The group Diatribes mixes percussion, piano, and software in the interest of sonic exploration. As heard on their recent Insubordinations netlabel release, they take an approach firmly rooted in the clanky, fluid, theoretically rigorous yet sonically elastic techniques of European free improvisation. Witness Cyril Bondi (drums, percussions) and D’Incise (laptop, objects) mixing it up with a pianist (Jacques Demierre on three of the album’s five tracks, Johann Bourquenez on the other two): “Chants Évadés” (MP3) is all fragmented pianism and round-the-outside drumming, but shot through with wavering synthesized sound, a groggy drone that holds the whole thing together. “Et Puis Partir,” in contrast, is more willfully haphazard, less about anything closely approximating song, and more a matter of noise for its own intrinsic sake, each instrumentalist locating small sounds, from hazy upper-register playing by Demierre, to tribal taunts from Bondi (MP3). The introduction of D’Incise’s laptop into the sound world of free improv makes perfect sense, given free improvisation’s ever-present focus on using familiar instruments to make all manner of unfamiliar noises. The laptop expands that palette considerably, and at no point in these sets stands out as inappropriate or jarring. All five tracks were recorded live, the Demierre ones in Geneva in May 2008, the Bourquenez in Lausanne in September 2008. Get the full set at insubordinations.net. More on D’Incise at dincise.net.
Current Activities
Latest
• I was on Vivian Host's Peak Time show (on Red Bull Radio) on March 11 to extol the timeless virtues of Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Volume II, and related works. You can listen to a recording here: redbullradio.com.
• My latest article is a review in the March issue of The Wire magazine of the week-long Recombinant Festival (held in San Francisco), whose performance highlights included Herman Kolgen, Rrose, and Electric Indigo.Upcoming
• March 22, 2019: I'm giving a talk at noon on Friday at the Algorithmic Art Assembly, two days of events (Friday and Saturday) in San Francisco: aaassembly.org. The talk is titled "The Woodshed Is a Black Box" and this is its description in the program: "How a rules-based system formed, shapes, and fuels the long-running online music community known as the Disquiet Junto."
• May 7, 2019: This day sees the release of Rob Walker's book The Art of Noticing: 131 Ways to Spark Creativity, Find Inspiration, and Discover Joy in the Everyday (Knopf), which has entries about the Disquiet Junto.
• May 22, 2019: Final day of the semester of the 15-week "Sounds of Brands" course I teach once a year at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. I post occasional updates here. Follow the tag #sounds-of-brands.
• December 13, 2019: This day marks the 23rd anniversary of Disquiet.com.
• January 7, 2020: This day marks the 8th anniversary of the Disquiet Junto.Dates TBA
• 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.
• 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.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 Spanish (2018) and Japanese (2019).