Birth rates may have declined during the pandemic, but a year of quasi-seclusion has yielded a lot of music. Norah Lorway just released her latest entry in that phenomenon, [*anotherworld I*](https://xylemrecords.bandcamp.com/album/anotherworld-i), which she characterizes as “lockdown sound loops”: “repetitive, insistent, ever present.” Harsh noise is muffled to gaseous effect; soft sounds are shredded to sharp objects. The music revels in such contradictions over the course of the album’s four tracks.
Album published at [xylemrecords.bandcamp.com](https://xylemrecords.bandcamp.com/album/anotherworld-i). It was released by Xylem Records. More from Lorway at [norahlorway.com](https://www.norahlorway.com/).
And afteR finishing with
dinnEr, and tidying up, it is
tiMe. Settle in,
turn On a film, and
leT a far away
placE, sound and sight, merge with
this one.
Veteran noise artist (and fellow former Tower Records employee) Joe Colley has a new two-tape collection out on the No Rent label. There’s a five-minute taste of its slow-motion, error-message, machine-rhythm pace on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gYSBJHBFio), and all four lengthy tracks (each just under 20 minutes) are streaming on the release’s [Bandcamp page](https://norentrecords.bandcamp.com/album/trance-tapes-norent031). The sounds vary from cicada-like chittering to lawnmower overdrive to distant-fire-alarm ambience, all with a robotic intent and the motoric uncertainty of a locked-groove record played with a particularly dusty needle. All of which is intended as a high compliment.
More details at [norent.bigcartel.com](https://norent.bigcartel.com/product/norent031-joe-colley-trance-tapes-2xc40). Colley is based in Oakland, California. No Rent is out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
A weekly(ish) answer to the question “What have you been listening to lately?” It’s lightly annotated because I don’t like re-posting material without providing some context. I hope to write more about some of these in the future, but didn’t want to delay sharing them.
▰ The Turkish musician Büşra Kayıkçı is the latest musician featured in the excellent Project XII series from Deutsche Grammophon. Her new single, [“Bring the Light,”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJdsXrhFVlg) is a propulsive, athletic take on Philip Glass’ arpeggio-heavy minimalism. Listen for how she carves out space for individual notes amid the flurry. It’s tremendous.
▰ There’s not much in the way of liner notes for [*That Which Remains*](https://thecircuitghost.bandcamp.com/album/that-which-remained), a new EP by Circuitghost, but over on the [llllllll.co](https://llllllll.co/t/circuitghost-new-ep-that-which-remained/) message board, it’s explained to be remnants from a previous EP, *All That We Lost*. It’s a beautiful amalgam of small sounds in which textures are put to percolating, rhythmic use.
▰ This 2017 collaboration between the Quiet Club, an Irish collective, and Stephen Vitiello, the American sound artist, just popped up [on Bandcamp](https://digital.farpointrecordings.com/album/black-iris-2). Titled *Black Iris*, it’s an ever-changing assortment of sound objects, from bells to scifi wiggles, borrowed audio narrative to dramatic creaking, footsteps to feedback, just to name a few, improvised live.
I do this manually each Saturday, collating recent tweets I made at [twitter.com/disquiet](https://twitter.com/disquiet/), my public notebook. Some tweets pop up (in expanded form or otherwise, which happened several times this week) on Disquiet.com sooner. It’s personally informative to revisit the previous week of thinking out loud.
▰ A sunny-side-up egg over a piece of jalapeño cornbread is not a bad way to start the week.
▰ Taking momentary break from Sounds “Я” Us coverage to confirm, yeah, the smell of fire is with us, this now being what what has come to be called “fire season.” Not sure if the nearby Pacific Ocean breeze is keeping it inland or saving us from the worst of it.
▰ New-to-me pandemic soundmark: Waiting to be the last to sign off of a Webex meeting, so you can enjoy the cascade of beeps as others exit before you.
▰ When the owner of the banh mi place recognizes you despite your mask and absurdly long pandemic hair a year-plus since you were last there
