This is the second of our new batch of comics. The previous one was posted on December 30. The plan henceforth is to do one of these each month on the first Monday and third Monday. See a full index of Frame by Frame comics at disquiet.com/fxf.
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.
▰ A short live video by Andrew Tasselmyer that I had on loop for quite a while, a beading ambient techno piece with chamber music overtones:
▰ I’m a sucker for lengthy collections of short snippets of experiments. Book of Golden Furrows
by Bushel is such a thing. A lot of it is like instrumental hip-hop sheared to within a millimeter of its life.
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▰ I watch — and more to the point listen to — a lot of video game footage on YouTube. This particular approach, which a friend shared with me, is new to me. They are long-form videos intended to be watched by people while on exercise machines. The idea is, while you’re running, it’s like you are in Mirror’s Edge, which is one of my favorite games ever, even though I was terrible at it. Speaking of which: I don’t understand why playing the game gave me motion sickness yet watching the video doesn’t. The channel is named Video Game Run Club. Join in, whether vicariously, or “vicariously vicariously.”
At the end of each week, I usually collate a lightly edited collection of recent comments I’ve made on social media, which I think of as my public scratch pad. I find knowing I’ll revisit my posts to be a positive and mellowing influence on my social media activity. I mostly hang out on Mastodon (at post.lurk.org/@disquiet), and I’m also trying out a few others. And I generally take weekends off social media.
▰ I used to fly to LA a lot for work. I had a friend who’d often pick me up at LAX. We’d make that turn where DTLA comes into view and he’d tell me I’d gotten “that smile” on my face. He’d say, “You really do love this place,” and I was like, I sure do. My heart goes this week out to the people of LA.
▰ It’s a mumblecore James Taylor singalong at the barbershop
▰ Me: Nice to work in a cafe for the day.
Me soon after: Well, then there’s the guy humming to himself loudly across the room.
Me later still: I wish they’d turn off the music so I could record this.
▰ When Facebook loads in my phone’s browser, sometimes it takes a moment, and when that happens it looks like it’s casting a lot of I Ching throws simultaneously
▰ First time back at tai chi in almost half a year. That felt good. (Pro tip: Being incredibly clumsy makes it easy to maintain a beginner’s mind.)
▰ Just as a side note to my earlier note about The Conversation, I’ve been watching that The Lincoln Lawyer TV show, and while Manuel Garcia-Rulfo has a certain James Garner quality to him, he seems to be channeling Gene Hackman at times, notably his posture and facial expressions.
▰ This place serves iced ammonia. I’ll assume it’s iced ambrosia, but if this is my last post, you’ll have a good guess at what happened.
▰ Why set an alarm when there’s the option of the creaking of your cabinets during a 7am earthquake?
▰ I wanted to take piano lessons. I visited a teacher, who sat me at a piano and asked, “Which is more important, melody or harmony?” I sat there. The teacher waited, having asked me something ostensively rhetorical. I said, “I think you want me to say melody.” That was my first and last lesson. (This is years ago. I take guitar lessons now.)
▰ After two earthquakes this morning, I took a lie-down just to chill out, and was, of course, stirred by a third earthquake
▰ Statement: I can’t stand when electronic musicians list all the equipment they use.
Reply: You realize there’s a vast amount of classical music titled things like Concerto for Flute, Harp, and Orchestra, and Rondino for oboes, clarinets, horns and bassoons in E♭ major?
▰ I’ve (temporarily?) turned off “reposts” in my Bluesky feed. Too much was endless reposts without comment or context. “Quote” posts will still show and “replies” and, ya know, “post” posts. Too bad “Experimental” isn’t about more experimental music posts. :) And yes the word “feed” is still gross.
▰ Whew. I took over a month off social media at the end of 2024, and I dunno if the first 10 days of 2025 have been especially insane, or if life was just better when I was more offline. Maybe both. I’m just glad it’s nearly the weekend.
This Junto Profile is part of an ongoing series of short Q&As that provide some background on various individuals who participate regularly in the online Disquiet Junto music community.
What’s your name? Andreas Kitzmann
Where are you located? I was born in Vancouver, Canada. In my mid twenties I moved to Montreal to pursue graduate studies and after a few years I made my way through Europe, settling for a few months in Prague and Paris, before moving to upstate New York to be with my partner who was doing her stint at graduate school. After a while, I got on a plane and lived/worked in Eastern Cyprus for a year and a half and then up north to Sweden, specifically Skövde and later Karlstad for a period of 6 years. During that time my son was born and then we returned to Canada and made a home in Kitchener, Ontario, which is where I’m now based.
What is your musical activity? I grew up learning musical instruments — cello and piano — but then later drifted in alternative and experimental explorations during my university days. Today, I’m fortunate to be able to explore my interest in musical synthesis as a part of my academic profession, notably in terms of using it as a means to engage with and think about the connections between art, philosophy, science, technology, and engineering. I am by no means a professional musician, but rather see my collection of instruments as objects to think with and through. I seek out instruments that ask me to think about sound and music in different ways and that challenge me to pause and reflect on what is and is not possible.
What is one good musical habit? I don’t do this regularly enough, but one habit that I am trying to engrain is to spend concentrated time on one singular instrument and to go through it in a thoughtful, but not necessarily programmatic way. Explore what you have deeply but not only in terms of “outputs” (i.e., finished pieces). Think of your instrument as a partner as opposed to something that you control and master. It is a conversation that meanders in directions that cannot be anticipated.
What are your online locations? I organize a local synthesizer society, which can be found at tricitysynthsociety.org. There are corresponding Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube links, as well, which are all accessible on the main page. Some of my research efforts and those of my colleagues can be found at designingsoundfutures.org.
What was a particularly meaningful Junto project? That’s a hard one, as most of the projects resonate with me for one reason or another. I recall disquiet 0620 (soundcloud.com/andreas-kitzmann-27370936/disquiet0620; disquiet.com/0620), which was a collaborative effort, as being particularly engaging, mainly as a result of having the opportunity to engage with others. I used a sample of Emily Haines, from the band Metric, which I literally stumbled over while listening to an interview on the radio. There is something about how she speaks and the words she uses that I still find compelling as a source material.
The Tri City Synthesizer Society seems very interesting. Could you explain a bit about it? The TCSS was founded in 2023 to promote synthesizer-related activities and events in the region of Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge, Ontario. We have organized a number of events, such as Electronic Music Open Mic nights that invites local synthesists to perform in a welcoming and inclusive environment; workshops at local libraries to showcase electronic instruments, presentations by artists and synth developers and workshops that focus on specific techniques and skills associated with synthesis and electronic music; makerspace activities where individuals build sound objects and synthesizer components. This summer we are partnering with Open Ears (openears.ca) — a long-running experimental music festival — to organize workshops and performances as part of their lineup.
Your bio on the website of York University in Toronto lists modular synthesizers as one of your areas. Could you talk about synthesizers as a subject of academic inquiry? For the past few years I have been using modular synthesis as a means to explore questions related to technology and creativity; modes of learning through practice; theoretical concepts related to the “idea” of modularity and generally using synthesis as a context to think about sound, music and the artefacts we use to express ourselves. Recent projects include the edited volume Modular Synthesis: Patching Machines and People (Routledge, 2024), eds. Andreas Kitzmann, Ezra Teboul and Einar Engstrom; a project that explores the relationships between preservation, access, community and authenticity with respect to historical musical instruments, specifically by building a small Buchla 100 system; and an ongoing makerspace project where participants build a complete modular system, learn how to play it and then connect with the community networks that focus on sound and synthesis that I have helped establish. I am also part of a research cluster housed at the Responsive Technologies Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University (relab.blog.torontomu.ca) that uses synthesis to explore a variety of avenues, ranging from disability lead instrument design, using synths as a means to foster STEM based learning with under represented and at risk youth and community based efforts that focus on music, sound and technology. Many of these activities are described in designingsoundfutures.org.
For participants in the Disquiet Junto music community, which has run weekly since the first week of January 2012:
1: Now would be a fun time for you to invite someone to join in on Disquiet Junto projects, as people are getting creative plans and goals together for 2025. You can direct them to disquiet.com/junto.
2: As I mention on occasion, there is no requirement to do every Disquiet Junto project. Don’t burn yourself out, please. Don’t take the Junto as a whole as a challenge. The Junto is here every Thursday (through Monday) for when you have the time and interest.
