The folks at the Bronson Unlimited record label have upped the ante for tribute albums. Once upon a time, you simply got a dozen acts to cover a dozen songs, and if more than three of the new versions were memorable, then you’d done something of note. For its tribute to Nurse with Wound, Bronson got 25 musicians, most of them drawn from the ranks of a Nurse with Wound discussion group on Yahoo (group information here), to not only contribute tracks, but to relinquish their copyrights. It then packaged the resulting music on six 3″ CDs, and boxed it in an elaborate wooden container (further details of the set’s extravagance here). This box is more than just a pricey collector’s item; only one was made, and it was sent to Nurse founder Steven Stapleton in time for the holidays. For the rest of us, there’s a webpage (here) packed with one-minute samples of the 25 tracks. Best to just download “Exquisite Goat,” a single file that meshes the various samples into a 25-minute sequence of varied noise art, rich with found sounds, chattering vocals, moments of stunning stillness and of willful confusion, all of it true to Nurse with Wound’s decided influence on sound art and industrial and ambient music. Though the project was heartfelt, much of the resulting music is not for the faint of heart.
Current Activities
Upcoming
• July 28, 2021: This day marks the start of the 500th consecutive weekly project in the Disquiet Junto music community.
• December 13, 2021: This day marks the 25th anniversary of the founding of Disquiet.com.
• January 6, 2021: This day marks the 10th anniversary of the start of the Disquiet Junto music community.Recent
• 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. 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.)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).
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
• 0499 / Out of the Landscape / The Assignment: Record a piece of music in which a sound emerges from a field recording.
• 0498 / Sonic Entomologist / The Assignment: Create a new hybrid insect from the sound of two different insects.
• 0497 / Benjamin's Glass / The Assignment: Pay tribute to Benjamin Franklin and his armonica
• 0496 / Isolation Room / The Assignment: Create new music around one strand of something you made in the past.
• 0495 / Protip Etude / The Assignment: Share a tip for making music or working with sound, and record a track that employs it.Full Index
And there is a complete list of past projects, 499 consecutive weeks to date.