Ian Baxter
ianwbaxter.bsky.social
Ian Baxter
@ianwbaxter.bsky.social
Following mainly sound art, synth DIY and computer music based stuff but also accounts that make me laugh. Did PhD at Sheffield "Sonification as a means to generative music"..and posted about it, now seems increasingly irrelevant
Pinned
I was once (performatively I guess now) reading some some art book in the Winter Gardens on my dinner break and an older lady - I'm not being a rank sexist but it was unexpected - said to me "Oh do you like Isao Tomita, he's brilliant, you should check him out". It was pure Sheffield.
Oh fuck off
November 10, 2025 at 12:44 PM
Guess I should ring them back
November 10, 2025 at 9:35 AM
Sunday listening, really one one of the finest releases recently that's stayed in healthy rotation for me.
intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/record...
Recordings from the Åland Islands, by Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer
11 track album
intlanthem.bandcamp.com
November 9, 2025 at 12:25 PM
This non chronological thing in feeds is getting ridiculous
November 8, 2025 at 6:50 PM
This encouraged me to actually overhaul the whole bloody thing, make it work on mobiles and so on. It wasn't actually as much work as I thought and a pleasant trip down memory lane.
I did a bit of tidying on my website last night (as much as one can do housekeeping on an abandoned ruin) getting rid of links to Twitter for example and to my delight my dawn chorus web experiment www.ianbaxter.net/projects/daw... has come back to life (the proxy thing I used had disallowed audio)
www.ianbaxter.net
November 8, 2025 at 6:40 PM
Just reflexively used the phrase "buzzing off" as in the Scouse to be "buzzing off someone" for the first time in 30 years maybe.
November 6, 2025 at 6:30 PM
Feeling the enshitification strongly this morning. Small banking problem...terrible online AI chat....can't get through on the phone (customer number not recognised but worrying)....would close my account in a fit of pique but what's the point? Assume every other high street bank is the same.
November 3, 2025 at 10:17 AM
Belly laugh. Bravo.
Chris Mason after that by-election result came in
October 24, 2025 at 12:31 PM
I did a bit of tidying on my website last night (as much as one can do housekeeping on an abandoned ruin) getting rid of links to Twitter for example and to my delight my dawn chorus web experiment www.ianbaxter.net/projects/daw... has come back to life (the proxy thing I used had disallowed audio)
www.ianbaxter.net
October 24, 2025 at 6:52 AM
Just tried to leave a nice message on someone's farewell blog (twice) and was stopped because I can't find my wordpress username that I probably set up 15 years ago. So no nice message. I hate the internet and note the irony.
October 22, 2025 at 4:41 PM
For the first time in ages I am going to a 'proper' gig with a big promoter. Fuck me the bureaucracy involved is mind bending. Which app do I need? does my wife with the other ticket need it too? No I don't want to share my location data with you for recommendations...the modern world is maddening.
October 22, 2025 at 10:00 AM
People may laugh at me for being a bumpkin but I miss visits to London and the underground. A heavy metal thunder noise concert and fascinating to read about it's subtle changes. I could spin an essay "tube as the original generative site specific sound installation" if I had the time and sense.
The main cause of the noise is something that will, sooner or later, hit every part of the network: “rail corrugation”.

You aren’t imagining it: London's Tube is getting louder.
No, you aren’t imagining it: the Tube is getting louder
I SAID, THE TUBE *IS* GETTING LOUDER.
jonn.substack.com
October 20, 2025 at 8:26 AM
Absolutely glorious, or have I been had?
The BBC are accidentally running the subtitles to Mrs Marple over the Mercury Prize, and it’s rather wonderful. A few of lines could plausibly have been written by Jarvis.
October 17, 2025 at 6:41 AM
Far smarter people than me can tell you how to find local government (I find myself veering toward something that sounds like the poll tax which I'm assured was not v. popular) but contributing to social care on the basis of what this house was worth when I was 10 seems a little...abstract?
October 14, 2025 at 12:18 PM
Just seen a news story about "book banks" and whilst obviously I wouldn't do down the idea I am left scratching my head a bit...didn't we... didn't we used to have those?
October 13, 2025 at 8:27 AM
Ah galaxy brain takes, reminds me of the old twitter days.
October 9, 2025 at 8:26 AM
Fascinating bit of gossip in the Nic Collins memoir. Nic's book changed my life and featuring briefly in the 2nd edition my biggest boast and a real thrill. Bored at work in mid oughts I often daydreamed about studying his program in Chicago. Turns out he could've been my supervisor after all.
October 7, 2025 at 9:02 AM
Currently experiencing Schrödinger's shower. Lovely chap came around to sort a leak but I face an excruciating 24 hour wait whilst the silicone cures before I can test it.
October 1, 2025 at 8:18 AM
One of the failures of social media is to no longer be very good at reminding me of things I might be interested in. I had no idea Nicolas Collins had published a new book this year. On a random trip to his website to remind myself of something I discovered it. Oh well, I ordered right away.
September 30, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Very interesting and articulates a lot of what I was badly trying to get my head around. I read it quickly so perhaps my mistake but surely the elephant is that our electoral system is not about voters but about marginal seats.
this is so good
On the morning of Keir Starmer's conference speech here's a new post on an odd psychopathology in British politics - our main parties don't like the people who vote for them - the dreaded Professional Managerial Class. And so they are acting out like a divorced dad seeking cooler voters. 1/n
September 30, 2025 at 9:52 AM
For some reason I just thought about an NYPD Blue episode where Sipowitz is interrogating a suspect and angrily calls him a "hinch dick" which became a go to in joke among our Uni mates. Google can't enlighten me and let me revisit though ...although I did learn that it's spelled Sipowicz.
September 28, 2025 at 5:27 PM
I enjoyed this. Recently when I feel an impulse to post I suddenly pull back and think "what's the point" www.newyorker.com/culture/infi...
Are You Experiencing Posting Ennui?
Sharing casual moments from our lives on social media doesn’t seem to make sense the way it used to.
www.newyorker.com
September 23, 2025 at 10:10 AM
Just saw a comment berating the guardian for pluralising pizza as pizzas rather than pizze and I want to die.
September 22, 2025 at 7:10 PM
"Abba-by-Jan"
September 18, 2025 at 5:56 PM
Trump claiming to not know who Mandelson is had me absolutely howling. Best laugh today.
September 18, 2025 at 5:12 PM