Make the Best of What’s Still Around

Listening to art.
Playing with audio.
Sounding out technology.
Composing in code.

Make the Best of What’s Still Around

A live tape-loop performance by Amulets

[ March 18, 2020 / Department: downstream / Leave a comment ]

Tread lightly. Today’s self-aware hi-jinks are tomorrow’s tragedies. Still, as musicians, like most everyone else in the world, do their best to settle into far more residential life than they may be accustomed to, they make the best of what’s still around. In the case of Amulets, that involves using a toilet paper roll as a means to extend the length of a tape loop, as heard in this video posted today.

Amulets is the Portland, Oregon, musician Randall Taylor, who does marvelous things with, among other second-hand tools, old audio tape cassettes — same tape he’s had for years. Here the rotting texture of the loop, exaggerated by a delay pedal, takes sequences from his portable synth and renders from them subsistence ambient, just loud enough to make an impression, but not so much as to squander available resources.

This is the latest video I’ve added to my YouTube playlist of recommended live performances of ambient music. Video originally posted at youtube.com. More from Amulets at amuletsmusic.com.

By Marc Weidenbaum

[ Tags: live-performance, recommended stream, video / Leave a comment ]

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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
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• 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).
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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

• 0473 / Placebo Effect (2 or 3) / The Assignment: The Assignment: Record the second third of a trio that others will complete.
• 0472 / Jam Time (1 of 3) / The Assignment: Record the first third of a trio that others will complete.
• 0471 / Phase Transition / The Assignment: The Assignment: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something with it.
• 0470 / Calendar View / The Assignment: Create a sonic diary of the past year with a dozen (or more) super-brief segments.
• 0469 / [Missing in Caption] / The Assignment: Make music that pushes the constraints of descriptive television captions.

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And there is a complete list of past projects, 473 consecutive weeks to date.
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Most Recent Comments
- Matthew F. Blowers III on Disquiet Junto Project 0473: Placebo Effect (2 of 3): “https://soundcloud.com/torstengoerke/paper-jam-disquiet0473/comment-1250076694 ”
- paolo i. on Ambient Gets More Trombones: “very nice and thank you for sharing. this (and yesterday’s video) is probably the current segment of an uninterrupted line… ”
- Dietmar Sittek on 10 Favorite Ambient/Electronic Albums of 2020: “My favorite album of the year and equally the favorite ambient album is by Ferr “As above so below”. Proved,… ”
- jet jaguar on Chris Herbert’s Sketches: “Thanks for sharing, Marc, I’d missed this one and really like Chris Herbert’s stuff. So far I’m enjoying the wider… ”
- Kent Sparling on RIP, Harold Budd (1936 -2020): “a hero, a genius thank you Harold for all your gifts to us. ”
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Matthew F. Blowers III on Disquiet Junto Project 0473: Placebo Effect (2 of 3): “https://soundcloud.com/torstengoerke/paper-jam-disquiet0473/comment-1250076694 ”

paolo i. on Ambient Gets More Trombones: “very nice and thank you for sharing. this (and yesterday’s video) is probably the current segment of an uninterrupted line… ”

Dietmar Sittek on 10 Favorite Ambient/Electronic Albums of 2020: “My favorite album of the year and equally the favorite ambient album is by Ferr “As above so below”. Proved,… ”

jet jaguar on Chris Herbert’s Sketches: “Thanks for sharing, Marc, I’d missed this one and really like Chris Herbert’s stuff. So far I’m enjoying the wider… ”

Kent Sparling on RIP, Harold Budd (1936 -2020): “a hero, a genius thank you Harold for all your gifts to us. ”

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Make the Best of What’s Still Around

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