I’m currently stuck in my apartment in Montreal, the course I’m teaching this semester transitioned online for the foreseeable future. Since so many of us will be socially isolated, I thought it would be appropriate to share more mixes than usual.
I recently shared the first volume of my Friperietronics series on bandcamp, subtitled Music For Quarantine, which consists of variable speed tape manipulations, loops, and effects sourced from cassettes purchased in Montreal thrift stores (aka friperies). I had just been sitting on those recordings, as well as a recording from a live show last September, and decided I might as well put it out there digitally for our collective isolation.
But Everyone Is Bored was made at the request of my friend Sam, who felt that this extraordinary experience we are undergoing called for something bespoke. I’ve heard that Contagion has been popular on streaming services lately, but I instead reached for Albert Camus‘ La Peste, or The Plague. Part I tells us that “tout le monde s’ennuie,” “everyone is bored,” which felt like the appropriate affect for what may turn out to be the early days of our turn inward.
The truth is that everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits. Our citizens work hard, but solely with the object of getting rich. Their chief interest is commerce, and their chief aim in life is, as they call it, ‘doing business.’
It is no longer business as usual. On some level, I feel as though I’ve spent my entire adult life preparing for this moment: hoarding books and records, downloading movies, learning to cook. Will isolation indeed be “very humdrum” (à la Buzzcocks)? Or will the boredom of isolation prove something Siegfried Krakauer claimed in 1924, that our everyday lives have become overwhelmed by a culture of distraction, that our sense of worth has been shaped an “invented work ethic that provides a moral veil” for the necessity of tirelessly working for our livelihood at the expense of leisure time, that instead we might actually benefit from a “radical boredom”?
Mixes will resume weekly for the foreseeable future. Take care of each other out there. Let’s embrace our collective boredom. (Joseph Sannicandro)
TRACKLIST
| ARTIST | TRACK | ALBUM | YEAR |
| Matteo Uggeri | Dialing Number | The Telephone | 2019 |
| Pergolesi | Concierto Nº 4 En Mi – Adagio | Stabat Mater | 18th C/ 2004 |
| Black To Comm | Amateur | Alphabet 1968 | 2009 |
| Giacinto Scelsi | Elegia per Ty III | The Viola Works (Vincent Royer, Severine Ballon) | 2011 |
| GAS | Narkopop 3 | Narkopop | 2017 |
| Tim Hecker | Castrati Stack (edit) | Love Streams | 2016 |
| Andrea Centazzo, Alvin Curran & Evan Parker | In Real Time #3 | In Real Time | 1977/2006 |
| Brian Eno with Robert Wyatt | Flies | Plague Songs | 2006 |
| Connor Camburn | 101804xx2012003 (excerpt) | Aulos – Αυλός | 2019 |
| Van Morrison | Too Many Myths | What’s Wrong With This Picture? | 2003 |
| Caetano Veloso | Sugar Cane Fields Forever | Araçá Azul | 1972 |
| Harmonia 76 | Weird Dream | Tracks & Traces | 1997 |
| Autechre | Overand | Tri Repetae++ | 1995 |
| Kevin Drumm | Shut-In Extra 1 | Elapsed Time – Box Set – [Disc 6] | 2016 |
| Giancarlo Toniutti | That Garden | Metánárkōsis | 1982 |
| Black To Comm | Negative Volumes | Fractal Hair Geometry | 2008 |
| Graham Lambkin | Summer Tape Work (excerpt) | Summer Tape Work – No Better No Worse vol 1 | 2001 |
| Julius Eastman | If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich? | Unjust Malaise | 2005 |
| Goblin | School at Night (Lullaby, Music Box version) | Profondo Rosso | 1975 |
| Sean McCann | Vacant Passage | Ten Impressions for Piano & Strings | 2015 |
| Morton Feldman | Journey to the End of the Night II | Feldman: Voices & Instruments (Claron McFadden) |
2002 |
| Robert Wyatt | 5 Black Notes and 1 White Note | Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard | 1975 |
| Christina Vantzou | Laurie Spiegel | No. 3 | 2015 |
| Lino Capra Vaccina | Elegia | Antico Adagio | 1978 |
| Brian Eno & Laraaji | Meditation #2 | Ambient 3: Days Of Radiance | 1980 |
| Venetian Snares | Cleaning Each Other | Songs About My Cats | 2001 |
| Thomas Ankersmit / Valerio Tricoli | Plague #7 | Forma II |
2011 |
| Jenny Hval | The Plague | Blood Bitch | 2016 |
| Giacinto Scelsi | Ko-Lho for flute and clarinet I | Music for High Winds (Carol Robinson, Clara Novakova, Cathy Milliken) | 2001 |
| Jason Lescalleet | The Tragedy Of Man (excerpt) | Much To My Demise | 2014 |
| Handsome Furs | Dumb Animals (edit) | Plague Park | 2007 |
| Brian Eno | Becalmed | Another green world | 1978 |
| Tulsa Drone | The Plague (excerpt) | Songs From a Mean Season | 2007 |
| Tasaday | Festeggiare In Piena Peste | L’Eterna Risata | 1991 |
| Brian McBride | i know that you don’t like the future like i do (edit/mash-up) | Effective Disconnect |
2010 |
| Ricardo Villalobos | Fools Garden (Black Conga) | Alcachofa | 2002 |
| Caetano Veloso | It’s a Long Way | Transa | 1972 |
| Christina Vantzou | Remote Polyphony (feat. Steve Hauschildt) | No. 4 | 2018 |
| AGF | The More The Better, Less Is More | Beatnadel | 2011 |
| Crystal Castles | Plague (excerpt) | (III) | 2012 |
| Etta James | In The Basement (Theo Parrish Re-Edit) | Ugly Edits Vol. 9 | 2005 |
| Carlo Gesualdo | Sparge la morte al mio Signor / Se la mia morte brami (simultaneous and panned edit) | Madrigaux a 5 voix (Les Arts Florissants) |
1596/1988 |
| Matteo Uggeri | Dialing Number (edit) | The Telephone | 2019 |
a closer listen 
Many thanks for your mix ! Great Music!
J’ai hâte d’écouter à ça. J’ai un gros sac de vidange, plein de cassettes, styles variés, avec lesquel je voulait faire un sorte de projet tel que ceci. Seems you beat me to it.
Incredible experience indeed: were you in Montréal in 1998 for the ice storm? I can’t remember how long we were without power in our de Maisonneuve apartment, but we would head to the Concordia building to warm up with our elderly neighbour from next door.
Sorry the delay in response. I grew up near NYC, I didn’t move to Montreal until 2009 so I wasn’t around then. I’ve heard stories from friends and family here though. We had some big blizzards in NY in the 90s, but nothing like up here. Usually you can feel the cathartic shift to the warm months, but Covid really took out some of that collective celebration. Especially since we had a full on snow storm in November, this winter really seemed to drag on. (It’s going to be a Hot Summer! My next couple mixes should reflect that)