Few acts have melded digital production with dub as seamlessly as Pole (aka German musician Stefan Betke). His lanky works have mixed snare shots and pixel-precise percussion, deep echo and techno flourishes, gurgling melodic snippets and minimalist simplicity for a decade now: 2008 marks the 10th anniversary of Pole’s debut, 1, aka “the blue one.” Last year saw the excellent Steingarten and its associated remix collection, and there will be a 12″ by the end of this year, titled “alles gute / alles klar,” half of which is available for free download from the releasing label, ~scape (MP3, scape-music.com). The song appeared previously on the ~scape compilation CD Round Black Ghosts, and it brings to mind the song-form explorations of Grassy Knoll and the classic ersatz Afrobeat of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. It’s a tremendous track, with slurply bass lines lurking below the expertly programmed drum-machine beats. More at myspace.com/poleartist and pole-music.com; relatively recent interview at zero-inch.com.
Current Activities
Upcoming
• December 13, 2021: This day marks the 25th anniversary of the founding of Disquiet.com.
• December 28, 2021: This day marks the 10th anniversary of the Instagr/am/bient compilation.
• January 6, 2021: This day marks the 10th anniversary of the start of the Disquiet Junto music community.Recent
• July 28, 2021: This day marked the 500th consecutive weekly project in 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.)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
• 0507 / In DD’s Key of C / The Assignment: Make music with 10 acoustic instrument samples all in a shared key.
• 0506 / Wipe Out / The Assignment: Take something whole and erase half of it.
• 0505 / Line Out / The Assignment: Share a track, get feedback, and give feedback.
• 0504 / Transform Formula / The Assignment: Take a sound, change it, and contrast that with the original.
• 0503 / Sing Song / The Assignment: Record a song using only your voice transformed beyond recognition.Full Index
And there is a complete list of past projects, 507 consecutive weeks to date.