- 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
• July 29, 2021: This day marks the start of the 500th consecutive weekly project in the Disquiet Junto music community.
• December 13, 2021: This day marks the 25th anniversary of the founding of Disquiet.com.
• January 6, 2021: This day marks the 10th anniversary of the start of the Disquiet Junto music community.Recent
• 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
• 0500 / Humming to Your Selves / The Assignment: Play a tune by yourself and as if by two people whom you invent.
• 0499 / Out of the Landscape / The Assignment: Record a piece of music in which a sound emerges from a field recording.
• 0498 / Sonic Entomologist / The Assignment: Create a new hybrid insect from the sound of two different insects.
• 0497 / Benjamin's Glass / The Assignment: Pay tribute to Benjamin Franklin and his armonica
• 0496 / Isolation Room / The Assignment: Create new music around one strand of something you made in the past.Full Index
And there is a complete list of past projects, 500 consecutive weeks to date.