Make the Best of What’s Still Around

A live tape-loop performance by Amulets

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Tread lightly. Today’s self-aware hi-jinks are tomorrow’s tragedies. Still, as musicians, like most everyone else in the world, do their best to settle into far more residential life than they may be accustomed to, they make the best of what’s still around. In the case of Amulets, that involves using a toilet paper roll as a means to extend the length of a tape loop, as heard in this video posted today.

Amulets is the Portland, Oregon, musician Randall Taylor, who does marvelous things with, among other second-hand tools, old audio tape cassettes — same tape he’s had for years. Here the rotting texture of the loop, exaggerated by a delay pedal, takes sequences from his portable synth and renders from them subsistence ambient, just loud enough to make an impression, but not so much as to squander available resources.

This is the latest video I’ve added to [my YouTube playlist of recommended live performances of ambient music](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAgCxRbmR1MJxihgJkCPEnehAPvjoF71-). Video originally posted at [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96PJF24QdLI). More from Amulets at [amuletsmusic.com](http://www.amuletsmusic.com/).

Set Your Scanner for Saturday

After Live: Robin Rimbaud will be playing from his London studio (9am Pacific Time).

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

The [Downstream](https://disquiet.com/category/downstream/) department entries on Disquiet.com are, with the exception of Thursdays, always about streamable — and often freely downloadable — music available right now. On Thursdays the Downstream highlights the latest Disquiet Junto project, tracks from which usually begin appearing within 12 hours. Today’s post, however, is about something happening a little further off, in about — checks watch — three and a half days, as of this typing. That’s Saturday, March 21, when Robin Rimbaud, aka Scanner, will perform the inaugural live stream from his London home base. “First broadcast from the Scanner studio, especially given the rather challenging and frequently lonely situation for so many,” he wrote as an advance notice on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYPcH6g4fsU). “I felt a little Saturday afternoon live performance might distract you from the dark news for a moment.” That’s Saturday afternoon in England, where Scanner, as well as his studio, is based. Here in California, it’ll be 9am. Adjust your clocks accordingly, or if you have a YouTube account, click on the “reminder” button on the concert’s [YouTube URL](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYPcH6g4fsU).

As mentioned here in [yesterday’s special edition After Live post](https://disquiet.com/2020/03/16/after-live-grzegorz-bojanek-from-poland/), there are countless more performances like this being broadcast, recorded, and archived around the world, all accessible within your browser. Seek them out, support the musicians who produce them, and share the ones you recommend.

More from Rimbaud at [scannerdot.com](http://scannerdot.com/) and [scanner.bandcamp.com](https://scanner.bandcamp.com/), where he recently launched a subscriber fan community, providing access to previously unreleased material, among other perks.

After Live: Grzegorz Bojanek from Poland

A free hour-long video performance

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Early on in this hour-long performance video, the Poland-based musician Grzegorz Bojanek holds up a piece of paper to the camera. On the paper is written a terse note in Polish and English imploring people to stay at home. There is no self-interest. He’d most certainly rather not be at home himself. But while he is, like many of us, stuck at home, he wants to help out.

His live video — along with those from numerous musicians around the world seeking to connect during a time virtually devoid of live in-person concert performances — seeks to entertain and, perhaps, even to console. And certainly to commiserate. For an hour he sits on the couch and plays. The work moves from dense ambient to a gently pulsing figment and back again. The music is welcome, but even more so is the presence that Bojanek projects. He is modelling behavior, not just by staying home, not just by keeping busy, not just by sharing, but by remaining visibly focused, even calm. We couldn’t ask more of ourselves.

There are countless more performances like this being broadcast, recorded, and archived around the world, all accessible within your browser. Seek them out, support the musicians who produce them, and share the ones you recommend.

Track originally posted to [Bojanek’s YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1kwgER–Zc). More from Bojanek at [bojanek.bandcamp.com](https://bojanek.bandcamp.com/).

Disquiet Junto Announcement

Special Covid-19 edition

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

If you’re a stuck-at-home music-maker and want to connect with other music-makers during our shared period of mutual isolation aboard Spaceship Earth, this coming Thursday’s Disquiet Junto project may be of interest.

We’re doing a sequence of weekly projects starting Thursday, March 19, specifically intended to encourage and reward extended collaboration between music-makers.

Some of the most exciting Junto work has originated from these collaborations in the past.

Get instructions via email on Thursdays via [tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto](http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto), or find them at [llllllll.co](http://llllllll.co) and, of course, here at [disquiet.com](http://disquiet.com).

Lemme know if you have any questions. One might be:

Q: Do I have to participate every week?

A: No, by design you can join in any time.