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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Untitled EP Release on the Way
A new EP from Disparition is imminent! We don't know the title and the release date has yet to be scheduled but we'll post more details as soon as we have them.
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Night Vale Live Tour on sale
Join us for Welcome to Night Vale's newest 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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Unlicensed Season 3 out now
Published by Audible Originals, "Unlicensed" is a deeply-human and captivating thriller featuring a hauntingly noirish score by Disparition. Season 3 is out now.
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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, performer, and sound designer who focuses on creating new forms, sounds, and experiences for today’s media landscape. Jon has been recording and releasing music as Disparition, an experimental electro-acoustic project, since 2004. Notable works include original music (Faite, Palm In Mirror, Granicha, 1989, Transmutations) and audiofiction (Unlicensed, In A Walled City, Welcome to Night Vale, Alice Isn't Dead).
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.
Jon tours extensively, currently providing session work and live backing for musician and poet David J (Bauhaus, Love and Rockets) since 2019 and live scoring for the genre-defining fiction podcast Welcome to Night Vale since 2013. Jon is the composer of the theme and soundtrack for Welcome to Night Vale and served as both composer and producer for the horror podcast Alice Isn’t Dead (2016-2019). Jon has toured extensively to provide live scoring at live Night Vale events, performing at venues including Town Hall in New York, the Palladium in London, Benaroya Hall in Seattle, and the Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia. Both podcasts have been turned into NY Times best-selling novels and audiobooks, featuring new commissioned music.
Other 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
“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