DISPARITION
This music is created using electronic and acoustic instruments and fed by natural and unnatural sources. When used as intended, elements of this material may cause disintegration of categorical boundaries. Some processes are irreversible.
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Night Vale Live West Coast Tour
Don’t miss the West Coast leg of Welcome to Night Vale's current touring show, "Murder Night in Blood Forest." Longtime fans and newcomers will both be able to enjoy this stand-alone show.
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Alice Isn’t Dead Returns in April
Alice Isn’t Dead: Don’t Tell Alice, a new sequel series, is coming April 13. Look for it wherever you get your podcasts, or ad free and a week early on the Alice patreon. Official trailer out now.
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Musack’s 2025 Rock n' Roll Carnival
Disparition joined Robyn Hitchcock & Friends on keys for a special one-off performance, playing with rock legends Robyn Hitchcock (The Soft Boys/The Egyptians), David J (Bauhaus/Love and Rockets), and Lol Tolhurst (The Cure).
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In A Walled City
"In A Walled City" is an experimental audiofiction series that helps us navigate the coming phases of human existence. Episode 8, The Historian, introduces a new voice inside its walls.
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Bio
Jon Bernstein is a composer, producer, and live performer creating immersive electro-acoustic works that blur the boundaries between sound, space, and narrative. He has been recording and releasing music as Disparition since 2004, developing an experimental practice that moves fluidly between recorded albums and live performance.
His work spans original music (Faite, Palm In Mirror, Granicha, 1989, Transmutations) and audiofiction (Unlicensed, In A Walled City, Welcome to Night Vale, Alice Isn’t Dead). As a touring performer, Jon regularly provides live scoring and backing for projects including Welcome to Night Vale and musician and poet David J (Bauhaus, Love and Rockets), performing at venues such as Town Hall (New York), the London Palladium, Benaroya Hall, and the Sydney Opera House.
Disparition has built up an expansive discography over the last fifteen years, pushing out from a starting point of the atmospheric ambient music of Transmutations (2007) and Neukrk (2011) towards more adventurous and inventive soundscapes including Granicha (2014) and Palm in Mirror (2016). Along the way, Disparition has delivered wildly creative concept albums built around specific historical and literary experiences including 1989 (2008), a dark ambient exploration of the Romanian Revolution, and MADOC (2013), a techno-based interpretation of Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time trilogy.
Since 2013, Jon has provided live scoring for Welcome to Night Vale, for which he composed the theme and soundtrack, and has served as composer and producer for the horror podcast Alice Isn’t Dead, which returns with a new season in April 2026. Both podcasts have been adapted into New York Times best-selling novels and audiobooks featuring newly commissioned music.
Additional commissioned composition, sound design, and production work includes the Audible show Unlicensed (2023-2025), music theatre work Wake (2014), and other experimental theater projects performed at venues throughout downtown NYC and Brooklyn. Jon has performed at both the NY and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals.
In 2018, Jon formed RAQIA, an improvisational hybrid of folk, classical, and ambient music with violinist Greg Allison (Three for Silver, Two Lions) and guitarist Tad Piecka (Petrychor, Beware of Safety). RAQIA released one album and toured the West Coast in 2018 and 2019.
Jon is also founder of Society of the Wing and Scale, an experimental new wave/alt pop duo he formed with Deepthi Welaratna (Dark Spring Thunder) in New York City in 2012. Currently operating out of Los Angeles, Wing and Scale's music blends noisy beats and textures with intricate synthwork and lyrics that blend the personal and the political with directness.
Reviews
What Critics Say
“A sound-art anthology that draws on music, poetry, noise, and a whole lot of industrial-goth energy to create an assortment of nonlinear dream-like experiences.”
— Nicholas Quah, Vulture (link)
“Monstrously complex with layers of instrumentation, percussion and vocals all weaving together, forming an intricate blanket of imagery.”
— Kamryn Feigel, Slug Mag (link)
“Granicha is a production tour de force: this album is a massive, complexly structured, genre-hopping, multi-layered monster...”
— Anthony D’Amico, Brainwashed (link)
“A curious mix of dancing percussion, chanting vocals and haunting guitar—every song begins, grows and then changes into a new audio element that brings the listener further along in this adventure.”
— Seeth McGavien, Slug Mag (link)
“Neukrk is an exhilarating, thoughtful and thought-provoking work–which is why it’s a Hypnagogue Highly Recommended CD.”
— John Shanahan, Hypnagogue (link)
What Fans Say
“The perfect song for "hi, you summoned a nature spirit that wants to kill and/or f*ck you, THIS WAS A BAD IDEA".”
— Dove on Bandcamp
“Heaven for a busy mind that won't be quiet.”
— @call.me_lex_ on Instagram
“Brilliant and unique. Can't get enough of it.”
— DirectivePodcast on Podchaser
“I love the blend of music and poetry which creates a dreamlike and surreal narrative.”
— Tal Minear on Podchaser
“Episodes are brilliant showcases of Disparition’s talent for creating sonic portraits in the mind of the listener.”
— EdenH333 on Reddit
“The thick reverb Disparition sound is really signature.”
— @Staliaoftheknife on Instagram
“Another collection of dark moods and eerie tones coupled with a strange urge to dance for your life.”
— Jilly on Bandcamp
Hire
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Disparition performs immersive live scores for stage, radio, and otherworldly events — including the touring phenomenon Welcome to Night Vale.
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Live and recorded work from Disparition spans atmospheric composition, synth-heavy tension, and cinematic sound design.
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Licensing, commissions, and sonic collaborations welcome.
→ Contact: booking@disparition.net