside, there's plenty of Academy luminaries gathering in Italy's capital for the Dissonanze festival this weekend. Traditionally an Italo-Gallic Village for the good and true-hearted, the main floor at the Palazzo dei Congressi is solidly crowded with Detroit legends (Model 500, Carl Craig) and current techno posterboys from Cobblestone Jazz and Switch to Booka Shade and Loco Dice. Meanwhile the Terrace will see showcases by Alexander Robotnik, Francisco, Daniele Baldelli, and Rodion on Friday, as well as DJ Nuts, J.Rocc, Joao Parahyba, Tony Allen, and Jackson Conti (aka Madlib and Mamao, who released their collective Sujinho LP recently) on Saturday.

For full program - there's space for all things avantgarde from Ryoji Ikeda's audio-visual experimentation to Deadbeat's digital dub sculptures, too - and last minute tickets, click here.

For all of those, who can't make their way to Roma (there might be one or two...), selected shows will be recorded and broadcasted on Red Bull Music Academy Radio.

Revamp, what it do? Our friends over at Fact have posted a new mix by The Count & Sinden in celebration of the recent relaunch of their website. Okay, all of this might have happened centuries ago, according to internet standards. But it's never too late for a solid mixture of Lil Weezy extravaganza, unofficial "Beeper" remixes, and Toddla T pre-releases, innit?

The imperceptible hum of electronic equipment, Academy lecturers Tony Nwachukwu and Zed Bias on the couch, former participants Seb Skalski, Natalia Grosiak, DJ Krime, and Good Paul at the controls in one of the many studios set up for he occasion, and loads of local music makers in attendence. This year's Laboratorium Red Bull Music Academy instalments in the Polish cities Warsaw, Pozna, Sopot, and Kraków had some positively combustible ingredients. It wasn't only about sharing theoretical knowledge. In the second part of the afternoon, all attendees joined forces and got down to working on a track together. Zed (a man not known for mincing words) was even heard to enthuse: "You've got great artistic potential, you have to use this!" To get an idea of what he's raving about, check out Laboratorium Red Bull Music Academy's MySpace or listen to "Minute After Minute", recorded at the Warsaw session. Nice work, Polskie massive.

In the midst of putting the finishing touches to his debut Warp album, trackmaster du jour Flying Lotus is releasing the "Donuts"-style instrumental LP by fellow L.A. beatcat Samiyam on his label Brainfeeder, today. "Rap Beats Vol. 1" is sold directly via Sam's MySpace.

More donuts? Listen to Flying Lotus' set at Sónar 2007 here.

Even more donuts? This guy loves 'em too.