- Marvels of data sonification: What the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) sounds like, listening for the "god particle": http://www.lhcsound.com/ #
- 661: Number of songs sampled by DJ Premier according to whosampled.com #
- 154: Number of songs sampling music produced by DJ Premier according to whosampled.com #
- 6: Number of songs sampling Aphex Twin according to whosampled.com #
- 3: Number of songs sampling Laurie Anderson according to whosampled.com #
- 1: Number of songs sampling Randy Weston according to whosampled.com #
- #ff @markemorse (amsterdam-based music), @rarebeasts (homebrew devices), @sun_boxes (sol-power sound art), @sjmusart (great museum) #
- Bees are not swarming outside. That enveloping buzz is apparently the roar of horns from a neighboring TV broadcast of the #worldcup #
- Delivery truck in reverse (beeping), photocopier in energy-save mode (light whoosh), hard drive of nearby unused computer (quiet whir). #
- Multiple power drills = The Birds x Marathon Man. #
- Disquiet.com e-newsletter next Wed. has contest for recent Fatboy Slim/David Byrne/Imelda Marcos CD (this time for real) http://is.gd/cKaDZ #
- Another dead pair of earbuds (right channel out). Cheap or pricey, these things last maybe six months for me. #
- Listening to a pre-release with ends cut to reduce piracy. Given ubiquity of slow fade, this always raises my expectations for proper close. #
- Regarding those Thunderbird 3 memory-hog issues I was having, the current release candidate of 3.1 seems to solve them. #
- The distant siren has been circling; its whine, muffled by distance, is that of a wounded animal: as if it's the thing that needs rescuing. #
- RIP, Himan Brown (age: 99), radio legend: "[N]othing visual can touch audio. … [C]reak the door open, and … your head begins to go." #
- Best thing about Apple event today (besides Bluetooth keyboard ♥ Phone/Touch on June 21) may be the simplification of "iPhone OS" to "iOS" #
- Passing by a rolling rack of Faust costumes outside the War Memorial Opera House in SF, including some serious undergirding. #
- Thunderbird 3 proving to be massive memory hog (Win7, 64bit). When I have lots of free time I'll try the 14-point doc: http://is.gd/cF38z #
- Morning's best sonic moment: when drone of approaching airplane emerged seamlessly from Tuvan moaning of the Richmond District foghorns. #
- Speaking of which the 3.5" disk ended up having the third year of epulse on it, so I'm still looking for years 1 and 2, if anyone has 'em. #
- Don't understand why just as desktops/netbooks head to cloud, apps are focus of phones. App craze is more consumerist than functionalist. #
- Gotta love that kiosks in suburban malls offer iPhone un-locking services. #
- Just got 3½-inch floppy disk from @jverlinde / @fbjournal of first few years of epulse, the email zine I founded for Tower Records in 1994. #
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
• 0456 / Line Up / The Assignment: Interpret a painting by Agnes Martin as if it were a graphic score.
• 0455 / Inner Invertebrate / The Assignment: What does a moment (or a day) in the life of a jellyfish sound like to a jellyfish?
• 0454 / Lsoo Vneg / The Assignment: Encode the name of someone you love into a piece of music.
• 0453 / Dial Up / The Assignment: Imagine the technologically mediated First Contact through sound.
• 0452 / Let's Scream / The Assignment: Get cathartic. Be resilient. Turn your scream into music.Full Index
And there is a complete list of past projects, 456 consecutive weeks to date.