The Observer Effect The Mission District early evening a few days ago, on my way to an event at Gray Area with a friend, due to meet up with other friends. It’s great when a photograph captures precisely what you see, and then later when you look at the image (no subsequent processing on this), your decision to have snapped the shutter at that moment is confirmed by elements, symmetries, and contrasts of which you weren’t even conscious when you did so. I was careful to get the vertical edge of the wall just right, but I didn’t fully grasp that the two horizontal segments of the photo were close to the golden ratio, or the presence of the person, or the way the two green traffic lights balanced each other, and sort of align with the two damaged stickers, or the narrow bit of space between the speed limit sign and the wall, or the way the brown paint on the top of the wall ends just short of the right side of the framing. And of course whenever I take a photo like this one, I learn about field recordings in the process, about how much you hear at the time, and how much you hear later, and how capturing the moment with a microphone or a camera is akin to measuring in quantum mechanics, what can be termed the observer effect. https://disquiet.com/2026/10/30/the-observer-effect/ #observereffect #grayarea #missiondistrict #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

Scratch Pad: Hell’s Language, Cyberpunk Spells At the end of each week, I usually collate a lightly edited collection of recent comments I’ve made on social media, which I think of as my public scratch pad. I tag on what books I may have finished reading. Knowing I’ll revisit my social media posts serves, I’ve found, as a positive and mellowing influence on my online activity. Some items show up on disquiet.com before this post, in which case I don’t repeat them. I mostly hang out on Mastodon (at post.lurk.org/@disquiet), and I’m also trying out a few others. And I generally take weekends off social media. ▰ Could we get another album from the trio Mountain Man, or is that out of the question? ▰ Good morning music can mean something where the clink of a spoon inside a cereal bowl or the whistle of a tea kettle fit right in — and by those measures, Taylor Deupree makes for very good morning music, indeed. ▰ Hell is a book club in which for all eternity everyone around you, one after another, says nothing other than “the language,” drawn out for emphasis, while everyone else nods and murmurs approvingly ▰ Today in mysterious sounds: whining dogs, migrating geese, or creaking scaffolding at neighboring construction site? Update: it was the construction site. ▰ There are 10 weeks between now and the 15th anniversary of the Disquiet Junto music community. That’ll be Thursday, January 7, 2027, when we’ll begin the 784th co weekly music project. ▰ It’s 2026. If you’re a musician, you should at least have a web page* listing your upcoming performances and your recent and upcoming releases. Bonus points for a newsletter. Gold star for a blog with some ongoing insights into your activities. *Sure also social media, but foremost your own page ▰ It’s not that I haven’t gotten out of the house the past few weeks, but I haven’t during the day, just been at my desk working, and so then today taking a walk for a late lunch was surreal, an out-of-body experience, or an out-of-house experience. ▰ I’m in the middle of two very long novels, so I extended that effort by reading something short-ish, the science fiction novel(la?) Scion by James Islington. This reprieve was more fitting than I knew until I came to the book’s closing acknowledgements, which open with him saying that writing the book was, as well, a break for him, from some other writing. I thought of Islington more as a fantasy writer, a reputation maintained when, toward the end of the book, commands to susceptible individuals are uttered in Latinate phrases — in essence, cyberpunk spells. I also this week read two graphic novels: the third volume of the Absolute Batman series, and the first volume of the Absolute Green Lantern series. There’s a moment in the latter where one character says to another, “They’re hoping an authority will swoop in,” all in caps, as comic book dialog often appears, and the word “authority” is in bold italics, which made me wonder if there will at some point be an Absolute Authority series (and yeah, I know there was an Absolute Authority that happened to have been the title of a collection of the original The Authority, but that’s not the same as an Authority supergroup under the new-ish Absolute banner). https://disquiet.com/2026/10/31/scratch-pad-construction-language-lunch/ #cyberpunkspells #scratchpad #hell #language #mountainman #absolute #islington #taylordeupree #good #disquietjunto #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

Disquiet Junto Project 0774: Count Down Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto music community, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have five days to record and upload a track in response to the project instructions. Membership in the Junto is open: just join and participate. (A SoundCloud account is helpful but not required.) There’s no pressure to do every project. The Junto is weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when your time and interest align. Tracks are added to the SoundCloud playlist for the duration of the project. Additional (non-SoundCloud) tracks also generally appear in the llllllll.co discussion thread. Disquiet Junto Project 0774: Count Down The Assignment: Score some classic Dracula. It’s Halloween, so let’s get to work. Step 1: There are plenty of recordings of Dracula on archive.org. Find a short segment, between one and five minutes, that you want to set to music. Step 2: Record a piece of music as backing for the segment you selected in Step 1. Step 3: Your finished piece is the combination of the audio snippet from Step 1 and the musical score from Step 2. Tasks Upon Completion: Label: Include “disquiet0774” (no spaces/quotes) in the name of your track. Upload: A person participating in the Disquiet Junto should post only one track per weekly project (SoundCloud account preferred but not required). If on occasion you feel inspired to post more than one track (whether to a single account or across multiple accounts), you should clarify which is the “main” rendition for consideration by fellow members and (if on SoundCloud) for inclusion in the SoundCloud playlist. Share: Post your track and a description/explanation at https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0774-count-down/ Discuss: Listen to and comment on the other tracks. Additional Details: Length: The length is up to you. Immortality is quite a stretch of time. Deadline: Monday, November 2, 2026, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) wherever you are. About: https://disquiet.com/junto/ Newsletter: https://juntoletter.disquiet.com/ License: It’s preferred (but not required) to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., an attribution Creative Commons license). Please Include When Posting Your Track: More on the 774th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Count Down — The Assignment: Score some classic Dracula — at disquiet.com/0774. https://disquiet.com/2026/10/29/disquiet-junto-project-0774-count-down/ #disquietjunto #juntoproject #step #track #soundcloud #dracula #thursday #post #monday #include #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

Light It Up I’ve looked up and across at these San Francisco buildings for as long as I can remember, and I love how at night their edges are lit up all rectilinear style, like something out of Tron, and I only just this week came to recognize that the magic comes down to good old simple strings of lights. Nothing fancy. Nothing built-in. Zoom in to see. https://disquiet.com/2026/10/28/light-it-up/ #sanfrancisco #nothing #tron #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

Electric Company Still strikes me as a classic example of the thing you’re being warned against looking more interesting than its alternative https://disquiet.com/2026/10/27/electric-company/ #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

Live Ambient Near Cucuron, France “A temporary shelter from the static” is the title of a new live set from Thomas Ouf, who has joined the expansive ranks of YouTube modular synth streamers, recording himself playing ambient music out in nature on a portable unit. He situated himself at Le Clos de Sannes near Cucuron, France, and let the video and audio record for just under a quarter of an hour. It’s the first in a planned series of videos where, as Ouf explains: “I set up my modular synthesizer (and more gear) in places I have a deep connection with or simply find inspiring.” In addition to the cool extra-widescreen footage, he provides a brief summary of the equipment he employed and his process. https://disquiet.com/2026/10/26/live-ambient-near-cucuron-france/ #france #cucuron #thomasouf #clos #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

On Repeat: Pedal, Sampler, Pedal Steel On Sundays I try to at least quickly note some of my favorite listening from the week prior — things I would later regret having not written about in more depth, so better to share here briefly than not at all. ▰ One guitar, one incredible guitar pedal, which turns an opening series of notes into an endlessly drifting drone. Beautiful stuff. It’s by Perry Frank, who is from Sardinia, Italy. ▰ Keinseier, a film composer based in Hamburg, has been going to town on a specific set of electronic music instruments, doing lots of short videos (in which he performs on them usually without any additional effects or tools), and he’s become quite adept in particular with the Digitakt II. This performance uses lots of little quiet sounds. ▰ I listen to Gary Peters’ solo pedal steel music far more often than I write about it. This is a lovely recent recording. He says of his work: “Very simple things can be very beautiful. But such simplicity is quite hard to achieve. I manage to get close sometimes.” Peters is based in the UK and also lives in Spain. https://disquiet.com/2026/10/25/on-repeat-pedal-sampler-pedal-steel/ #pedalsteel #perryfrank #very #sundays #italy #beautiful #keinseier #hamburg #digitakt #spain #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

Scratch Pad: Collateral, Obsidian, Daylight At the end of each week, I usually collate a lightly edited collection of recent comments I’ve made on social media, which I think of as my public scratch pad. I tag on what books I may have finished reading. Knowing I’ll revisit my social media posts serves, I’ve found, as a positive and mellowing influence on my online activity. Some items show up on disquiet.com before this post, in which case I don’t repeat them. I mostly hang out on Mastodon (at post.lurk.org/@disquiet), and I’m also trying out a few others. And I generally take weekends off social media. Posted very little this week. Some weeks are like that. ▰ Rewatched Michael Mann’s Collateral (2004), which really holds up, especially the wall-to-wall soundtrack / score / sound design (which bleed into each other) and the cinematography (endless number of striking images and sequences). ▰ Wow, the new “capture” option in the Obsidian mobile app is fantastic. I never thought I’d remove the Bebop app from my iPhone, but this feature has permanently replaced it. (Also, Bebop was often getting hung up by not syncing through iCloud for some reason.) ▰ Finished reading one graphic novel, Batman Vol 1: Daylight from writer Matt Fraction and illustrator Jorge Jiménez. https://disquiet.com/2026/10/24/scratch-pad-collateral-obsidian-daylight/ #scratchpad #collateral #daylight #obsidian #bebop #rewatchedmichael #michaelmann #batmanvol #jorgejimenez #mattfraction #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

Junto Reminders If you’re new to the Disquiet Junto music community, did you know: There’s a complete list of all 773 weekly projects to date. There’s a free weekly Thursday morning email newsletter containing the latest project instructions. There’s an FAQ, or list of frequently asked questions. Group discussions about each project occur on the Lines (aka llllllll.co) message board. And just in case there is any confusion on this topic: participation is entirely free. No sign-up cost, not potential cost, no subscription cost, no nuthin’. https://disquiet.com/2026/10/23/junto-reminders/ #junto #disquietjunto #faq #lines #group #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

Junto Line Items A few quick things: 1: The 15th anniversary of the Disquiet Junto is coming up in early January 2027. If you have ideas of ways to celebrate, lemme know. If I’ve done my math correctly, that’ll be project 0784 on January 7, so 11 weeks from now. 2: If you’re a music educator and think it’d be useful for your students for me to give a presentation about the Disquiet Junto and related topics, lemme know. I’ve done these in the past (virtually and in person), and they’re always enjoyable experiences. 3: If you have ideas for Junto projects, send them to me. I don’t always reply quickly, because my email inbox is jam-packed, but I’m always keen to hear from people about their ideas for projects. 4: Thanks to everyone for commenting in the project threads more lately (on llllllll.co). Commenting is by no means required, but it is greatly appreciated. Subscribe for email updates at juntoletter.disquiet.com. https://disquiet.com/2026/10/21/junto-line-items/ #disquietjunto #january #commenting #thanks #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit