Thanks to the sort of dark, nearly sub-aural thuds that make speaker cabinets rumble with pulmonary might, the dozen tracks on Products of Passed Days by .at/on (born Anton Holota) contribute to a realignment of the category “headphone listening.” Holota’s emphasis on subtle aural effects, such as the highlights on “Roadside Picnic” that resemble flickering fluorescent bulbs (MP3), not to mention the church-organ-like wavering that opens “Sad to Leave” (MP3), entices the listener’s ears deep into the mix. But the presence of heavy bass patterns — less beats than structural undulations — reminds you that a true musical experience is often a full-body affair, as likely to resonate in the chest cavity as in the noggin.
The contrast between Holota’s delicate sounds and his deeper ones isn’t likely to cause anyone any ear damage; there’s no bait and switch at work, no come-hither quietude followed by a brass-knuckle roar. The kitchen-sink field recordings that are laced through “Western City (Remote View)” don’t suddenly give way to broken-dish cacophony, just to a slowly reverberating drone that is more complex, more organic, than an initial listen might suggest (MP3).
The pace of Products of Passed Days is sedentary, a far cry from the ebullient rhythms of hip-hop. But there is some suggestion of hip-hop’s influence, especially in how percussion is employed. As with many of the best beats emanating from rap-friendly car stereos, the ones heard here are difficult to reconcile with foot-tapping. They are placed far apart and they intrude at odd, often counterintuitive intervals. They’re too insistent to serve as decoration, yet too disperse to ever be considered a proper downbeat. For succinct examples of how Holota plays with percussion, listen to the tripled pattern that runs through “How to Turn Urban Noise into Music (Part 2)” (MP3), to the dappled pads that surface in “Morning from Childhood” (MP3), and to the extended shudders that ripple continuously in “Undreamedof” (MP3).
Get the full set, including front and back cover images, at the releasing netlabel, Complementary Distribution (bitlabrecords.com/cod). More info on .at/on at myspace.com/antonholota.
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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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• 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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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.
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• 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.
• 0556 / Gabber Ambient / The Assignment: Field-test a hybrid genre. -
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