- Tonight at Mills: music by Nick Didkovsky, Krys Bobrowsky, and (back from Antarctica) Cheryl E. Leonard. Looking forward. http://is.gd/4cezQ #
- Freeware I love: Firefox, Mozilla, Pidgin, Input Director, Quintessential, Songbird, Dropbox, Volumouse, Dark Room, AVG, GIMP, Evernote #
- Make that RIP, Robert Kirby (b. 1948). (What I get for Twittering while waking.) Excellent Guardian obit by Colin Irwin: http://is.gd/47BzN #
- RIP, Roger Kirby (b. 1948), Nick Drake's arranger (and that of many others, including Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello). #
- Hadn't noticed this: Gristleism box won't have audio out or DC socket; "hacks" page will post how-to's: http://is.gd/46Tkb #
- Afternoon sounds — and for much of the weekend: the ear-shattering, nerves-ratting, "Get Your War On" fly-by whoooooosh of the Blue Angels. #
- Hey, the Eno/Chilvers music app Bloom has upgraded to v. 2.0 — new operation modes, new moods, new sounds. And … "humanised tuning"? #
- RIP, Suzanne Fiol (at 49), founder of the New York City arts space Issue Project Room: http://is.gd/44ZE3 #
- New "MP3 Discussion Group" on Vertical Ascent, the new Moritz von Oswald Trio album of techno-less techno: http://is.gd/41k3k #
- My Android phone updated to OS 1.6. Still no support for USB (preferred) or Bluetooth external keyboard. … Whom do I need to bribe? #
- Afternoon sounds, in court for jury duty: no audible wheels of justice, but an imposing HVAC system whose undercurrent whispers, The System. #
- Setting up home wifi shouldn't take three hours and three overseas calls. Do AT&T & Belkin willfully make things difficult for each other? #
- Amazing how many basic tasks Songbird does better than iTunes, especially for file import, speed, & album art. Still, no record-label field? #
- Call for assistance: Anyone out there have old issues of epulse, the email zine I founded in 1994 and edited on and off through 2004? #
- Safely at home, listening to the world outside blow around like something out of The Wizard of Oz. Cozy. #
- Fave producer-songwriter: Pharrell? Kanye? Missy? Nah, it's Nick Lowe, live four blocks from my house at this very moment. #
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.