Some music is electronic by intent; other music accrues the association over time. The Internet Archive, at archive.org, has much intentional electronic music on it: among other places, in the Other Minds archive, which has been featured often in the Disquiet Downstream, and the general live archive, which sneaks in some work by DJs and techno acts amid the overwhelming amount of roots rock. Then there’s the “78 RPMs” section (link), 798 tracks in total as of this writing. The whole batch is defined by its technological moment, bearing the scar of thick surface noise that is, depending on your mood, either a palimpsest of recording history or a premonition of tinnitus. Buried deep in the 78 RPMs section are many key items, long in the public domain, that define audio history, notably songs by Enrico Caruso and Bing Crosby, artists who early on learned to use the studio to their advantage. (There’s nothing, unfortunately, by Les Paul, who turned 90 earlier this month.) If you wander through the stacks, you’ll come upon material that is so entranced with the idea of recording sound that it dispenses with song almost entirely, in favor of effects. A case in point is “The 11 69 Express” (MP3), dated 1911, 3:12 in length and credited to Fred Duprez, reportedly a monologuist and character from Edison’s recording company. After an orchestral opening, Duprez tells his tale accompanied by staccato strings, bells, train sounds, whistles and more, including a clucking-like noise, around the 3:06 point, that eerily suggests the scratching of vinyl many decades ahead of its scheduled arrival.
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about
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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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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.) -
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• 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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disquiet junto
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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 -
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• 0561 / Samplelicker / The Assignment: Rework environmental sound recordings with Aphex Twin's new software.
• 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. -
Full Index
And there is a complete list of past projects, 561 consecutive weeks to date. Archives
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