- The recently deceased Gene McDaniels' widely sampled Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse: http://t.co/im6uoDn (via @tones) #
- RIP, singer and songwriter Gene McDaniels (b. 1935), sampled by Tribe Called Quest, Beastie Boys, Organized Konfusion. #
- Making apple soda from light slurry left over after making apple sauce for my 11-month-old. #
- Never been much of a radio listener, music-wise. Pandora/Spotify/Rhapsody feel like radio. Soundcloud/Bandcamp feel like crate-digging. #
- The appearance of the phrase "Thanks for the add" on any social network is a sure sign of a fatal flaw in the architecture of that network. #
- Modern glyphs: these few lines mean one carne asada taco and one regular chicken taco at Cancun on Mission http://ow.ly/i/eZDa #415 #
- [email protected] Such a hassle. I'm not home, and I have a Soundcloud-sourced MP3 I'd like to listen to on the bus. Shouldn't be this hard. #
- 1. Waste phone's battery. 2. Bypass iPod sync with slow wifi file manager? 3. Purchase *third* portable music player (e.g., SanDisk)? #oy #
- Tonight's urban-walk score: Miles Davis' "Shhh/Peaceful" stretched by @Le_Berger 50% longer than original http://t.co/CLFlpuB via @vuzhmusic #
- "New Tab with Clock" Chrome extension is nice, though each new tab opens with sudden urgency of sequence from TV show 24 http://t.co/IiS7ub8 #
- Digging music-free environment of Borderlands on Valencia, all the better to enjoy the sounds of HVAC, street noise, and construction. #415 #
- I'm participating in an 8/3 #415 talk at @gaffta with @rddy (of @eyebeamnyc) & @lucmeier (of @swissnexsf) & @barrythrew: http://goo.gl/IrlN1 #
- RIP, Japanese electronic musician Rei Harakami (b. 1970), via @moskitoo_land & @taylordeupree #
- Foghorns tonight sound like cellos tuning up before a symphony begins. Fog season is upon us. #415 #
- Hard to tell where the 9am bells at Sonoma State end and where the campus-wide HVAC hum begins http://ow.ly/i/eVcn #
- Dunno if @bandcamp "related tags" are human- or algorithm-generated, but "Russian Federation" rightly comes up as related tag to "downtempo" #
- First time in months I wasn't in San Francisco for the Tuesday noon siren. #
- Enjoying my little Acer netbook but its name (Aspire — as in "I aspire to a MacBook Air"?) and logo really need a decal cover. Suggestions? #
- Mid-morning sounds (library edition): Low-level HVAC, footsteps, shuffling paper. Only people heard talking are librarians. #
- Goodnight #noiselife everywhere #
- "Super Fly" off Zoo Keeper by DZA is what would happen if Naked City made hip-hop: http://t.co/131W9dY #
- People trying to add my disquiet.com email ID to Google+, but I use my gmail.com one. Sorting it out feels more complicated than it should. #
- [email protected] Yeah, a fun and useful comparison. So, who is the most Brakhage-like music producer? #
- Splice studies continue RT @gregdavismusic: @disquiet Brakhage probably made more splices in one short film than 10 years worth of hiphop #
- Smart commenter connects hip-hop beat splices to experimental films of Stan Brakhage: http://t.co/Z9mbzB7 #
- RIP, Fran Landesman (b. 1927), lyricist of "Nothing Like You," which was like nothing else on Miles Davis' album Sorcerer. #
- James Gleik suggests Poe found perfect epigraphs by making them up: http://bit.ly/ocUbqe There's a lesson somewhere in there for samplers. #
- Different bus stop, different harmonica player. Something is up. #415 #
- Low-key breakbeats in my headphones combining nicely with clarinet rendition of "I'm in the Mood for Love" on the cafe stereo. #
- Listening to instrumental edit of Back to Black. RIP, Amy Winehouse (b. 1983). #
- Ecstatic harmonica at the bus stop, short-statured guy with bike-chain bracelet and massive fanny-pack. #
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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
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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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