DISPARITION

Jon Bernstein is a Los Angeles-based composer, producer, and live performer working at the intersection of dark ambient, electro-acoustic, and experimental electronic music. Recording and releasing music as Disparition since 2004, he has built one of the more quietly distinctive catalogs in contemporary American experimental music, spanning atmospheric instrumental albums, audiofiction soundtracks, and immersive live performance.

His recorded work moves fluidly across genre while maintaining a singular identity: the gritty, layered textures of Transmutations (2007) and Neukrk (2011); the critically praised conceptual sprawl of Granicha (2014), described by Brainwashed as "a massive, complexly structured, genre-hopping, multi-layered monster"; and Palm in Mirror (2016), which expanded his palette toward prog and kraut rock influences. Earlier concept albums include 1989 (2008), a dark ambient meditation on the Romanian Revolution, and MADOC (2013), a techno-based interpretation of Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time trilogy. His most recent run of singles and experimental project, In A Walled City, continue this trajectory of music that resists easy categorization.

As a live performer and touring musician, Bernstein has performed at some of the world's most prestigious venues, including Town Hall (New York), the London Palladium, Benaroya Hall (Seattle), and the Sydney Opera House, providing live scoring for stage productions and audiofiction adaptations. He has collaborated with David J, co-founder of Bauhaus and Love and Rockets, performing and contributing to recorded work including Tracks From The Attic Revisited (2026).

His audiofiction work composing original scores and themes for narrative podcast productions has reached millions of listeners globally, with work adapted into New York Times bestselling novels and audiobooks. He is also composer and primary narrator of In A Walled City, an independent sound-art anthology podcast described by Vulture as drawing "on music, poetry, noise, and a whole lot of industrial-goth energy."

Beyond his solo work, Bernstein co-founded RAQIA, an improvisational ensemble blending folk, classical, and ambient music, and Society of the Wing and Scale, an experimental dark wave/alt-pop duo. He has performed at the New York and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals and accepts commissions for composition, sound design, and live scoring.

Disparition's music occupies a rare space in experimental music: rigorously constructed but emotionally immediate, designed for listeners who want sound that moves through them rather than past them.