No music in the barbershop, just two scissors, not in anything approaching sync

Disquiet Junto Project 0758: Background Noise The Assignment: Play into the distraction. Deadline: Monday, July 13, 2026, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) wherever you are. Details: disquiet.com/0758 #disquietjunto

Scene report — living room, that is

It's alarming how many fire engines, with alarms blaring, have, in the past half hour, gone by the living room window, all headed toward the ocean — and this all the more alarming because it is not noon on a sunny day.

A new #DisquietJunto music community project will appear at 12:10am Pacific tomorrow (July 9, 2026) at disquiet.com/0758, and go out at the same time to the email list (juntoletter.disquiet.com). The theme explores background noise. Join in.

Has a composer been announced yet for the upcoming Neuromancer TV series? The cast and crew are listed in detail on IMDB (including a lot of puppetry — what’s going on there?), among them both sound and music supervision, but no composer is named.

If you happen to go back in time and meet much-younger me, please mention that in the future I’ll live walking distance from at least five Burmese restaurants. And after an inevitable pregnant pause, mention how tasty Burmese food is. Thanks.

I was distracted during the movie Tuner when a piano tuner, in one of many such metaphoric excursions, said that a single key can seem in tune yet may not fit in with the other 87 — all while sitting at what we’ve been told is a Bösendorfer, which I associate with expanded keyboards (92 and 97).

The future is, apparently, here

Dunno why it took 757 consecutive weeks for me to think "Hey, maybe I should list the latest #DisquietJunto project at the top of the FAQ page" but at least I finally had that thought: disquiet.com/junto

#DisquietJunto Project 0757: Screen Time The Assignment: Interpret this gauzy window treatment as an audio effect. Deadline: Monday, July 6, 2026, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) wherever you are. Details: disquiet.com/0757

Phineas, Emerson, Roman — these are some of the recent names utilized by spam calls offering me loans. What is with these names? Does archaic (nothing personal if one is your name in 2026) imply financial stability? (And no, I don't pick up the calls. They go to voicemail and get transcribed.)

Back from an excellent two-week break traveling around the UK: five nights in London, five in Glasgow, four in Edinburgh. I'll post some photos and notes as I emerge from jet lag. The first hotel had ... a podcast room. I did not avail myself of it.

Whew. Just got back Monday from an overseas trip and my brain is melting from jet lag. Last night, as I prepared the weekly #DisquietJunto project, I mentioned in the announcement note (via juntoletter.disquiet.com), which would go out automatically a few hours later ...

A new #DisquietJunto music community project will appear at 12:10am Pacific tomorrow (June 25, 2026) at disquiet.com/0756 and go out at the same time to the email list (juntoletter.disquiet.com). The theme is Flash Gordon, and it's our second collaboration this year with Musikfestival Bern. Join in!

Didn’t recall that Joseph Conrad dedicated The Secret Agent to H.G. Wells

Disquiet Junto Project 0755: Give Way The Assignment: Combine two tracks. There is just one step for this project: To create a piece of music, combine two different tracks with an ear to how they give way to each other. Details: disquiet.com/0755 #DisquietJunto

I planned to read Ken Macleod’s Beyond the Reach of Earth, but hadn’t read the prior novel, Beyond the Hallowed Sky, in quite a while, so to prepare I read reviews of Hallowed Sky, and then I opened Reach of Earth only to find that Macleod begins it with a concise, five-page summary of Hallowed Sky.

Been looking over my notes from reading Pale Fire. A lot of funny, as with Moby Dick, but also hella purple, likewise. My response: “Er, not really.”

Disquiet Junto Project 0754: The Blip The Assignment: Interrupt an ongoing process. Thanks to Mahlen Morris (@mahlenm.bsky.social) for proposing the project. Deadline: Monday, June 15, 2026, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) wherever you are. Details: disquiet.com/0754

A new #DisquietJunto music community project will appear at 12:10am Pacific tomorrow (June 11, 2026) at disquiet.com/0754, and go out at the same time to the email list (juntoletter.disquiet.com). The theme explores interruptions. Join in.

This coming Thursday’s #DisquietJunto music composition project and the one the week after that were both proposed by participants in the community. I love when that happens.

"Micromorph" The Assignment: Go slow for an imagined nature documentary. Part of disquiet junto 751. disquiet.com/0751 Full track: on.soundcloud.com/TIZPLbJQ4LFp...

The great Michael Jang has my aesthetic number. Which is to say, that’s not my actual number up there, but this fine slice of Clement Street made my week.

I’d like the Boox Go 7 to get popular enough that someone makes a slim keyboard case for it

#DisquietJunto Project 0753: 5 Minute Wait The Assignment: Write outdoors hold music for a single-lane tunnel entrance delay. Photo shot at Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin County, California. Deadline: June 8, 2026, 11:59pm (just pre-midnight) wherever you are. Details: disquiet.com/0753

A new #DisquietJunto music community project will appear at 12:10am Pacific tomorrow (June 4, 2026) at disquiet.com/0753, and go out at the same time to the email list (juntoletter.disquiet.com). The theme explores "outdoors hold music." Join in.

Slightly distracted during the How to Rob a Bank trailer because I became convinced that the Zoë Kravitz character's apartment is the same one a different Kravitz character lived in in the Soderbergh movie Kimi

For the eighth year in a row, the #DisquietJunto was invited by Musikfestival Bern to collaborate. We’re doing four Bern x Junto projects between now and early September, when the festival happens.

For the 8th year in a row, the #DisquietJunto music community has been invited to collaborate with Musikfestival Bern.

monome turns 20 ... and here's some vintage @daedelus.bsky.social + monome cdm action, too. Ah, memories...

You know it was a good Sichuan meal when afterwards, as you walk down the street, even the air you inhale is tasty.

"Much of the pleasure in Software comes from how Rucker probes the expressiveness and malleability of bodies, where it is that the 'soft' and the '’ware' rub up against each other, and what such friction generates." www.hilobrow.com/2026/05/21/o...

We live in the golden age of movie scores. But that means we also live in the golden age of recognizing just how much most movie scores sound alike, or more to the point alike within a type.

Disquiet Junto Project 0751: Gastropod Meter The Assignment: Go slow for an imagined nature documentary. Deadline: Monday, May 25, 2026, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) wherever you are. Details: disquiet.com/0751 #DisquietJunto

Thank you to renowned sonic scribe @disquiet.bsky.social for the mention in the This Week in Sound newsletter—featuring a moment of avant-garde music in my novel Daydreamers: thisweekinsound.disquiet.com/p/this-week-...

A new #DisquietJunto music community project will appear at 12:10am Pacific tomorrow (May 21, 2026) at disquiet.com/0751, and go out at the same time to the email list (juntoletter.disquiet.com). The theme explores slugs. Yes, slugs.

I call this one: The tin wall reflecting light from the stage while one of my favorite bands from the 1990s plays, having magically appeared in my neighborhood movie theater. Also, it’s probably not tin. It’s probably Lincrusta.

Souled American was one of the first three acts I interviewed professionally, way back in 1989 (maybe late 1988?) — and tonight I get to see them live at the 4 Star, mere blocks from where I live in San Francisco. Stoked beyond belief.

Anyone have trouble getting Bandcamp embeds to work in self-hosted WordPress and then figure out how to fix the problem?Thanks.

I highly recommend eating an apple cut with a blade that just previously cut an orange. And on that note, have a good weekend, or best you can.

Draft revisions underway, following an editorial check-in, for a very cool project I hope to be able to share news about soon. It's someone else's book. I've just contributed 1,000 words or so. It's gonna be beautiful.

Major thanks for the #DisquietJunto shout-out on cdm.link, @pkirn.bsky.social!

Eckstine Garrett Blakey DeJohnette Foster

I made a friend down by the ocean

EHX Glou-Glou Boss Donner Fairfield

My newsletter, This Week in Sound, has a photo from my Audium visit. In the photo, I'm holding another photo, showing the Audium's construction in the early 1970s. I'm holding it inside the San Francisco space today. As a bonus, here's a photo of me taking the photo, thanks to Łukasz (RPLKTR) Langa.

Disquiet Junto Project 0750: Let’s Get Heavy The Assignment: Record something epic. Deadline: Monday, May 18, 2026, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) wherever you are. Details: disquiet.com/0750 #DisquietJunto

Got a new issue of This Week in Sound out. Yeah, it's been a minute. Feels good.

A new #DisquietJunto music community project will appear at 12:10am Pacific tomorrow (May 14, 2026) at disquiet.com/0750 and go out at the same time to the email list (juntoletter.disquiet.com). The theme is epic. Join in. And yeah — this is the 750th (!) consecutive week of Disquiet Junto projects.