Author: Marc Weidenbaum

Does Disquiet.com Accept Music for Review Consideration? 

From the site FAQ

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

I would love to hear your music and watch your videos. However, please don’t expect me to reply to correspondence — not even with a quick confirmation of receipt.

I simply don’t have the time to engage in back and forths via email about whether I plan on covering a given release. I receive an enormous amount of music from musicians and their record labels, and that doesn’t count all the time I spend seeking out music (and sound-related art). I can’t promise to write back — either in a timely manner, or at all. What I can promise is the following: I will listen to as much music I receive as possible, without diminishing the attention I can pay to what I do elect to listen to, and I will consider it for coverage. I listen constantly, and when something really strikes me, that’s when I write about it — either here, or for other publications to which I contribute.

My preference is that you email me a link to a zip archive containing lossless files, and also include a link to it streaming somewhere, so I can potentially quickly preview it before downloading. If you have the music on Bandcamp, then just send me a “yum” download code. If you feel the need to send me a CD (or vinyl copy, or some other physical format), you can email me (visit this site’s contact page) to get my address in San Francisco, where I live. Please don’t send audio files as attachments: they clog up my email, and I just delete them. In closing, I do want to hear your music — but I also want to hear other people’s music, and the less time I spend in correspondence, the more time I can spend listening.

. . .

The above is from the recently updated Disquiet.com FAQ.

Death Hags’ 2nd Junto x Bern Podcast

A new set of tracks collected on her listen.camp show, Big Grey Sun 2.0

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

For the October 7, 2023, episode on her listen.camp show, Big Grey Sun 2.0, the L.A. musician/producer Lola G. (aka Death Hags) played tracks from the second of three Disquiet Junto projects that participants did this year in collaboration with Musikfestival Bern, as well as some of her own music. The theme of this project, number 0595, Filter Progression, was: Make music by processing a static sound.

This is the playlist from “Big Grey Sun 2.0 / 07th October 2023,” which is hosted at Death Hags’ mixcloud.com account:

  • Death Hags — “Photons in the Sky”
  • Noodle Twister — “Tiniest Cloud”
  • the bell mechanical — “a shiny curtain”
  • colmkil — “Minimal Blend, Coffee Sips”
  • halF unusuaL — “halF miiniimaaliisT [10 minute version]”
  • Death Hags — “Airlift V”
  • Ossimuratore — “Prone to Logic Mind”
  • he_nu_ri — “Entrenched and Incised Meanders”
  • RabMusicLab — “Les rencontres entre éléments”
  • caustic_gates — “drone blend”
  • Sonic Search — “Ruminations”
  • Death Hags — “Photons in the Sky (Alt)”

Terror from Above

Singing those Blue Angels blues

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

The admirably synchronized Blue Angels circled our fine city once again this weekend, during Fleet Week, and I thought I would whittle my mix of cultural curiosity and anxious disgruntlement down to two points. For whatever reason, I found this year’s display of might less abrasive than in the past. Perhaps the flights were more muted, and perhaps I’m somewhat inured. Somewhat. My nerves were still on edge.

Types of Noise: I am fascinated each year that there is even any debate or discussion about these planes flying overhead and making enormous amounts of house-shaking, nerve-rattling noise. I truly mean that, when I say I’m fascinated. I personally can’t imagine anything other than wanting the whole thing to be brought down a few notches, and yet it’s quite clear there are a lot of people who revel in the ferocity of it all. I can’t access that enthusiasm, myself, and I’d like to better understand what pleasure people take in it. I mean, I listen to some really harsh music. I’ve seen Slayer and Godflesh in concert, just to name a few bands. I listen to intense industrial music. So, I’m not opposed to noise, per se. But if there’s a line, then to me the Fleet Week planes passed over it.

The Negative Impact: I really don’t think people fully appreciate how horrible all that noise is for animals, for the elderly, and for infants. There are also several major hospitals in San Francisco, as well as the VA Medical Center, which among other things deals with PTSD and mental health issues for veterans. The VA is at the top of Lands End, and it has incredible views of the San Francisco Bay. Most of the year that location is pretty blissful. However, during Fleet Week I imagine — and I could be entirely wrong — that for some the experience serves up a host of troubling memories. I’d be interested in the VA’s perspective on this. Maybe the walls are thick enough that it just doesn’t matter.

In any case, the skies ironically were no longer clear the day after Fleet Week ended. It even rained a bit, but they were quieter, welcomingly so. Local journalist George Kelly has a good piece in sfstandard.com on the annual event that mentions two websites I didn’t know about previously: flyquietoak.com, a service of the Oakland airport that is focused on noise issues, and webtrak.emsbk.com/oak3, which maps noise matters in this handy live data visualization:

About This Weekend

Three nights, six photos, eight musicians

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

It’s been a long time since I attended three concerts on three consecutive nights, all the more so when those nights weren’t all part of a single festival. I broke the pandemic-era spell this weekend here in San Francisco, characteristically masked, and caught Loraine James at Thee Parkside, then the final night of Naut Humon’s Recombinant Festival at Gray Area, and tonight Dan Burke (aka Illusion of Safety) and Thomas Dimuzio at the Center for New Music. For now, these photos will have to suffice, but I’ll be publishing proper reviews soon.

Loraine James in her first San Francisco appearance, at Thee Parkside on Friday, October 6

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Daniel Menche opens the final night of the Recombinant Festival at Gray Area on Saturday, October 7

Victoria Shen and Aaron Dilloway momentarily below their noise tables

Olivia Block does surround sound from the center of the audience

Kevin Drumm in sonic assault mode

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Dan Burke (aka Illusion of Safety) and Thomas Dimuzio at Center for New Music on Sunday, October 8, performing together after each did a solo set

Scratch Pad: “Practical” Instruments, Blue Angels

From the past week

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

I do this manually at the end of each week: collating (and sometimes lightly editing) most of the recent little comments I’ve made on social media, which I think of as my public scratch pad. I mostly hang out on Mastodon (at post.lurk.org/@disquiet), and I’m also trying out a few others. And I take weekends off social media. 

▰ I was talking with someone about Loraine James’ excellent new album, Gentle Confrontation. They asked if James uses any “practical” instruments, borrowing the distinction from visual effects in the film and television industry — that is, between what isn’t and is the result of computer generation. I love this use of the word.

▰ I’ve only used the AudioMoth field recorder so far in the backyard. I set it out last night to capture street noises. Time to see (that is, hear) what it captured. First I need to run analysis to see (here the correct term) what in its myriad little files might be of interest.

▰ I know there’s new music out, but pretty much all I’ve been listening to is archival releases from John Zorn’s Tzadik label, now that its back catalog is on streaming services. If you have any favorites, let me know. I own a lot of Tzadik, but there’s a lot more I haven’t heard.

▰ Nothing like a neighborhood three-alarm fire in the morning to get the sonic juices flowing. Yowza. (Looks like everyone’s OK.)

▰ I briefly experienced what I’d call “digital dementia.” I depend on Pastebot for its clipboard memory. It initially didn’t work after I upgraded to macOS Sonoma, which was really debilitating. The app works now. I knew I liked Pastebot but I had no idea how much I depended on it.

▰ The initial Fleet Week flyover made me instinctively wonder if the clothes dryer had suddenly entered a Spin Cycle of Death phase. That’s only 7 / 10 on the “Why Is This Noise a Good Idea?” scale. Judging by the barking, the neighborhood dogs rate it a 9. Car alarms on cue, too.

▰ Fleet Week’s freakish airstrike cosplay coincides with the hottest days of the year, so you can’t even keep your windows closed

▰ Just singing those Blue Angels blues

▰ Current status: blocking out the Blue Angels with Slayer, Celtic Frost, and Public Enemy

▰ A trailer is out for Monster, which I think has Ryuichi Sakamoto’s final score. From director Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters; Like Father, Like Son), whose The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House is one of my favorite recent TV shows. (And no relation to the Naoki Urasawa manga.)

▰ Two hours until the Blue Angels. Talk about “enjoy the silence.”

▰ The backyard is so quiet. The birds are like, “I’m native San Francisco. I didn’t sign up for this 85º $#!+.”