- Wasn't sure if I should shave my post-flu beard or update my avatar(s). Decided to shave the beard. #
- I wish when I bought physical books they all included access to an ebook version. #
- Magical post office box offers up books from Japan and CDs from Russia. Good start to the day. #
- Saturday morning sounds: heater (rumble), hard drives (laptop, dvr: whine), refrigerator (rattle), distant cars (whir), birds (cackle). #
- ♫ Noon tune: downtempo, ringing percussion, tweaked moans = Nanaqui's "5:24 (Ligeti's Donkey)" http://j.mp/9mUYB7 @soundcloud #
- Last night's Fringe: Yes (Chris Squire's bass still sounds good on my cheap TV) + The Singing Detective + turntable-as-memory/hypnosis-aid. #
- Sound in the dusk: is that a water feature or a drain? #
- More hospital sounds: elevators, HVAC, enough beeping to fill a chiptune compilation, monotone announcements, rattling wheel-based tables. #
- Day starts with surprise Mille Plateaux PR & ends @sfmoma with Tony Cokes' 2004 video 1! layering Deleuze-ian ideas + military training film #
- C'est La Morton Feldman Records #
- Morton Feldmantronix #
- What year is it? First a new Autechre album, then a new Oval, and now I wake to news of Mille Plateaux Clicks & Cuts 5? #
- Visited friend in hospital. Not a quiet place. (Was there recently myself, with the flu.) The IV machine sounded like it was from the 1800s. #
- Jelly Roll Morton Feldman #
- Only just now realizing that "Fourteen Black Paintings" by Peter Gabriel was about Rothko Chapel. Where's the Morton Feldman mash-up? #
- If I thought about color the way I think about sound, each month the two new shades on the SF MUNI pass would be my focal point. #
- Céleste Boursier-Mougenot doesn't play on new Oval LP but he OK'd use of his art on its cover: http://j.mp/bHmdEg (& scroll to postscript). #
- Morning sounds: wind, rain, hard drives. #
- It's Monday night, so my brain is automatically playing the theme song from Damages, even though the season ended last Monday. #
- All that signage outside the Popeyes on Divisadero, and not a single shout out to JazzFest. #
- Morning sounds: heater expanding metal, hard drive spinning, cars passing, dryer rotating. #
- Sent out first Disquiet.com email newsletter in a year last night. As a heavy RSS user, have to remind myself that email still is important. #
- PHP & WordPress-type folk: Anyone know how to give a pretty face to the otherwise excellent Mailman software? i.e., http://j.mp/178Eb #
- The "copyleft sonic activism" mentioned y'day is going well. If you make music from existing sounds, reply or get me at [email protected]. #
- Got membership invites via mail to museums where I'm a member. How do I direct my financial support so that it improves their databases? #
- RIP, Alan Rich (b. 1924), music critic best known for long residency in L.A. Here he is, late last year, on Arvo Pärt: http://j.mp/9Qi7hv #
- Personally, favorite part of Kick-Ass was the tandem shout-out to Shojo Beat / Scott Pilgrim @radiomaru #
- Sunday morning sounds: hair dryer, hard drives, dish washer, various netlabel MP3s, typing, birdsong, cars, planes. Yow. #
- Prop plane circling overhead. I know how a crop feels. #
- Sounds of Richmond District: Russian anti-Obama protesters on corner: "[Garble garble] 'bailout' [garble garble] 'Hitler' [garble garble]." #
-
about
-
Marc Weidenbaum founded the website Disquiet.com in 1996 at the intersection of sound, art, and technology, and since 2012 has moderated the Disquiet Junto, an active online community of weekly music/sonic projects. He has written for Nature, Boing Boing, The Wire, Pitchfork, and NewMusicBox, among other periodicals. He is the author of the 33 1⁄3 book on Aphex Twin’s classic album Selected Ambient Works Volume II. Read more about his sonic consultancy, teaching, sound art, and work in film, comics, and other media
Field Notes
Interviews
Studio Journal
Projects
Subscribe
-
Current Activities
-
Upcoming
• December 13, 2022: This day marks the 26th anniversary of the founding of Disquiet.com.
• January 6, 2023: This day marked the 11th anniversary of the start of the Disquiet Junto music community. -
Recent
• April 16, 2022: I participated in an online "talk show" by The Big Conversation Space (Niki Korth and Clémence de Montgolfier).
• March 11, 2022: I hosted a panel discussion between Mark Fell, Rian Treanor and James Bradbury in San Francisco as part of the Algorithmic Art Assembly (aaassembly.org) at Gray Area (grayarea.org).
• December 28, 2021: This day marked the 10th (!) anniversary of the Instagr/am/bient compilation.
• January 6, 2021: This day marked the 10th (!) anniversary of the start of the Disquiet Junto music community.
• December 13, 2021: This day marked the 25th (!) anniversary of the start of 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.) -
-
• 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 -
-
• 0554 / Cage Chord / The Assignment: Riff on a chord by John Cage.
• 0553 / Break That Cycle / The Assignment: Record in a steady tempo but break it on occasion.
• 0552 / The Radio in My Life / The Assignment: Record music in response to a John Cage and Morton Feldman conversation.
• 0551 / The Bends / The Assignment: Get less strict about something you're strict about.
• 0550 / Abrupt Probability / Make music based on a chance graphic score. -
Full Index
And there is a complete list of past projects, 554 consecutive weeks to date. Archives
[email protected]
Downstream
-
Recent Posts