In his always timely monthly update, Scanner (aka Robin Rimbaud) mentions the following free download, to which he contributed: “Tune your URL to godxiliary.com and download the massive .zip file of a year long project, where 20 songs were built and destroyed by 20 musicians, so it’s been a constant recycling of each other.” The website provides a grid visualization of the musicians’ participation, and though the exact meaning of the coordinates isn’t immediately apparent, there are 65 tracks total, consisting of between two and six variations on 20 original tracks. For example, there are five versions of a track listed as number 15: initially 30 seconds of vibrant sparkling and plucking (courtesy of unscrew); then a downtempo edit by deceptikon, stretching the original to three times its length; then, thanks to jerohme spye, a more blippy, upbeat rendition; then a randomized take by serocell that leaves little of the original; and finally a 15-second held tone by michL bridge, the project’s most prolific participant. Bridge, unlike the rest of the musicians, uses the files’ tag fields to comment on all his entries. That edit of track 15 is described as “15 seconds of love.” The zip file (archived at scene.org) includes all 65 tracks, plus four different playlists, sorting the files chronologically, reverse-chronologically, numerically and reverse-numerically.
Current Activities
Upcoming
• February 5, 2020: The first session of the 15-week course I teach at the Academy of Art about the role of sound in the media landscape.
• April 15, 2020: A chapter on the Disquiet Junto ("The Disquiet Junto as an Online Community of Practice," by Ethan Hein) appears in the forthcoming 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.)
• December 13, 2020: This day marks the 24th anniversary of Disquiet.com.
• January 7, 2021: This day marks the 9th anniversary of the start of the Disquiet Junto music community.Dates TBA
• 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.
• At least two live group concerts by Disquiet Junto members in the San Francisco Bay Area are in the works for 2020.
• I have liner notes for a musician's solo album and an essay in a book about an art event due out. I'll announce as the release dates come into focus.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
• 0459 / From a Distance / The Assignment: Make music intended to be heard from afar.
• 0458 / Phrase Shift / The Assignment: Make music in a sequence of parts with shared elements.
• 0457 / System Alert / The Assignment: Compose sounds for an OS.
• 0456 / Line Up / The Assignment: Interpret a painting by Agnes Martin as if it were a graphic score.
• 0455 / Inner Invertebrate / The Assignment: What does a moment (or a day) in the life of a jellyfish sound like to a jellyfish?Full Index
And there is a complete list of past projects, 459 consecutive weeks to date.