My favorite — or at least my most utilized — synthesizer module is probably the low-pass filter. I like trimming the upper end off a signal. I like how doing so can make a sound feel distant, not just physically but emotionally. There is no active filtering on this recording, however. This is simply a very loud noise, continuously registering at nearly 100 decibels, as heard from roughly two blocks away. Distance, in other words, provides the filter. Massive portable electric generators, running on diesel and each the size of a dry freight trailer, had been placed outside a local substation when power outages hit much of the city. Up close, the sound was painful. Blocks away, it could still disturb your sleep. Out on the street, the drone — present but, of course, invisible — felt alien: unwanted, unexpected, and, foremost, uncanny. As the days went on, the sound became more familiar, but never any more welcome. After power was restored and the machines were turned off, however, I could appreciate the tonality by listening back to a short clip. I could luxuriate in the slow waveforms, and enjoy the way the drone collaborated with the sound of passing vehicles. Recording is a form of capture. I had captured the alien presence with my recording device, and now it was under my control, rather than the other way around.

Recorded on an iPhone 17 Pro on December 24, 2025.

Two Block Drone

On thin ice.
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More on the 731st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Chill In — The Assignment: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something with it — at https://disquiet.com/0731/

thin (disquiet0731)

Allegedly the most covered popular song in the world. 

Yesterday - disquiet0731

SuperCollider and the sound of ice melting in warm wine glass

More on the 731st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Chill In — The Assignment: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something with it — at https://disquiet.com/0731/.

last day of ice grains [disquiet0731]

More on the 731st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Chill In — The Assignment: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something with it — at https://disquiet.com/0731/

me llaman melo hielo [disquiet0731]

disquietjunto0731 Sound of ice in a glass… glass shown in track photo my armagnac jar. original stem file recording below was mixed,sourced inside of AUM, modified by au filters in one channel and then loaded into KOALA Sampler where it was chopped into sub sections which were panned, freq shifted, etc. koala song will be available on free sound. More on the 731st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Chill In — The Assignment: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something with it — at https://disquiet.com/0731/.

disquiet0731 claveIce koalesong Bus A - 120 bpm - 001.wav

My contribution to Disquiet Junto Project 0731. 

The Assignment: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something with it.

My process: Video'd swirling ice in water in a wine glass -> looped using the Instruo eurorack module -> processed in multiple ways in parallel using other modules including (but not limited to): Strymon Magneto, Mutable Instruments Clouds, Noise Engineering Desmodus Versio, and various filters -> knobs twiddled live and recorded all in one take. 

Inspired (unconsciously) by Karl Ove Knausgaard's The Third Realm, which I'm currently reading.


Third realm [ disquiet0731 ]

Made for the Disquiet Junto January 2026 Chill In project (  https://disquiet.com/junto/ ). Made from only the sound of ice cubes in a glass.  Using the CDP (Composer's Desktop Project) for sound design, and 100 Rabbits' orca for sequencing.

disquiet0731_ice26_mh

I notice I'm drawn lately to more environmental and acoustic sounds when I experiment, while also wanting to follow my intuition and not limit myself beyond what might feel creatively useful. This project was quite the exercise in letting new instincts emerge and fighting with old ones. Perfect for the new year I suppose. 

I wanted to see what I could do with the glass itself so I played with multiple shape/size glasses - with ice and also for different tones hit with a plastic chopstick. I involved a new instrument of my toddler daughter's - a tongue drum with a pleasant pentatonic scale - and her llama xylophone toy. I embraced the sound of the room and the sound of rain. I also bowed on a hollow body electric base guitar. While I started playing with vocals and would like to get back to singing, this wasn't the time or the project for it. 

More on the 731st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Chill In — The Assignment: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something with it — at https://disquiet.com/0731/.



Chilling (Disquiet 0731)

Disquiet Junto Project 0731: Chill In

Here I wanted to play with sounds that "don't go together." I made a recording of a couple near me in a bar on their first polyamorous date, and was inspired to put it with the "Nina" audio. I gathered some other sounds from YouTube and my own library for this collage piece.

Poly First Date (YouTube Mix) [disquiet0729]

My 33 1/3 series book about the Aphex Twin album <i>Selected Ambient Works Volume II</i> was published in 2014. The book was one of the top 5 bestselling titles for the calendar year, and in 2015 was ranked by Pitchfork as one of the "33 best" of the 100-plus books in the 33 1/3 series. It has subsequently been translated into Japanese (2019) and Spanish (2018)

Since 2012 I have moderated the Disquiet Junto group, which began on SoundCloud. More at disquiet.com/junto. 

I've written for Nature, Pitchfork, The Wire, Down Beat, Boing Boing, NewMusicBox, Red Bull Music Academy, Art Practical, the website of The Atlantic, and many other publications. 

I've exhibited sound art at galleries in Los Angeles (Crewest), Manhattan (apex art), and Dubai (DUTAC), and I had a audio-visual installation at the San Jose Museum of Art as part of its 45th anniversary.

And since 1996 I've run the website Disquiet.com about the intersection of sound, art, and technology.

Two Block Drone

disquiet

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