- A little post-C/Hanuk/kah word comparison: http://is.gd/iVy1i from @tabletmag #ngram #
- First time I heard Cap Beefheart I was 11-ish. When I went home from my friend's house I told my parents I'd heard an LP made only of farts. #
- RIP, Don Van Vliet (b. 1941), Captain Beefheart. #
- I feel and think about netlabels today the way I felt about minicomics in the early 1990s. There's more to it than that, but it's a start. #
- Noon church bells, mellowed in the thick drizzle. (So that's why it's called dampening.) #
- Update on #delicious not shutting down but not staying at Yahoo: http://www.geekosystem.com/delicious-not-shutting-down/ #
- If you're in Fredericton, NB, CA; Traverse City, MI; or Asheville, NC, it's Unsilent Night tonight. http://is.gd/iG4z2 @myunsilentnight #
- Light Post-Midnight Traffic (B-Grade TV & Laptop Hard Drive Mix) #
- Use of the word "ambient" really took off in the late 1970s. Who woulda thunk? http://is.gd/iT235 #ngram #
- Its Ninja versus Pirate, literary style: comparative chart of use of words for past 100 years: http://j.mp/h22IoV #googlengram #
- Google Ngram graph of usage of word "disquiet" since 1900. Note uptick since 1996, year I purchased Disquiet.com URL: http://j.mp/i5d10a #
- If you're in Kettering, Ohio, it's Unsilent Night tonight. http://is.gd/iG4z2 @myunsilentnight #
- [email protected] everyone-who-wrote: pinboard.in refunds until three days. Need longer to know if it works (for my needs). Thanks for the tips. #delicious #
- Delicious is the one external source I've used for my Disquiet.com site (for the Elsewhere links). Need to sort out alternative. #cloudy #
- Currently glad I don't depend on Flickr for hosting photos (re: del.icio.us closure report). #
- Is this for real? Delicious closing shop? via @ario /// @techcrunch says "Yes" http://is.gd/iRzMh #
- RT @boingboing Wax Cylinder: Occult Sonic Technology of a Bygone Age, Good as New http://bit.ly/iiFOyb (It's my latest BB piece.) #
- Wondering why I don't list comics on @goodreads. Maybe because I read a lot as pamphlets, not when they're collected as graphic novels? #
- Morning sounds: buses, lots of them, and things rattling as they pass. #
- Ukulele-callus fingers sound very different against paper than do strumming fingers. (Paper in question is Charles Burns' X'ed Out.) #
- "@ranjit: @disquiet looking for sonic activism participants, sample-based, due Sunday: [email protected]" /// Thanks. 3 tracks already done! #
- Good news: Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound, Volume 1 (A-L), by Frank Hoffman, available as Google eBook. Bad news: $272. http://is.gd/iOdak #
- This seems very meta. Go to http://www.deadmedia.org/ and it reads "temporarily offline." #
- I think I have this right: Crawl -> Walk -> Run -> Fly -> Teleport -> Time Travel #21stcenturyparenting #
- [email protected] Yeah, a successful mashup become a hybrid (that then gets, potentially, mashed itself). #
- [email protected] Yeah, maybe — or mashups retain some sense of individual parts, while hybrids strive to become a new singular entity. #
- Planning on starting two-week Twitter (and much Internet) break middle of next week. Cue chiptune version of John Lennon's "Cold Turkey." #
- RT @lenpsmall you must prep Roker book w screws (re: "Saw John Cage bio up front on table at Borders, right next to Al Roker novel") #
- A little bee-related music information for @boondesign http://is.gd/iNSkJ #
- Saw the John Cage bio up front on a table at Borders, right next to the Al Roker novel. #
- "@ethanhein: I'm going to say, nope. RT @disquiet: do hybrid & mashup mean different things" Maybe it's a nuance: caution versus energy. #
- Wondering whether we mean different things in any meaningful way when we say hybrid versus mashup. #
- Remembering when a hybrid car meant it might float. #
- Imagining an @oblique / @buddhamachine mashup/hybrid gadget. #
- Morning sounds: two drones (refrigerator through wall + low-flying airplane). #
- Video of Steve Roden's soon-to-close (Dec 19) sound/sculpture installation, inspired by Buckminster Fuller: http://vimeo.com/17551291 #
- "@BoingBoing: If You Meet the Buddha Machine on the Road, Hack It http://bit.ly/ecfQxN" In which I yap about new one & wish for the next. #
- At home: two-monitor computer. Away, also two screens: iPod Touch & Android phone. Latter pairing increasingly seems useful, not redundant. #
- Sonic-activism project clarification: It's sample-based, and due date is this coming Sunday. Wanna participate? Email me: [email protected]. #
- [email protected] Amazing that after all the effort folks put into netlabels that RSS feed, contact info and geographic location often go missing. #
- Our next little act of remixy sonic activism is taking shape. Have room for a few more contributors. Interested? Email me: [email protected] #
- “@boondesign: Walking and humming Deerhunter song which was on radio when car ignited. #clairvoyance” Better yet: #clairaudience #
- RIP, pianist/scholar Jacob Lateiner (b. 1928), who among other things commissioned and premiered (in 1967) Elliott Carter's Piano Concerto. #
- Tuesday noon alarm here in San Francisco. One of those days when the tones start rising, and seem like they're never going to stop doing so. #
- Saw no contact info on a netlabel's site. Finally discovered it in xml metadata buried in one of the label's archive.org project pages. #
- John King: sketching in museums allows "comprehension through emulation, as artists have throughout time" / @deyoungmuseum should reconsider #
- Great piece by John King on inane @deyoungmuseum prohibition of sketching in special exhibits http://t.co/fFHppCz @sfgate #pecksniffian #
- Great #netlabel discussion going at my @boingboing guestblog post http://ow.ly/1rXQyC … 22 comments & counting. Name your fave netlabels. #
- The netbook household is considerably more quiet than is the desktop household. #
- Interested in some fast-turnaround sonic activism? Shoot me an email at [email protected]. #
- [email protected] @artnetdotcom Could an art-critic detractor of an arena like sound art have a better name than "Dorment"? http://bit.ly/g80pUX #
- RT @vuzhmusic AGH! The spotlight is blinding all of us mole-people from the underground! #netlabel @boingboing http://ow.ly/1rXQyC #
- "@mrdanielcarter: You may enjoy this: http://j.mp/gnGaZl" I love me some Albers. Another great album-art site: http://www.hardformat.org/ #
- [email protected] Totally. Amp hum is to great rock-derived music what once-a-mistake/twice-a-motif bum notes are to jazz. #
- Gorgeous old-school "Seven Steps to Better Listening" vinyl LP album cover at http://designspiration.net/image/573/ #
- … Gotta love that it's all about reproduction not reception, technology not comprehension. #
- Step 7: Reduced record wear #7stepstobetterlistening #
- Step 6: Elimination of buzzes and rattles #7stepstobetterlistening #
- Step 5: Left-right separation #7stepstobetterlistening #
- Step 4: Tone control setting #7stepstobetterlistening #
- Step 3: Loudspeaker balance #7stepstobetterlistening #
- Step 2: Proper loudspeaker connection (phasing) #7stepstobetterlistening #
- Step 1: Left-right sound identification #7stepstobetterlistening #
- The Seven Steps to Better Listening, via @mrdanielcarter … #
- Sharing some #netlabel love @boingboing http://ow.ly/1rXQyC #
- Coming down from a Reverie Dream on the 22 Fillmore @inceptiontheapp #reactive #
- Stepped outside the house just as noon bells began to ring. Felt very "OK Carillon." #
- We've heard sonified Kobe quake data & Isao Hashimoto's sonification of nuclear proliferation. Anyone doing anything soundy with Wikileaks? #
- Is "casual apps" redundant? #
- If you're in Philadelphia, it's Unsilent Night tonight (Dec 13). http://is.gd/iG4z2 @myunsilentnight #
- As John Cage said to Morton Feldman: "I've never heard anyone boo a transistor radio." http://www.catm.co.uk/ #cageagainstthemachine #
- Video of Cage Against the Machine: http://is.gd/iG39l … Sorry! That's Pootie Tang. Here's CAtM: http://is.gd/iG2LG #cage #charity #silence #
- 14 years ago today I purchased the Disquiet.com URL. It was Friday the 13th, 1996. The process involved a lot of faxing, as I recall. #
- "@livingdancing: Retweeting also kills approximative word of mouth. RT @disquiet: File sharing is killing home taping." Man, I miss mouths. #
- "@vuzhmusic: isn't it undergoing a renaissance? RT @disquiet File sharing is killing home taping." Is it, or just prerecorded cassettes? #
- File sharing is killing home taping. #
- "@benchilada: @disquiet – I try to moderate my moderation, lest it interfere with thinks like nightmarish whiskey binges." True, & bourbon. #
- Moderation in all things, including moderation — but with the exception of comments moderation, which I'd like to keep to a bare minimum. #
- WordPress keeps sending comments with more than one link to spam. I need to sort out a smoother comment system. #
- My fave grits: jalapeño cheese grits at Cafe Atchafalaya in New Orleans (not far from where I lived) #gritsunday Been a long time, sadly. #
- Church Bells (Baby's Snoring, Walls, and Distance Mix) #
- [email protected] It's getting easier. There's a profile button in the @soundcloud app on each track, and it shows that user's track timeline. #
- Latest @soundcloud app update for iOS links up with @foursquare — wondering if this will be a boon to locative communal field recording. #
- Either someone is playing Christmas songs really quiet next door, or really loud a block or two away, #
- Docent on historic house tour said a framed tin/conch vest was from a "pneumatic tribe." #steamtribes #knowmad #
- [email protected] You know it. Unsilent Night in SF, one week from tonight. My newborn's first! #
- Puerto Rican food for lunch. Yow, just yow. Will be crossing the Golden Gate Bridge more often. #garlic #pollo #bistec #plantain #moregarlic #
- Re: @inceptiontheapp "@dizzybanjo: Some people are leaving it on all night!" Reminds me of a certain squence in Walken/Wood's Brainstorm. #
- And there's a MIME joke in there somewhere #clowncomputing #
- Ruby on Rusty Nails #clowncomputing #
- John Wayne Gates #clowncomputing #
- Musician Leyland Kirby has removed ("pulled down") all the content on his website, as of 12/8: http://is.gd/izBD0 via @warrenellis #
- I hope a hashtag develops for tweets of @inceptiontheapp-induced anecdotes @dizzybanjo #
- [email protected] Maybe they can add rubber-on-pavement sound effects to hovercraft, along the lines of the faux-motor that hybrid cars have. #
- Enjoying Clone Wars. Makes up for the prequels. Amidala: tougher. Intrigue: greater. Clones: cooler. Action: extended. Jar Jar: absent-er. #
- [email protected] If we get hovercraft first, will that help ease the transition? I guess different hov-tech will have different sounds. #
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about
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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
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Current Activities
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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.) -
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• 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).
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disquiet junto
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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 -
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• 0541 / 10BPM Techno / The Assignment: Make some snail-paced beats.
• 0540 / 5ive 4our / The Assignment: Take back 5/4 for Jedi time masters Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond.
• 0539 / Control Breath / The Assignment: Let your slow breathing guide a piece of music.
• 0538 / Guided Decompression / The Assignment: Get someone from tense to chill.
• 0537 / Penitent Honk / The Assignment: Do sound design for "a missing gesture" of vehicular life. -
Full Index
And there is a complete list of past projects, 541 consecutive weeks to date. Archives
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