I’ve taken two rides in driverless cars so far, both times alone, both times to dental appointments to which I was in a rush, and after which I wasn’t sure I’d be in a condition to drive, though both times I felt fine afterward and took the public bus home — once on a rapid bus, which is rapid indeed.
There are several competing models of self-driving cars that circle San Francisco like mundane sentries. One thing they have in common is their whir, which is similar to that of other electric vehicles. However, combined with the steadiness of their pace and their strict adherence to stop signs and stop lights, that whir has a far less revved-up vibe. It’s really more drone than whir. These driverless cars are drones that drone.
Once you’re inside such a vehicle, the touchscreen interface — as well as your phone — provides various options for music and sound environments, but during both my rides I almost immediately turned off the piped-in sound entirely, and just settled into that placid hum, experiencing the drone from the inside.
I still don’t know what to think about the impact — economic and otherwise — of driverless vehicles. I’m just reflecting, at the moment, on routine experience as a pedestrian and occasional driver, and now a two-time rider.
The Assignment: Celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Oblique Strategies card deck
/ 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 0727: Polar Strategies The Assignment: Celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Oblique Strategies card deck.
Step 1: Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt published the first edition of their Oblique Strategies card deck in 1975, which makes 2025 the deck’s 50th anniversary. Note the milestone — and if you’re not familiar with the deck, read up a bit.
Step 2: Select at random two cards from the deck. If you don’t have a deck, there are various free web and mobile apps that reproduce it.
Step 3: Record a piece of music that somehow combines or reconciles the two directions that resulted from Step 2.
Tasks Upon Completion:
Label: Include “disquiet0727” (no spaces/quotes) in the name of your track.
Upload: A person participating in the Disquiet Junto should post only one track per weekly project (SoundCloud account preferred but not required). If on occasion you feel inspired to post more than one track (whether to a single account or across multiple accounts), you should clarify which is the “main” rendition for consideration by fellow members and (if on SoundCloud) for inclusion in the SoundCloud playlist.
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 727th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Polar Strategies — The Assignment: Celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Oblique Strategies card deck — at https://disquiet.com/0727/.
As I mentioned recently, list-making is not, generally, my idea of a good time. But at the invitation of Pitchfork and The Wire, which tally up the lists of critics at the end of each year, I did get together a set of 25 albums I loved in 2025. I break down my vague color-coding below.
The top 10 of these I feel particularly strongly about. The next second set of 9, from 11 to 19, are in their own zone, in terms of my frequency of listening. Then come two albums by artists I follow quite closely, closely enough that I may veer toward uncritical.
And the list closes with a set of four mainstream hip-hop albums that helped me, this year, find a way back into the rap fold. (Doechii is another favorite.) I’ve always been listening to hip-hop instrumentals — far less so, however, the full tracks. Something shifted this year. For one of my final social media solicitations of 2025, before I entered into a year-end hiatus, I asked folks for recommendations of albums based on my affection for these recent four, and I’m still working through the excellent titles that resulted.
Broadcasting from Nowhere originates, in fact, somewhere, a virtual place where musicians collaborate without ever entering the same physical space. More specifically, Tokyo and Italy align in an elegant Venn diagram of lowercase music and post-classical, of strings and electronics, of everyday sound and expert musicianship, of five musicians heard to varying degrees of prominence. This is Ondelunghe, the name for the collaboration between Hiromu Yamaguchi (”piano, field recordings,” per the brief liner notes) and Guido Lusetti (”free electrons, found voices”). On the title — and first available — track from their forthcoming album, due out December 16 on the Bristol-based Facture label, graceful cello pushes up against what sounds like the granular pause of glass breaking. That is likely Henrik Meierkord on cello, as he is listed as a guest, as are Ed van der Berkel (trumpet) and Daniele Varelli (shakuhachi). What opens with a dreamy, spring-loaded alarm clock lets piano occasionally gather on the surface of the multi-faceted drone.
Orchid is an album by Magnetic Loops, a musician based in Bristol, UK. The title takes its name from an instrument, the Orchid, developed by Telepathic Instruments, a project from Kevin Parker, founder and core member of the group Tame Impala. Magnetic Loops reports, of the Orchid: “it enabled me to pull together these tracks quickly and seamlessly.” The five tracks that comprise Orchid are an appealing set of assemblages, mixes of held chords, gentle melodies, and what appear to be processed field recordings. “Fire” is a syrupy bit of shoegaze with dream echoes of Angelo Badalamenti. “Flower” feels at times more like an installation soundtrack than foregrounded music, all sonic gleams, distant drones, and natural textures. More on the instrument at telepathicinstruments.com.
