Press Kit
Bio
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 an expansive genre-defying catalog of work across music, audiofiction, and film.
His discography 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 recent run of singles and independent sound-art anthology podcast, In A Walled City — highlighted by Nicholas Quah in Vulture for its "industrial-goth energy" — continue this trajectory of music that resists easy categorization.
Since 2014, Bernstein has clocked over 350 live performances at venues such as Town Hall (New York), the London Palladium, Benaroya Hall (Seattle), and the Sydney Opera House. 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 original scores for narrative podcasts, audio fiction, and film have reached millions of listeners worldwide and earned major industry recognition, including an iHeartPodcast Award for Welcome to Night Vale. His work has been featured in outlets like The Guardian, Electronic Sound, and Time Out Worldwide, with credits spanning Night Vale Presents productions such as Alice Isn’t Dead and Unlicensed. His composition 'The Ballad of Fiedler and Mundt,' used as the Welcome to Night Vale theme song, was recently featured on Vox Media’s podcast Switched On Pop as a significant moment in the evolution of podcast theme music.
Bernstein is the co-founder of Society of the Wing and Scale, an experimental dark wave/alt-pop duo and RAQIA, an improvisational ensemble blending folk, classical, and ambient music. He has performed at the New York and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals and accepts commissions for composition, sound design, and live scoring.
Before focusing full-time on music in 2014, Bernstein worked in publishing (SF Weekly, Barnes & Noble, Hyperion) and advertising (T3).
What Critics Say
[In A Walled City is] “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)
"1989 is a brilliant piece of ambient work that deserves attention by the hardcore ambient fan. Don’t miss it.”
— Matt Rowe, MusicTAP