DIMUZIO REMIX MP3: The initial noise doesn’t so much swoop up as it seems to simply proceed from that mysterious time before the track began; it’s as if by starting to play the song, you’re opting to enter into a cramped room where a rock band is in the final throes of a performance, that denouement during which riffs decay into texture, when the rigorous alternation of verse and chorus finds sweet release. And then, just as suddenly, the noise subsides, not into silence, or into the next track on the set list, but into a heady, steady controlled tone that is like an orchestra put on hold. If the volume has gone one direction, from loud the quiet, then the sense of space has gone the other, from rock club to concert hall, from cramped to spacious. The track in question is “Never Steven,” by the San Francisco-based electronic musician Thomas Dimuzio, and it’s the lead item on Slew, Dimuzio’s recent retrospective album, on ReR Megacorp/Gench. The album collects material he has released previously on compilations from such labels as Tzadik, Alku, Realization, Digital Narcis, Self Abuse and Cuneiform, and “Never Steven” is available as a free promotional download. The song, as if to emphasize its meta-compilation context, seems like three tracks in one: from that burst of noise, to that deep orchestral holding pattern, to a closing period of digital chatter even more compressed than the track’s opening. All the source material comes from Nick “Dr. Nerve” Didkovsky, and the track originally appeared on the Transforms: The Nerve Events Project compilation, which also featured Nerve-based work by Dave Douglas, Henry Kaiser, Neil Rolnick, Larry Polansky, Tom Erbe and others. Download “Never Steven” here, and visit Dimuzio at thomasdimuzio.com and gench.com.
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
• 0484 / A Movable Heart / The Assignment: Transplant the sounds of Chris Kallmyer's wind chimes to a new location.
• 0483 / Type Set / The Assignment: Use a recording of yourself typing something as the underlying rhythmic track for a piece of music.
• 0482 / Exactly That Gap / The Assignment: Make a musical haiku following instructions from Marcus Fischer.
• 0481 / Capsule Time / The Assignment: Record a time capsule for yourself in the future.
• 0480 / Ongsay Aftcray / The Assignment: Record a piece of music by employing Pig Latin as a technique.Full Index
And there is a complete list of past projects, 484 consecutive weeks to date.