Kurrel the Raven‘s Aechyrs to Aechyrs, on the Nishi netlabel, is utter space music. There’s no ifs, ands or buts about a four-track EP that includes one titled “Captain K-Bird Encounters the Far-Out Space Owls,” especially not when the song is almost 11 minutes from start to finish and moves from gentle Martian new wave to extravagantly flanged mind warps before fading out for what feels longer than many entire songs by like-minded galaxy pilots. Sensitive to the trips of its listeners, Kurrel closes on the quiet “Way Out,” a brief signoff that shifts from the music of the spheres to a heartbeat in less than three minutes. Lacking the audacity of the EP’s “Blissblaster,” an overclocked white-noise rock anthem, the title cut is the one real keeper here: a sedate montage of sonic texture maps waiting to serve as sound design for a science-fiction TV show that’s not yet a twinkle in its future producer’s eye. Check out the EP at notype.com/nishi.
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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
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Current Activities
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• 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).
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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
• 0477 / Flying Blind / The Assignment: Record a piece of music in which some substantial portion is performed without looking.
• 0476 / IAH Forecast / The Assignment: Here's your next single's cover. Now record it.
• 0475 / Low End (4 of 3) / The Assignment: Remix a trio by doing forensics on its component parts.
• 0474 / Police Action (3 of 3) / The Assignment: Complete a trio by adding a track to an existing duet by two other musicians
• 0473 / Placebo Effect (2 or 3) / The Assignment: The Assignment: Record the second third of a trio that others will complete.Full Index
And there is a complete list of past projects, 477 consecutive weeks to date.Tags
app audio-games brands of sounds Buddha Machine chiptune classical comics copyleft current activities field-recording film free free download gadget generative i-hop IFTTTgram installation ios ipad iphone ipod ipod touch junto live-performance live performance modular netlabel noise recommended stream remix saw2for33third science-fiction score site-maintenance software sound-art sounds-of-brands studio journal this week in sound turntablism TV video video-games voiceMost Recent Comments
- Marc Weidenbaum on Introductory Loop-Making: “Stupendous. Thanks so much for having shared this, Caleb. I’ll give it a try. ”
- Caleb P. on Introductory Loop-Making: “Thanks for your article! I just picked up one of these machines a few weeks ago to experiment with tape… ”
- Marc Weidenbaum on Current Favorites: Autoharp, Patterns, Ginsberg: “It’s a good question. There are cues, frequently, at the start and end of audiobooks, and sometimes interstitial ones, as… ”