- Reformatting old hard drives from FAT 32 to NTFS, which every time I look at it seems to read "NSFW." #
- Love Brian Eno/Peter Schmidt's Oblique Strategies, @Oblique_Chirps on Twitter, but "What would make this really successful?" seems unhelpful #
- Morning sounds, far to near: traffic (whoosh), typing (percussive), fridge (hum), hard drive (whir), ice cubes (crackling). #
- Make that: Steely Dan the Automatori Amos Deftones on Tail L Cool Jay ZZ Top #improbablebandcollaborations #
- Pan Sonic Youth Brigade #improbablebandcollaborations #
- Tori Amos Def #improbablebandcollaborations #
- Ramen two nights in a row — not so shabby. Katana-ya's is, I think, the very best in San Francisco. #
- Re-reading novel Down and Out by @doctorow in advance of Monday's artsjournal.com/gap discussion of Whuffie book by @missrogue #
- if you're really lucky, while you walk down the street with @rjdj running on your iPod Touch, you'll come upon a trumpet-playing busker. #
- There should be a movie whose score is simply a creative employment of @rjdj processing other sounds (dialog, foley) in the film. #
- Of the 16 music-related apps on my iPod Touch, the one I use most is @rjdj, a set of realtime processes that turn the world into sound art. #
- If you Twitter it's #followfriday: field-recordist Aaron @quiet Ximm & experimental collective @thecentrifuge & cartoonist @dylanhorrocks #
- Just experimented with @hootsuite — allows scheduled Twitter posts. Neat, but I think I'll maintain the illusion this is all "realtime." #
- Streaming-only new-classical music: Daniel Bernard Roumain (violin), DJ Scientific (laptop/CDs), Del Sol String Quartet: http://is.gd/1JwO6 #
- Former head of one of my favorite classical labels (CRI) wrote about state of record labels, & asked me about netlabels: http://is.gd/1JtDF #
- RIP, Yellow Submarine illustrator Heinz Edelmann (b. 1934). I didn't know he'd taught one of my heroes, Christoph Niemann http://is.gd/1IWsq #
- Really wishing there were Mac freeware like YamiPod that worked smoothly with the iPod Touch. Perhaps there is and I'm just not aware of it. #
- Check out http://ghostly.com/discovery for free iPhone/Touch app from the label Ghostly. Full catalog streams, sorted by mood, tempo, etc. #
- Afternoon sounds: old-style phone ring initiates moment, then voices below, typing ahead and behind, and the attenuated whir of the printer. #
- Just noticed the Venetian Snares banner on the cubicle wall of the character McGee on the TV show NCIS. #
- Sudden urge to get my TRS-80 out of my parents' attic. Not sure why. Wonder if it would still turn on. #
- Just purchased my first Kindle book ($9.99 seemed high, but convenient) for my iPod Touch, and loaded free epubs into the Touch app Stanza. #
- Local college radio just played lengthy set of Buddy Holly. On our rattly "earthquake-kit" radio, it seemed broadcast from the past. #
- Watching blockbusters on a small television. #
- Got a little microphone for my iPod Touch, meaning I can now fiddle with Curtis (the granular-synth tool) and RjDj, among other audio-games. #
- The Joy of Cron: Watching the #lastfm weekly faves pop up simultaneously for numerous people I follow via Twitter. #
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
• 0472 / Jam Time (1 of 3) / The Assignment: Record the first third of a trio that others will complete.
• 0471 / Phase Transition / The Assignment: The Assignment: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something with it.
• 0470 / Calendar View / The Assignment: Create a sonic diary of the past year with a dozen (or more) super-brief segments.
• 0469 / [Missing in Caption] / The Assignment: Make music that pushes the constraints of descriptive television captions.
• 0468 / Mirror Rorrim / The Assignment: Create a new persona for yourself, and record a duet together.Full Index
And there is a complete list of past projects, 472 consecutive weeks to date.