iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 12h

I get to see Los Lobos tomorrow and Robert Plant on Sunday, and a ton of other musicians in between, all free, at the annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival here in San Francisco, a couple blocks from home. There have been worse weekends for sure.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 13h

This week's Disquiet Junto project explores reverb. It is not a coincidence that the project started the day after I toured the massive space that is San Francisco's Grace Cathedral.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 13h

I’d say online bulletin board participation is sort of in between email and text messaging, and it’s at its best when it’s closer to email and further from text messaging (i.e., slightly slower pace, little more reflective).

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

#DisquietJunto Project 0770: Reverb x Reverb The Assignment: Use some reverb. Then use some more. Deadline: Monday, October 5, 2026, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) wherever you are. Details: disquiet.com/0770

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

A new #DisquietJunto music community project will appear at 12:10am Pacific tomorrow (October 1, 2026) at disquiet.com/0770, and go out at the same time to the email list (juntoletter.disquiet.com). The theme explores reverb (and then some). Join in.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

A category that occurred to me today: a band I never put on but also never turn off

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

If you're looking for that thread of my semi-solicited advice for active musicians during the perceived AI avalanche, I put it here, under the title "On Craft, Process, and Networks": disquiet.com/2026/09/29/o...

disquiet.com

On Craft, Process, and Networks – Disquiet

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Drumcorps (aka Aaron Spectre) has been bashing together drum’n’bass and metal and whatever happens to be in his spam folder for at least 20 years now. And it’s as awesome as ever, and there’s an advance track from his forthcoming album, Breakdown, 10/2. drumcorps.bandcamp.com/album/breakd...

drumcorps.bandcamp.com

Breakdown, by drumcorps

10 track album

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

If you’re making music and are concerned your creative efforts are being buried in an avalanche of rote AI-produced and AI-promoted competition, the bad news is you’re not wrong.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I accidentally moved my phone when taking a picture across the bay from the hills of Sausalito last night, and it was the right move.

A blurry photo in which all the city lights are long strands due to the camera's motion

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

This is the dinkus that divides sections of chapters in the new China Miéville novel, The Rouse. Also, the paper is bible-thin.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I got the new China Miéville novel, The Rouse, in hardback. I'm wondering how the ebook distinguishes between the alternating color backgrounds of the pages, and the occasional typographical treatments. The audiobook appears to have two if not three narrators. (It's also almost 1,250 pages long.)

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Sentence I found myself writing this morning: "I didn't buy much, just six books in an ongoing series."

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

In the #DisquietJunto music community this week: Do something "poetic." Full instructions at disquiet.com/0769. Tracks due Monday, September 28, at 11:59pm (your local time).

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

A new #DisquietJunto music community project will appear at 12:10am Pacific tomorrow (September 24, 2026) at disquiet.com/0769, and go out at the same time to the email list (juntoletter.disquiet.com). The theme explores the poetic. Join in.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

That little bird-like beeping noise at the corner when the street light changes used to mean "it's safe to walk" but now it means "you can put down your phone because now you can walk." People don't look at the lights. They look at their phones and wait for the bird to tell them the coast is clear.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Animal control caught the apex kitty so it’s safe to end the week with a walk to the ocean. See ya Monday. Or maybe Tuesday.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

No music at the barbershop today, but there was this nugget: Customer: “What’s longer than three?” Barber: “Four.”

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Reposted by Marc Weidenbaum

That guy Maks @callmesipo.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Oh you like Dostoyevsky? Name five of their songs

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

I know I live in a heavily and longtime Russian (among many other cultures) neighborhood but this is the first time in 30 years I’ve seen someone wearing a Dostoyevsky t-shirt

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Disquiet Junto Project 0768: Remix Therapy There is one step for this project: Take care of yourself by remixing something. Major thanks to Diego Bernal for having proposed this project. Deadline: 9/21, 11:59pm (just before midnight) wherever you are. Details: disquiet.com/0768 #DisquietJunto

Spines of vinyl record albums on a shelf plus the name and number of the project

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Reposted by Marc Weidenbaum

Ethan Hein @ethanhein.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Speaking of remixes, @disquiet.bsky.social shared this edit of "Take Five" that's just the first eighth note of every bar and it works remarkably well www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6iP...

youtube.com

Take 0.5 ("Take 5" but only every 1st eighth note of every bar remains)

YouTube video by Behrooz Parham

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

A new #DisquietJunto music community project will appear at 12:10am Pacific tomorrow (September 17, 2026) at disquiet.com/0768, and go out at the same time to the email list (juntoletter.disquiet.com). The theme is remix therapy. Join in.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

When you’re auto-transcribing a rough draft of an interview and “Very strange indeed” comes out as “Quest spring and jundee," which is very strange indeed

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Shazam but for blurry image of surface of vinyl album in old photo of bedroom. Shazam but for nest of unwound cassette tape found on side of highway. Shazam but for data on cracked CD used as coaster.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Robert Plant is playing Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, a late announcement. He was incredible the last time he played the festival.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

I have enjoyed hilobrow's Media Diet feature, in which people to talk about media they consume, and my entry just went live. I got to discuss six novels that help me navigate everyday reality, the joys of RSS, and what we mean by "media" in the first place. www.hilobrow.com/2026/09/11/m...

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

It’s been 25 years since 9/11. I was living in New Orleans. I’d wake up and turn on the news (not how I live anymore). A decade later I interviewed sound artist Stephen Vitiello about the audio recordings he’d made two years before 9/11 on the 91st floor of Tower One. disquiet.com/2011/09/08/s...

It's a screenshot from the Q&A, and it reads:

Weidenbaum: This idea of sounds taking you back visually is particularly interesting — are these visual memories of the residency space, of the view from the window? To switch senses, do you hear ghost memories of the recording when you are near Ground Zero?

Vitiello: I have general memories of watching planes and helicopters go by. The strangest of them was an afternoon when this massive bird was floating outside my window. I think it was the only time I ever saw a bird but there was this one time when it must have been coasting on an air current, or pocket, that was just outside my window. In terms of Ground Zero, I can’t say that I hear anything of the past. I just experience it as this massive construction site with an unusual presence of tourists on the perimeters watching the way little kids do — with their noses glued to a fence or observation window.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

#DisquietJunto Project 0767: Your Move. There is one step for this project: Record background music to have playing while playing a specific board game. Details: disquiet.com/0767. Deadline: Monday, September 14, 2026, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) wherever you are.

A detail of a painting from roughly 1298 to 1235 BC of Queen Nefertari playing a board game called Senet

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

There's a particular brand of electric vehicle that sounds a lot like the opening harmony of "Bohemian Rhapsody," but I never manage to catch the make and model when one passes by. Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

A new #DisquietJunto music community project will appear at 12:10am Pacific tomorrow (September 10, 2026) at disquiet.com/0767, and go out at the same time to the email list (juntoletter.disquiet.com). The theme explores board games. Join in.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

If I've counted on my fingers and spreadsheet correctly, the 15th anniversary of the Disquiet Junto, this coming January 7, 2027, will coincide with the music community's 784th consecutive weekly project.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

This evening — or perhaps early tomorrow, due to the constraints of this four-day work week — there will be a new issue of my This Week in Sound email newsletter, and the central essay will be about, in large part, Emily Dickinson's poetry ...

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

You know my noise cancellation earbuds were working, because this is where I sat at the café

Photo of a cafe counter with an espresso machine, coffee bean grinder, and glass jar of coffee beans

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

A mountain lion is wandering around San Francisco not far from where I live, and it’s got me wondering if since I’m allergic to cats, I’m allergic to mountain lions, and since they’re really big cats, if I’m especially allergic to mountain lions ...

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Whew, that was entirely new to me: a streaming service with a private option, so a musician might use it for sharing a pre-release copy, except that the service may occasionally insert songs by other artists while you’re listening to the album you’re intending to listen to.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

This annotated playlist just went out to paid subscribers of my This Week in Sound email newsletter. A new free issue of sound studies topics goes out next Wednesday, September 9. Have a great weekend. thisweekinsound.disquiet.com

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

A concert listing specifies age limit as "6+" — so no 5-year-olds cramping our style, apparently. It's kindergarten or stay home. (And it'll be a loud show, so don't bother whining about whining.)

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

You may or may not be familiar with the genre called math rock. (If not, take a moment to read up and listen.) Now, a question that the idea of math rock naturally, if perhaps belatedly, brings up is: which math, precisely? Is it calculus? Algebra? Topology? Geometry? Set theory? Probability? ...

Old painting of a person with long gray hair and prominent nose, plus the name and number of the project. The person is Isaac Newton.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

A new #DisquietJunto music community project will appear at 12:10am Pacific tomorrow (September 3, 2026) at disquiet.com/0766, and go out at the same time to the email list (juntoletter.disquiet.com). The theme explores math rock, or rock math, or somewhere in between. Join in.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Going out later today is the latest issue of my This Week in Sound email newsletter. It will include a 1,200-word essay I wrote for the recent book Discommunication by the Japanese street photographer Yoshi Yubai, and published by Landslide, of Sydney, Australia. thisweekinsound.disquiet.com

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

The more that everyday life and work get digitally mediated, the more I listen to live jazz

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I love how Wikipedia's template depicts the sequence of Peter Gabriel's first few solo albums

This is a list of the first three Peter Gabriel solo albums, which are all titled Peter Gabriel, one each in 1977, 1978, and 1980

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

My latest piece for the The Wire: Adventures In Modern Music: First spread of the pair that comprise my lengthy interview with longtime San Franciscan Pamela Z (for the magazine's Invisible Jukebox series — issue 512, October 2026, the one with Mike Watt on the cover).

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Good dual way to start the week: - Received an invitation to write for the first time for a publication I have long admired - Managed to get the emptied garbage, compost, and recycle bins inside the garage on trash day before someone put their trash in them

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Missed seeing one of my favorite local musicians live in order to attend a friend's birthday party. My sense of priorities is still OK.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Every once in a while I come very close to accidentally ordering food online from a restaurant across the country that has the same name as a place walking distance from my home. I've never gone so far in such an instance to actually order the food, but I wonder how often it happens.

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Marc Weidenbaum @disquiet.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

This just went out as a thank you to paid subscribers of my This Week in Sound email newsletter.

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