Disquiet – Page 456 – Listening to culture. Playing with audio. Sounding out technology. Composing in code.

RIP, Gregory Kondos (1923-2021)

A life by the river

April 1, 2021April 1, 2021 / By Marc Weidenbaum

RIP, painter Gregory Kondos, known for his blue-skies depiction of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. (I heard the news via [Scott Gilbert](https://www.scottgilbertart.com/), a friend and artist.) I had the pleasure of interviewing Kondos at his Sacramento home shortly before he turned 90. He has died at 97.

I’d spoken with Kondos previously, while researching a story on his old friend, painter Mel Ramos, and I then mentioned to my excellent editor at the magazine Sactown that I wanted, when appropriate, to interview Kondos again, because he had been so outspoken. It was, as expected, a blast.

I love this childhood memory Kondos shared about his early years in Northern California, after moving at age 3 from Massachusetts, where he was born to Greek immigrants who, as he told me, didn’t speak a lick of English: “I fished all the time. But my dad had to catch a fish, I didn’t. If I caught a fish, fine. But if I didn’t, fine, didn’t matter. I just sat there and looked at the river and the trees.”

The full piece is at [sactownmag.com](https://www.sactownmag.com/true-blue/).

Disquiet Junto Project 0483: Type Set

The Assignment: Use a recording of yourself typing something as the underlying rhythmic track for a piece of music.

April 1, 2021April 1, 2021 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto group, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have just over four days to upload a track in response to the assignment. 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. It’s weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when you have the time.

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, April 5, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, April 1, 2021.

These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):

Disquiet Junto Project 0483: Type Set

The Assignment: Use a recording of yourself typing something as the underlying rhythmic track for a piece of music.

Step 1: You’re going to use a recording of yourself typing something as the underlying rhythmic track for a piece of music.

Step 2: Give some thought as to what you’re going to type. You might re-type something that already exists. You might type freeform, just associating ideas. You might type randomly. Arguably, the best thing to do is to think of something you want to write about, and then type that: Typing something you’re writing in your head will lead to momentary pauses where you consider things, and that will be infused into the cadence.

Step 3: Record yourself typing the text you decided upon in Step 2.

Step 4: Use the unedited recording from Step 3 as the rhythmic and underlying percussive element of a piece of original music. It’s preferable that you retain the recognizable sound of the typing.

Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0483” (no spaces or quotation marks) in the name of your tracks.

Step 2: If your audio-hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to also include the project tag “disquiet0483” (no spaces or quotation marks). If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to subsequent location of tracks for the creation of a project playlist.

Step 3: Upload your tracks. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your tracks.

Step 4: Post your tracks in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:

[https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0483-type-set/](https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0483-type-set/)

Step 5: Annotate your tracks with a brief explanation of your approach and process.

Step 6: If posting on social media, please consider using the hashtag #disquietjunto so fellow participants are more likely to locate your communication.

Step 7: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Additional Details:

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, April 5, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, April 1, 2021.

Length: The length of your finished track will be as long as the story you choose to tell.

Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0483” in the title of the tracks, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.

Upload: When participating in this project, be sure to include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto. Photos, video, and lists of equipment are always appreciated.

Download: It is always best to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution, allowing for derivatives).

For context, when posting the track online, please be sure to include this following information:

More on this 483rd weekly Disquiet Junto project — Type Set (The Assignment: Use a recording of yourself typing something as the underlying rhythmic track for a piece of music) — at:

https://disquiet.com/0483/

Sound Bites: Pandemic Playlists, Disliking Dislikes, Martian Noise

Recent reads (etc.) on sound

March 31, 2021April 1, 2021 / By Marc Weidenbaum

These are the sort of items I’d usually put in the This Week in Sound email newsletter ([tinyletter.com/disquiet](https://tinyletter.com/disquiet)), but I’ve been super busy, too busy for a new issue, and so at a friend’s suggestion I am initially noting some here.

▰ It’s good YouTube experiments with hiding dislikes. I’m not sure it’s just about creator ego or hate mobs. The interface is flawed. We’re used (post-Netflix) to dis/liking things to nudge the algorithm. Hiding lets users register taste without offending. (I wrote about this two years ago in [“Speaking Privately to the Algorithm.”](https://disquiet.com/2019/05/25/speaking-privately-to-the-algorithm/))
[https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/30/22358992/youtube-hiding-dislikes-experiment-creator-review-bomb](https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/30/22358992/youtube-hiding-dislikes-experiment-creator-review-bomb)

▰ “Getting ‘vaxxed at moscone and they’re literally playing Here Comes the Sun on the PA and I’m shaking,'”: Peter Hartlaub quotes local food critic Soleil Ho at the start of this piece about the playlist at Moscone Center, one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s major vaccination centers. Her tweet was the first I’d heard of the music there, as well. I’m still ineligible for vaccination, but have been following along as folks tweet (and otherwise share) their shots. The playlist originated, interesting, not for patients but for administers: “it was initially created for staffers arriving early for their first day of work.” (via Daniel Raffel)

[https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/Here-s-the-story-behind-the-amazing-Moscone-16061677.php](https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/Here-s-the-story-behind-the-amazing-Moscone-16061677.php)

▰ Robocalls have altered our relationships with phones, both household and mobile. Good news: The FCC has been taking action. Less good: “A fine, even the biggest in the agency’s history, is unlikely to rein in robocalls. In fact, there’s evidence to suggest they haven’t been effective at all.” More good: “If there’s good news, it’s that the FCC isn’t limiting itself to fines. In a separate announcement, the agency detailed its new anti-robocall agenda. Acting Chair Jessica Rosenworcel has established a Robocall Response Team. Made up of 51 FCC members across six offices, the team will coordinate the agency’s anti-robocall efforts and develop new policies for it to put in place.”
[https://www.engadget.com/fcc-225-million-fine-194419208.html](https://www.engadget.com/fcc-225-million-fine-194419208.html)

▰ We’ve been back on Mars barely a month and already introduced noise pollution: “It’s so noisy that Dave Gruel, the lead engineer for the EDL (entry, descent and landing mic) system, said he’d pull over and call for a tow if he heard these sounds while driving his car.” (And, yes, I first read that as Dave Grohl, too.)
[https://www.engadget.com/perseverance-driving-on-mars-sounds-063118359.html](https://www.engadget.com/perseverance-driving-on-mars-sounds-063118359.html)

▰ Geeta Dayal surveys the past and future of music at Mills College, which has been home to such musical mavericks as Pauline Oliveros, Darius Milhaud, John Cage, Fred Frith, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Laetitia Sonami, and Roscoe Mitchell, in light of the institution ceasing to grant degrees.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/30/arts/music/mills-college-music.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/30/arts/music/mills-college-music.html)

▰ You know how with each successive generation, ties to ethnic and cultural heritage diminish? It’s true of birds, too. “As the population of the critically endangered regent honeyeater plummeted over the years, some young birds could no longer find older ones to teach them to sing, a new study reports.”
[https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/17/science/bird-honeyeater-australia.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/17/science/bird-honeyeater-australia.html)

▰ *The Foghorn’s Lament: The Disappearing Music of the Coast*, a new book from Jennifer Lucy Allen, is due out in later this year (May in the U.K., where she is based, and July in the U.S.). Allen received her PhD, with a thesis titled *Fog Tropes: The social and cultural history of the foghorn 1853 to the present day*.
[https://www.hachette.com.au/jennifer-lucy-allan/the-foghorns-lament-the-disappearing-music-of-the-coast](https://www.hachette.com.au/jennifer-lucy-allan/the-foghorns-lament-the-disappearing-music-of-the-coast)

▰ Whale song can be used “to map undiscovered faults through tectonic sound recordings of the sea,” Geoff Manaugh notes from paper in Science.
[https://www.bldgblog.com/2021/03/cetacean-surroundsound/](https://www.bldgblog.com/2021/03/cetacean-surroundsound/)

David Wingo’s New Mayans M.C. Theme

New season, new era, new drone rock

March 31, 2021 / By Marc Weidenbaum

I’ve been enjoying the new season of *Mayans M.C.*, the first following the exit of co-creator Kurt Sutter. The fourth episode aired last night. The show continues under the stewardship of Elgin James, its other co-creator. Part of the new tone is due to the arrival of composer David Wingo, replacing Bob Thiele Jr. That new tone is set from the start by the new opening credits, which have [gotten attention](https://popculture.com/tv-shows/news/mayans-mc-season-3-new-title-sequence-revealed/) for their political imagery, not just the real-world source material, but the historic scope.

Wingo’s theme music is just as big a shift from the earlier seasons. Gone is the song co-written by Thiele and Sutter, sung initially by Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo, and then the second season by Diana Gameros. In its place, Wingo has crafted a compact, moody instrumental track that lingers just below 70BPM. It’s all atmosphere, built from layered guitar parts, moaning group background vocals, and plenty of percussive elements, all rendered as slow-burn drone rock. While not quite as diffuse as, say, the ambient folk and country of groups like [Boxhead Ensemble](https://boxheadensemble.bandcamp.com/) or [SUSS](https://www.sussband.com/) (the latter of whose Gary Leib [died last week](http://www.tcj.com/gary-leib-1955-2021/)), it sits well alongside them.

Wingo’s name wasn’t immediately familiar to me, but as it turns out, I’ve heard a lot of his music in the past. He composed material for *Soundtracker*, the excellent documentary on field recording artist and acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton, co-author of the book *One Square Inch of Silence: One Man’s Quest to Preserve Quiet*. We discuss material from *Soundtracker* most semesters I teach my “Sounds of Brands / Brands of Sounds” course. He also wrote music for *Manic*, the (pre-*500 Days of Summer*) pairing of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel that made excellent use of some Aphex Twin music, as I wrote about in my book on *Selected Ambient Works Volume 2*, for which I interviewed its director, Jordan Melamed. Wingo has worked on the scores for *Heaven’s Gate: The Cult of Cults*, *Barry*, *Mud*, *The Report*, and numerous other productions, dating back to David Gordon Green’s 2000 debut feature film, *George Washington*. He also led the Austin, Texas, band Ola Podrida.

More from Wingo at [david-wingo.com](https://www.david-wingo.com/blog/031621).

Corruption Is Back

With a SoundCloud stream

March 30, 2021April 1, 2021 / By Marc Weidenbaum

After a bit of a SoundCloud dry spell, when Japanese musician Corruption seemed to spend much of the time posting collections of older tracks [at Bandcamp](https://corruption-music-drugstore.bandcamp.com/), the steady stream is back, from ragged video game exotica ([“Amuse Myself”](https://soundcloud.com/corrption/amuse-myself)), to elastic drones ([“Worm Fat”](https://soundcloud.com/corrption/worm-fat)), to jagged metallic noise ([“Outdoor Indoor Edit”](https://soundcloud.com/corrption/useless-echoless-helpless)). Corruption is incredibly prolific, with well over 1,100 tracks to date on the account. Tune in at [soundcloud.com/corrption](https://soundcloud.com/corrption/tracks). A particular recent favorite is “Khakkhara,” named for the noise-making zen Buddhist staff, yet here sounding like a empty train barelling through a science fiction movie.