There are, let’s say, times when I need to get away, and if not physically, then at least mentally, and in the latter case then all the better psycho-geographically. I need change to register with me in ways that signals different, alien, other. Even if the experience is vicarious, it should, best it can, express itself somatically. A walking tour can do this, a video-enabled wander around a place other than where I actually happen to live and work. Many such videos I piggyback on are from video games, where vloggers record their play in ways that avoid play in favor of ambience.
But, I’m not entirely against the real world, and this rainy day winter walk in London, recorded by the YouTuber who goes by Watched Walker, really hit the spot. Perhaps it was the time of day, or the weather, or the part of London, but much of the video, despite being from our actual flesh and blood (or concrete, glass, and cobblestone) world, feels as empty — in a good way — as those game-less video games, just a blank space in which one can follow along, and listen to the way the weather and geography, the building facades and vehicles, lend a music-less soundtrack to the excursion.
The LA-based label Leaving Records has posted two tracks for free streaming off its latest release, Staying: Leaving Records Aid to Artists Impacted by the Los Angeles Wildfires. That’s two out of just shy of 100 — yes, 100. Wisely, they lead with some strengths, a bubbling track from early ambient master Laraaji, “Joyous Dance ’82,” and a slightly more downbeat but still percolating piece by Baths and Rachika Nayar, “Dried Apricot.” Once you purchase the collection, you’ll have 96 more to listen to. I’m still working my way through all 98, but early favorites include a quick bit of glitchy beatmaking from Glia (“Gaal RDM”), a sedate trance from André 3000 featuring Carlos Niño, Alex Cline, and Pablo Calogero (“This is Where my room used to be.”), a totally warped excursion from Daedalus (“Making the Beat Scene”), lush new age from Cool Maritime (“Freshet”), and a great explorative mix of funky soloing and noisy effects by Sam Wilkes (“Culebra”), a haunting drone by KMRU (“Visions”), and a contribution by Steve Roach that I would call angelic except that the title already does that for me (“For the Angels”). Details on the fund distribution are on the album’s webpage.
On Sundays I try to at least quickly note some of my favorite listening from the week prior — things I would later regret having not written about in more depth, so better to share here briefly than not at all.
▰ I was mistakenly under the impression that the great Loraine James wouldn’t have a new record out until 2026, but she does, and it’s due out mid-March, and the first song is already here under her Whatever the Weather moniker, “12°C.” Very interesting amalgam of field recordings and low-key glitch, and all the more interesting for mixing it up as it proceeds, never sticking to one idea for long before moving on.
▰ Simon Farintosh has a new transcription of an Aphex Twin song out, part of his third volume of Richard D. James adaptations. This is “IZ-US,” originally the closing track on the Come to Daddy album from 1997. I interviewed Farintosh back in early 2021 about his work.
▰ Marcus Fischer has posted a fascinating document of his sound installation Carry the Water from last year. The installation consists of 55 gallon water barrel, powder-coated jerry cans, concrete, transducers, and digital audio. As Fischer explains: “The installation is made up of a series of metal vessels, all of which could hold water but are in fact empty and only act as resonators for the amplified sound of water.”
▰ Gorgeous self-titled album of ambient chamber jazz from the Nighttime Ensemble. The group consists of Daniel Wyche (guitar), Brian J. Sulpizio (piano), Ro Lundberg (upright bass), Lia Kohl (cello, radio, objects), and Sam Scranton (drums, percussion). It’s one single track, almost an hour in length.
The Assignment: Record a piece of music to transform a walk or a run into something theatrical.
/ By Marc Weidenbaum
Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto music community, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have five days to record and upload a track in response to the project instructions.
Membership in the Junto is open: just join and participate. (A SoundCloud account is helpful but not required.) There’s no pressure to do every project. The Junto is weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when your time and interest align.
Disquiet Junto Project 0681: Drama Course The Assignment: Record a piece of music to transform a walk or a run into something theatrical.
Step 1: Choose a length of time for a proper walk (or run), maybe 10 to 30 minutes.
Step 2: Think of how that walk might be experienced by someone if that person were made to feel as if they were in a thriller. As the composer, you can set the pace with a steady beat, and add music, and sound effects, maybe even bits of dialog. The idea is someone listening to your track while walking will have a much more dramatic experience.
Step 3: Record the piece of music you imagined in Step 2.
Tasks Upon Completion:
Label: Include “disquiet0681” (no spaces/quotes) in the name of your track.
Upload: Post your track to a public account (SoundCloud preferred but by no means required). It’s best to focus on one track, but if you post more than one, clarify which is the “main” rendition.
License: It’s preferred (but not required) to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., an attribution Creative Commons license).
Please Include When Posting Your Track:
More on the 681st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Drama Course — The Assignment: Record a piece of music to transform a walk or a run into something theatrical — at https://disquiet.com/0681/
When I first began listening to this recording, a sliver of Brian Eno’s classic Music for Airports (1978), I just assumed it was the entire Bang on a Can ensemble playing it, because I saw pianist Vicki Chow’s name at the start of the list of performers, and because it sounded so rich. It turns out, though, that it’s just Chow and two additional musicians: percussionist David Cossin and guitarist Mark Stewart, also of Bang on a Can. And yet with that minimal available instrumentation, they’re able to flesh out the wholeness of the original piece. Now, the word “flesh” there is not entirely correct, because the source material is fairly sparse, famously so, but it’s sparse the way a very large room might be empty yet still be voluminous and communicate its volume, and this trio really gets at that spaciousness, thanks in large part to the sustain on Chow’s piano and the buzzing trail of Stewart’s electric guitar chords. The video was taped at the Ragas Live Festival at Pioneer Works in Red Hook, Brooklyn, back in 2023, and was posted this week in advance of 2025’s festival, which is scheduled for October.
In fact, the full performance is also up on YouTube, and had been up since the middle of last year, part of a playlist of 20 videos from the festival:
