90: Common maximum decibel level of leaf blowers
45: Decibel level of a new “ultra quiet” model called the Whisper Aero
50: The number of feet from which it is 40x quieter than ordinary leaf blowers
Source: techcrunch.com
The Heavens
An ongoing series cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt
Another shot from Saint John the Divine in Manhattan where I attended a fantastic choral concert a couple weeks ago
Excavated Graffiti
An ongoing series cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt
Scratch Pad: Buddha Machine, Phones, Criterion
From the past week
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.
▰ “If you would like to hold without music, please press *”
“*”
▰ Kinda stoked I passed 3,600 subscribers to my sound-studies / ambient-music newsletter, This Week in Sound
▰ Me: OK, I’ve bought enough books for the year.
Also me: Oh, there’s a new dozen ebooks selected by Nick Mamatas on Story Bundle for $20. So much for my resolve.
▰ Yeah, I bought another Buddha Machine. Couldn’t resist the 2023 edition of the debut model.
▰ It’s 2023, so one gets messages in one’s ear like: “Someone with a 415 area code has sent a thumbs-up emoji.” Even better is the odd pause between “sent” and “a” — it’s just there because that’s how the message is stitched together, but the result is like patter from the most mundane game show ever.
▰ First: Kinda obsessed with the Criterion Closet videos.
Then: Kinda obsessed with the HVAC room tone of the Criterion Closet videos.
Side note: Why hasn’t Steven Soderbergh done a Criterion Closet video?
▰ “I find music a useful distraction. A focus tool. Keeps the inner voice from wandering.”
Yeah, I’m looking forward to The Killer, the upcoming movie from David Fincher.
▰ Well, that’s one fewer social media platforms to keep an eye on: pebble.is (previously T2, its temporary name) is closing down on November 1, 2023. It was a good spot. I met some folks there, even one in real life, and we had some solid discussions going. I’m sure more such companies will fall, and rise.
▰ I’m really enjoying Duolingo (German, currently), but yow has it cut into my “pleasure reading” time
Cello Treat
From the duo Mikael Lind (electronics) and Johanna Sjunnesson (cello, voice)
The album Wave Cycles is the result of a collaboration between electronic musician Mikael Lind (a Swede based in Reykjavik, Iceland) and cellist Johanna Sjunnesson (based in Sweden), who also lends a subtly intoned vocal to one track. This is classic post-classical music: an airy combination of pulsing minimalism, often stark ambient processing, and spacious harmonies that leave plenty of room for the listener’s imagination to roam free. It has a lot of the elements one has come to expect: gaseous pauses, closely mic’d instruments, a sense of a sizable space (even if it only exists as a fiction of Lind’s digital workstation). Particularly distinguishing it are some elegant touches of percussion, as on the closing track, with which the album shares a title, and a comfort with slightly more strident tonality than post-classical music generally explores. There is a closely controlled chaos, a dangerous fuzziness, to the opening track, “In Rest and Motion,” that elevates the work considerably.