Sam Phillips passed away last week, on July 30, 2003. Regarded as one of the founders of rock’n’roll, thanks to his work with Elvis Presley, Ike Turner and others, Phillips was also an early experimenter in recording-studio technology. An obituary in the Memphis newspaper, the Commercial Appeal, summed up Phillips’ Sun Studio innovation well: “Beyond producing the music made there, Phillips cooked up the room’s angled white-tile ceiling and walls, a clever sonic design envisioned … as if an oversize speaker were on its side. Many have commented on its unique design, which contributed to what we know as the ‘Sun sound.’ Onetime Sun engineer/songwriter/producer Jack Clement has even described the studio as an instrument in and of itself.” (Click here for the full text of the July 26, 2003, obit.) … (2) Wired.com reported on a new musical interface, the Audiopad, developed at MIT by James Patten and Ben Recht. Click here for the July 31, 2003, news story and here for the Audiopad’s website. … (3) Composer Max Richter has launched his website. Richter has recorded with Future Sound of London and Roni Size and he released his own album, memoryhouse, last year on the BBC’s Late Junction label. He is preparing a new album, The Blue Notebooks, inspired by Franz Kafka, for release on the FatCat label’s 130701 imprint.
-
about
-
Marc Weidenbaum founded the website Disquiet.com in 1996 at the intersection of sound, art, and technology, and since 2012 has moderated the Disquiet Junto, an active online community of weekly music/sonic projects. He has written for Nature, Boing Boing, The Wire, Pitchfork, and NewMusicBox, among other periodicals. He is the author of the 33 1⁄3 book on Aphex Twin’s classic album Selected Ambient Works Volume II. Read more about his sonic consultancy, teaching, sound art, and work in film, comics, and other media
Field Notes
Interviews
Studio Journal
Projects
Subscribe
-
Current Activities
-
Upcoming
• December 13, 2022: This day marks the 26th anniversary of the founding of Disquiet.com.
• January 6, 2023: This day marked the 11th anniversary of the start of the Disquiet Junto music community. -
Recent
• April 16, 2022: I participated in an online "talk show" by The Big Conversation Space (Niki Korth and Clémence de Montgolfier).
• March 11, 2022: I hosted a panel discussion between Mark Fell, Rian Treanor and James Bradbury in San Francisco as part of the Algorithmic Art Assembly (aaassembly.org) at Gray Area (grayarea.org).
• December 28, 2021: This day marked the 10th (!) anniversary of the Instagr/am/bient compilation.
• January 6, 2021: This day marked the 10th (!) anniversary of the start of the Disquiet Junto music community.
• December 13, 2021: This day marked the 25th (!) anniversary of the start of the Disquiet Junto music community.
• There are entries on the Disquiet Junto in the book The Music Production Cookbook: Ready-made Recipes for the Classroom (Oxford University Press), edited by Adam Patrick Bell. Ethan Hein wrote one, and I did, too.
• A chapter on the Disquiet Junto ("The Disquiet Junto as an Online Community of Practice," by Ethan Hein) appears in the book The Oxford Handbook of Social Media and Music Learning (Oxford University Press), edited by Stephanie Horsley, Janice Waldron, and Kari Veblen. (Details at oup.com.) -
-
• 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).
-
disquiet junto
-
Background
Since January 2012, the Disquiet Junto has been an ongoing weekly collaborative music-making community that employs creative constraints as a springboard for creativity. Subscribe to the announcement list (each Thursday), listen to tracks by participants from around the world, read the FAQ, and join in.
Recent Projects -
-
• 0560 / Sonic Disambiguation / The Assignment: Help the Wikimedia Foundation develop a sonic logo.
• 0559 / Yes Exit / The Assignment: Compose your personal entrance and exit cues for conference calls.
• 0558 / Chore Progressions / The Assignment: Use a routine activity as the map of a composition.
• 0557 / Condensation Is a Form of Change / The Assignment: Interpret a graphic score that depicts four phases.
• 0556 / Gabber Ambient / The Assignment: Field-test a hybrid genre. -
Full Index
And there is a complete list of past projects, 560 consecutive weeks to date. Archives
[email protected]
Downstream
-
Recent Posts