As digital music production has become cheaper and easier to learn, so has the reflection of its own processes in the aesthetics of popular, not to mention experimental music. By the late 1990s, the sounds of computer processing, digital errors, fan hums, dial-up feedback, and the increasingly miniaturised electronic environment of the workplace made their way into the soundscapes of bedroom producers and electronic music subcultures. This, in combination with all-day everywhere headphone use, makes for a microscopic aesthetic of the mechanical and electronic ecology that we all seem to inhabit. How is one supposed to focus and get to work when the very sounds of production are washing over our ears?

The City – documentary excerpt
Ryoji Ikeda (Dumb Type) – Barely Bear
Ekkehard Ehlers – Robert Johnson
Maja S.K. Ratke / Lasse Marhaug – Music For Gardening
Tetsu Inoue – Dot Hack
Christina Kubisch – Mousware
Mr. Meridies – Easy (Tim’s edit)
Maryanne Amacher – Synaptic Island (Tower Meta 1s, Feed2, and Muse Orchestra 1)
The Caretaker – The Sublime is Disappointingly Elusive
The Art Ensemble of Chicago – Unanka
Autechre – Fold4, Wrap5
View Masters – Pachinko Mandala
Benjamin Parrot – untitled (OS/OE)
DJ Olive, The Audio Janitor – Coffee, Oxygen & Gas
untitled recording (Cholula, Mexico)
Pixel – Scrapple From the Apple
Kit Clayton – I only Want Quiet
DAT Politics – Verd
Devo – Working in a Coalmine
Fan Club Orchestra – Part2, no.7
Wobbly + People Like Us + Matmos – Cattle Call

+ various samples from youtube and ted talks