By no means an “electronic” composer, Erik Satie (1866-1925) remains essential listening in this area, owing to his clairvoyant modernity, which often emphasized a philosophical repose, and his musical writings, which championed the value of background music. Pianist France Clidat‘s three-CD Complete Piano Works (Astoria) has little aside from its comprehensiveness to recommend it, but that’s enough. The minimal liner notes are sentimental and fluffy and individual CDs peculiarly opt to combine many of Satie’s multi-piece works, notably the three-part “Gymnopedies,” into a single track. Of particular interest to electronic-minded listeners are his “Descriptions automatiques,” which deserve consideration as a predecessor of the remix. Per Satie biographer James Harding: the piece opens “with ‘Sur un vaisseau’ which, in its stylized representation of a ship pitching and tossing, adopts an ‘automatic’ rhythm. … Against this rocking of the boat a popular refrain cuts in, ‘Maman les p’tits bateaux … ont-ils des jambes?’ which he would have remembered from his seaside childhood.” Just to get this straight: a sample of a pre-existing song is set over a mechanical rhythm. Voila, the remix.
Current Activities
Upcoming
• Autumn, 2019: I'll have a new piece in The Wire.
• December 13, 2019: This day marks the 23rd anniversary of Disquiet.com.
• January 7, 2020: This day marks the 8th anniversary of the Disquiet Junto.
• March 2020: A chapter on the Disquiet Junto ("The Disquiet Junto as an Online Community of Practice," by Ethan Hein) appears in the forthcoming book The Oxford Handbook of Social Media and Music Learning (Oxford University Press), edited by Stephanie Horsley, Janice Waldron, and Kari Veblen.Dates TBA
• There are entries on the Disquiet Junto in the forthcoming book The Music Production Cookbook: Ready-made Recipes for the Classroom (Oxford University Press), edited by Adam Patrick Bell.Ongoing
• The Disquiet Junto series of weekly communal music projects explore constraints as a springboard for creativity and productivity. There is a new project each Thursday afternoon (California time), and it is due the following Monday at 11:59pm: disquiet.com/junto.
• My book on Aphex Twin's landmark 1994 album, Selected Ambient Works Vol. II, was published as part of the 33 1/3 series, an imprint of Bloomsbury. It has been translated into Japanese (2019) and Spanish (2018).