Current Listens: Recent Retrospect

Heavy rotation, lightly annotated

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

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. In the interest of conversation, let me know what you’re listening to in the comments below. Just please don’t promote your own work (or that of your label/client). This isn’t the right venue. (Just use email.)

I listened to plenty of new music this week, from Autechre’s surprise [*Plus*](https://autechre.bandcamp.com/album/plus) to Patricia Wolf’s [remix](https://soundcloud.com/scenenoise/premier-fadi-tabbal-the-new-and-improved-guide-to-birdwatching-vol3-patricia-wolf-remix) of material from Fadi Tabbal’s [new album](https://disquiet.com/2020/10/23/tabbal-subject-to-potential-errors/) to ioflow’s [ambient workout](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2XFQtsj4zw) on the Elektron Digitone, but I wanted to highlight in this edition of Current Listens some music I’ve written about over the past month or so that’s really stuck with me. The emphasis on the new can create a false impression of constant new. Even the recent new can linger in ways that change one’s initial impression, often for the better:

▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰

NEW: Recent(ish) arrivals and pre-releases

▰ The patzr radio art-sound podcast of Jimmy Kipple’s musique concrète (music constructed from field recordings and pre-existing recorded sound) is a font of textural pleasure, especially the recent [two-parter](https://disquiet.com/2020/10/12/patzr-radio-202/). Here’s the second half:

▰ Loraine James’ [remix](https://disquiet.com/2020/10/28/loraine-james-lunch-money-life/) of Lunch Money Life’s “Lincoln” reveals key moments of the source material before artfully falling to deliberately challenging pieces.

▰ Lloyd Cole recorded an economical little album of modular synthesizer music with one little noise source, from which the record takes its name, [*Dunst*](https://disquiet.com/2020/10/11/current-listens-johannsson-tribute-coles-synths/), as its focus:

▰ “Suite pour l’invisible” was the first track made available from Ana Roxanne’s forthcoming [*Because of a Flower*](https://disquiet.com/2020/09/09/ana-roxanne-flower-suite/) album. I’ve gone back and listened frequently. It was followed up by the beat-machine-backed, almost Sade-like “Camille.” The [full release](https://anaroxanne.bandcamp.com/album/because-of-a-flower-2), with five additional tracks, comes out on November 13.

Grace Notes: Zoom Protip + AI Coughs

From the past week

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Some tweet observations ([twitter.com/disquiet](https://twitter.com/disquiet)) I made over the course of the past week, lightly edited.

▰ Zoom protip: Just imagine it’s a free stream of a David Mamet play being workshopped.

▰ 40 weeks until the 500th consecutive weekly Disquiet Junto project

▰ Geographic visualization of Wikipedia edits running on a side monitor (service: [http://lkozma.net/wpv/](http://lkozma.net/wpv/))

▰ There’s a lot in Agatha Christie’s novel *A Murder Is Announced* that could have been written by J.G. Ballard. (That’s intended as a compliment to them both.)

▰ “CD in card wallet packed in outer wallet”

▰ Almost signed off an email “Best from San Franciscos” and wondered if I’d woken up in a Lavie Tidhar or China Miéville novel.

▰ Why, of cough: “an AI model that distinguishes [Covid] asymptomatic people from healthy individuals through forced-cough recordings.” There was news about such a thing back in mid-April, and I had been wondering if anything had come of it. ([mit.edu](https://news.mit.edu/2020/covid-19-cough-cellphone-detection-1029))

▰ 89-*96-[]\878uiool;’;’/
*-63+6′-
9*-=\g0h12.3/+”
9*-yuiop[]\hjkl;’
nm,./

Your next password is what appears as you wipe off the water you accidentally spilled on your keyboard.

▰ Boarded-up corner store makes the most of the situation

Change of Venue

DNS report

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Disquiet.com has changed hosting companies as of yesterday afternoon, October 30. If you notice anything that’s gone missing or haywire as a result of the transfer, please contact me. Thanks. So far, it seems to be running faster.

Modular Renewal

An ongoing series cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Pretty sure this is the first time I’ve repurchased a synthesizer module I had previously owned and [sold](https://disquiet.com/2020/05/24/back-into-the-cold-mac/). When I sold it I was working entirely in mono, but then my fledgling experimentation with percussion got me interested in stereo, and lately I’ve been applying stereo to things other than just percussion. Big learning experience.

A 2020 Montréal Time Capsule

Highlights from Joni Void, Markus Floats, and Ida Toninato

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

*Time Capsule* is a new compilation album intended as a “DIY memory box” of tracks from the Montréal music community. The variety is quite wide, with several pieces standing out in particular: Joni Void’s “Triste Marker” combines a mechanized shuffle beat with shifting drones, the source audio [apparently](https://soundcloud.com/joni_void/joni-void-triste-marker) recorded early one morning at the city’s Jacques Cartier Bridge. Markus Floats’ “So Far” moves mallet-instrument tones across the stereo spectrum. The rhythm gains speed just as a slower, much more patient tonal field joins in, the combination leading to a tense, rewarding sense of balance. And saxophonist Ida Toninato’s “Organs” is drone-like music that’s almost orchestral in its scope at times, often as threatening as a horror score.

Also on the compilation are tracks from Stefan Christoff, Skin Tone, Maya Kuroki, Sarah Pagé, Joël Lavoie, YlangYlang, and Sam Shalabi.

Album available at [everydayago.bandcamp.com](https://everydayago.bandcamp.com/album/time-capsule).