(a talk I gave at Harvard in 2012 at a conference on Art + Rock) “When 'art' walks through the door, it's got 15 suitcases full of very smelly washing (ideas of 'geniuses', 'creativity', 'individualism', and the rest of it)...which as far as we're concerned is the kind of crap that just clutters up your back garden, and gets in the way when you want to go out…. There is an art-based conversation that is swamping our neighbourhood, right? It's detrimental to our practice…. [It’s] high-culturally…

(a talk I gave at Harvard in 2012 at a conference on Art + Rock) “When 'art' walks through the door, it's got 15 suitcases full of very smelly washing (ideas of 'geniuses', 'creativity', 'individualism', and the rest of it)...which as far as we're concerned is the kind of crap that just clutters up your back garden, and gets in the way when you want to go out…. There is an art-based conversation that is swamping our neighbourhood, right? It's detrimental to our practice…. [It’s] high-culturally…

These following sound-studies highlights originally appeared in the May 13, 2026, issue of my Disquiet.com weekly email newsletter, This Week in Sound. This Week in Sound is the best way I’ve found to process material I come across. Reader support provides resources and encouragement. Most issues are free. An occasional annotated mixtape is for paid subscribers. Thanks. ▰ Head Trip: “A new study by Britton Elliott Brooks argues that medieval religious images were never truly ‘silent.’ Instead,…

So, my new novel JUST DROPPED! AH YEAH, EXISTENTIALISTC FRAGMENTED FICTION IN HEBREW YOU KNOW YOU HAVE TO HAVE IT! But, more seriously, I have been waiting very long for this moment, and despite the fact that I fucking hate releasing work with a fucking passion because of the expectations and the disappointment and the fact that, for good or bad, most people just consume art on their own, in silence and don't even think about voicing their opinion out loud and despite the fact that that's the…

"people without school who know the language of nature" 10h08 from Berlin / Germany

Back when we did things like “buy a cd and use iTunes to turn the music into mp3s” I used MusicBrainz Picard a lot to get all the metadata I needed. And then I kind of forgot about MusicBrainz.Turns out: it is still going strong. It does lack quite a lot of the music I listen to, though. Which might not be so surprising because while I (mostly) listen to pop, there is also a whole bunch of dangdut and Luk thung. So I guess I’ll be doing a whole lot of editing MusicBrainz. And don’t ask me why.…

9ms – M€mo Wading slightly into the world of experimental dub and Krautrock, first up tonight is this strange and wonderful song by Munich-based drummer-duo 9ms (Simon Popp & Florian König). The second single from their just-released third album Lunch–most of which is almost exclusively percussive–this song is an outlier, and draws its melodies from the drums themselves with really clever use of a drum resonator. The melodic result is elusive, as if the melody were a few milliseconds (9?) ahead…

Review by Sandre the Giant Released: 15th May 2026 Scottish blackened thrashers Tyrannus have been hard at work for a number of years now, crafting the follow up to their 2022 debut full length, ‘Unslayable’. I really enjoyed that album, and I have tried to keep up on some of their side releases in between times, but it has been a ‘wait with baited breath’ type situation for me for ‘Mournhold’, their new full length. Clothed in a glorious pink and black cover art by artist Fabian van Beek,…

You’re into movies, I’m not sure what you read, and I bet you’ve got some big opinions on the state of music. What’s inspiring you these days? My consumption these days is maybe 80% audiobooks. I’m on a pretty steady diet of self-helpy pop psychology, biographies, sci-fi, pop science, short fiction, and collected works of a single author. My film diet is fairly similar, but with some horror and standup comedy sprinkled in. Almost none of my musical inspiration is coming from other music these…

CDM.link, the long-running website from Peter Kirn, calls itself “a home for people who make and play music and motion.” CDM is a required-reading part of any electronic musician’s RSS feed, covering music and performance technology, as well as the highly creative work that people do with such tools. And so, it was great this week that Kirn took the time to highlight the 750th consecutive week of the Disquiet Junto, which he has covered many times over the course of its existence, including way…

Best Record of 2001: Day 40 Good morning! Today we’re taking a look at The Photo Album by Death Cab for Cutie. A lifetime ago, I saw Death Cab play one of those festivals every city seems to have during the summer. This was in Portland, and someone had the brilliant idea to run this festival at the exact same time as one of the 9th biggest and most established events. PDX’ers are nothing if not ambitious. It was, to put it diplomatically, an unmitigated disaster. Attendance could be measured by…

Kirjad sõgedate külastOut 25th April on Antiq Five years since their debut and a very different beast has wriggled free of the Kõdu moniker. Where ‘Unusta kõik’ unfolded a jagged, dissonant array of plodding black metal, at once surreal and haunting despite the cold, mechanistic approach, the long awaited follow up broadens the aesthetic spectrum whilst bringing a tighter conceptual unity. Kõdu are that rare thing in black metal, an artist able to toy with ambiguity via dissonance, a tangential…

My favorite NPR show included my remix of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 21 in their most recent episode about hookworms! It’s under the end credits. This is something I posted to Bandcamp six years ago and forgot about, but you never know what people are going to go looking for online. Anyway, exciting day for me.

Spotify is 20 today 🎉To celebrate they made me a playlist of the songs and artists I've listed to the most since I joined Spotify. It's a mixture of mostly 80s and 90s classics (I'm a GenX-er, remember), and it's actually a very good playlists. Ok, there's some pure shiters on there too which I'll take out but, yeah, a good playlist to play on a long drive, or as background during my working days. Over seven hours of pure nostalgia. And therein lies the problem. Quite a few of the songs remind…

"The Streets of Laredo (Mono)" by Johnny Cash Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. **What song has the same vibe as your favorite book? Which book? Streets of Laredo by Johnny Cash" The great American novel is Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, on the surface, just a western, but underneath it deals with the the roles of men and women, the lives the previously enslaved and Native Americans. It speaks to the rule of law, of the military and of big business. It's…

Drake’s decision to release two albums in addition to his long awaited Iceman—that’s three albums total—resonates with me. He’s one of the more prolific artists who actually follows through, delivering an album almost every year since his debut. I’m sure dropping more songs at once helps him earn more revenue from streaming, and it helps feed his core fanbase. Each song will be someone’s favorite. The tradeoff is this: every song that sounds average waters down the hits. The two non-Iceman…

I’ve been focusing lately on playing instruments, especially guitar. This is something I’ve done a lot of in my life, but I’ve spent most of my time the last few years focusing more on the production/electronic side of things, and less on the “play an entire piece of music with your hands” side of things. I’ve missed it! Not to mention my abilities have suffered, and I’m not happy about that. Mostly, this has meant playing my acoustic. It’s a low-end Taylor that I bought when I was 18. It’s the…

Neil Young - Re·ac·tor Live MegamixAs a bootleg bonus to this week’s “T-Bone”-tastic All One Song episode with Matthew Specktor, here’s a little something I threw together — a live Re·ac·tor redux made up of performances spanning 1978-2013. Neil and Crazy Horse didn’t tour behind this album, so these songs never really became onstage standards — and indeed, this little megamix is incomplete since both “Rapid Transit” and “Get Back On It” have never been played live. There’s still time, Neil!…

Still working on various other things, but fortunately I found out today about remix.kwed.org, which is kind of a version of OCRemix that focuses (but I don’t think is exclusive to) Commodore 64 music remixes. These aren’t also not all played by a C64, but are remixes of songs from them, so, not all chiptunes. If you need a jam to get you started, try this remix of M.U.L.E. One of those things I mentioned is, I’m getting a table at Vintage Computing Festival Southeast 2026 in Atlanta! And they…

Massive Attack are a band from Bristol, England, who debuted in 1988 and are still active today. They are more than just a band; they are a "collective" and are the main representatives of the trip hop genre. They have been extremely influential in electronic music and beyond, and they are arguably one of the most important bands of the past three decades. Their debut album Blue Lines and their third album Mezzanine are widely regarded as two of the greatest albums of all time by music…

I’m off to the RMA study day on “Embodied Research Methods in Music& Sound” in Liverpool on Tues 18th May. I’m looking forward to enjoying the very wide range of contributions, and hopefully getting some interesting responses to my ten-minute session, here’s the abstract: Embodying algorithmic musicPeople have been making computer music with algorithms for long enough that these approaches are becoming ancestral technology. This brings us to an interesting point in the development of…

Hey people! Yesterday I featured a piece by Kim Robertson, and today, I decided to share one played by Kim’s student – Nadia Birkenstock. This isn’t the first time Nadia is featured in “Bibiel Hears Things”, as I’ve shared quite a few different pieces by her in the past. This cheerful tune is a traditional Irish reel that is also known under other names, including “Slán Beo Leat”, “Fad Ó Bhaile”, or “The Windy Gap”. It has quite an interesting backstory. It was collected by Captain Francis…

I could try to explain it beyond the title above, but without further adieu, I recommend you go experience HASU It’s really great, really smart.

This post contains and links to (clearly-identified) AI-generated content. As remains the case, none of my writing on this blog was generated by AI. Imagine my excitement to learn that Pagan Wander Lu just dropped a new EP, Built In Obsolescence. And then imagine my horror to discover that it’s actually produced by P-AI-gan Wanderer Lu; an AI that’s been given PWL lyrics and some artistic direction. Wot. The album art’s clearly also AI-generated, and that’s… well… you know. At least this robot…

I just ordered my first album ever. Actually I bought two, since the shipping was so expensive. Both CDs are signed, with one of the albums being released just today. I have many times wanted to own my music, instead of paying the exexorbitant spotify monthly fee. However, everytime I remember that no, I wont save any money... Because my mom still pays for my subscription. Anyhow, my music taste is quite niche, so I thought that just supporting my favorite artist is worth it. Knowing how little…

Yet another lost Commodore 16/Plus 4 title from Mastertronic, and this time in the shape of Los Angeles S.W.A.T - which sort of splits opinion with the Commodore 64 edition that was released. Some like it, though others loave it - especially the music! Continue reading →

The IGL Rock Story - Part One (1965-67)CD Arf! Arf! from 1994 Label from Milford, Iowa, known as Iowa Great Lakes Recording or IGL.Founded by members of Dee Jay And The Runaways.Billy Rat & The Finks - All American Boy.mp3 Billy Rat & The Finks - Little Queenie.mp3 Dale & The Devonaires - Never Be Free.mp3 Dale & The Devonaires - Take a Look at a Fool.mp3 Dee Jay & The Runaways - Boney Maronie.mp3 Dee Jay & The Runaways - Jenny Jenny.mp3 Dee Jay & The Runaways - Peter Rabbit.mp3 Dee Jay & The…

I've long been a fan of Jamie Keenan, former drummer of La Fontaines and have been fortunate to get to know him a little over the years through a mutual love of Teenage Fanclub, our friends in Vigo Thieves/Saint PHNX and his sister Helen who introduced me to everyone after we met on a charity hike many years ago. Keenan has a natural charm, ear and a knack for melody and is a brilliant storyteller. At some point in time, I hope Jamie releases an acoustic album and publishes a book!Maybe that…

Well another week has passed (where does the time go) but that means that there are more and more new metal releases for us to delve into and explore. Hope you find something you love. Hails! DGS - death/grind - FinlandFake Dust - grindcore - USAInthraced - melodeath - FinlandAtavistia - melodeath - CanadaAkem Manah - death/doom/goth - BelgiumAngellore - death/doom/goth - FranceDefect Designer - death/prog - RussiaRito Profanatorio - death/black - PeruArroganz - black/death - GermanyAzrath-11 -…

So I did this thing yesterday, I had a tune in my head, just ten notes or so, and for the first time in my life, I automatically went to my piano to try to work out what they were. Now, I failed, and now, I have not one thin clue how I thought I could do this since at present “Chopsticks” is beyond my grasp, but I tried. And most significantly to me, I went to the piano as automatically as I might to a keyboard to write on. I concluded, briefly, that I am now a musician. I concluded, even more…