neurojaxx

DECEMBER 2015

More on this 206th weekly Disquiet Junto project (“Compose a track with a trio of through-lines that repeatedly alternate relative prominence”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/12/10/disquiet0206-threeswitches/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

Source photo (“Three Light Switches”) by Zoran Kovacevic used thanks to a Creative Commons license:

https://flic.kr/p/2YdqLK

Disquiet Junto Project 0206: Three Switches

End all be all. Sounds for dancing around the bomb crater. Learn to love decay or suffer with rest.

End all

unlike noise

Marc Weidenbaum

Kenny Everett was a fantastic comedian and all-round televisual institution. He used to host a feature on Capital Radio in London called The Phantom Phone Booth, during which he would ring a random telephone kiosk. When I was 13, I answered the call.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenny_Everett

Kenny Everett: The Phantom Phone Booth

Max Tundra: Enough About Human Rights! (Moondog cover)

download http://nocreditrecords.tumblr.com/post/103364231367/mononomonooto-download-mononomonooto

mononomonooto '鉄が尽きる日'

Drew McDowall "Hypnotic Congress"
from the debut LP "Collapse" on Dais Records
Out September 25, 2015
daisrecords.com

Drew McDowall "Hypnotic Congress"

Pink Meth

I've wanted to get a white-noise module for awhile, and finally added one to my setup. This module has 7 different noise sources, including white, red, grey, and blue. Each is being triggered by a different sequence. They're all in sync, though one is slightly delayed, which lends a tiny bit of character to the cadence, I think. The only reason I skipped pink is because I don't have any pink cables right now, and the color-coded cables helped me keep track of things.

You can blame this on someone who's listened to too many Chain Reaction releases, too much Consolidated, and too many scores to Michael Mann films.

Slightly more technical information: The sequences are all in CV Toolkit (a piece of software running on my laptop), and they're getting to my modular synthesizer via an Expert Sleepers ES-3 module. The noise-source module is the Quantum Rainbow 2. The white, red, and grey sources are all receiving sequences directly from the software. The blue source is getting a slight trigger delay (and a slightly extended length to the trigger), thanks to the Doepfer A-162. The whole thing is being mixed in an ADDAC 802 VCA Quintet, and out through a Pittsburgh Outs, through a Focusrite Scarlett 2i4. It was recorded in Audacity. 

White Noise Beat

Atlus is a young man with the world in his hands. He shoulders it from the mighty and misty tenements of Glasgow, Scotland, where he spends most of his time in the halls of Rubadub. In the three songs on this mystical EP, he lifts up party-melting disco house, clanging ambience and bubbling techno – and it all makes sense. The first of many, many records from him, we hope. This kid's a titan.

Atlus - Zopiclone - Zopiclone EP - MSN018

TTT SHOP

Rezzett – Hey Hugo

recorded and mixed Dec 1 & 2, 2015
guitar. effects. layers.

This song can be found on my Feb 2016 release 'Transit Observations'.
Download for free at: https://hicksoncompactgroup.bandcamp.com/album/transit-observations

Driving into This Sunset (demo)

ORDER 12" HERE

Carl Gari & Abdullah Miniawy – Nayroz

Taken from @EarthBoys "Welcome 2 Earth" 12", distributed by Rub A Dub and out in stores 4 December 2015.

Buy 12": bit.ly/1l1GIJI

Buy Digital: bit.ly/1NNt0k9

Earth Boys - Spring Fling

Stop Plastic Pollution – Florian Schneider(Kraftwerk co-founder), Dan Lacksman (Telex)

I've been playing around with an envelope plugin, Kuvert so it seemed right to employ it for this assignment. I took 3 loops (16bar, 6 bar and 2 bar) and ran them through separate instances of kuvert set to play a volume envelope over 7 beat divisions. Each instance peaked and dipped at separate points and the irregular beat division caused the clips to peak and mute at different points of there loops to create a shifting pattern.
I always enjoy how new patterns emerge and interact to create an illusion of complexity from simple source material.

Disquiet Junto Project 0206: Three Switches
Compose a track with a trio of through-lines that repeatedly alternate relative prominence.

Note: It is generally helpful to read through all the steps before starting the first step.

Step 1: This week’s project involves a single piece of music with three separate simultaneous parts. Each of those three parts should run for the full length of the piece. The parts should individually be relatively consistent throughout.

Step 2: The one change that should occur is that every few beats, two of the three parts should be pushed to the background and the one remaining part should be prominent in the foreground. These relative positions should alternate every two seconds to four seconds or so for the full length of the piece.

Step 3: For the final few seconds, the three lines should be heard at equal (foreground, not background) volume for the first and only time in the piece.

Step 4: Upload your completed track from Step 3 to the Disquiet Junto group on SoundCloud.

Step 5: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Deadline: This project was posted in the early afternoon, California time, on Thursday, December 10, 2015, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, December 14, 2015.

Length: The length is up to you, though between one and three minutes seems appropriate.

Upload: Please when posting your track on SoundCloud, only upload one track for this project, and be sure to include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto. Photos, video, and lists of equipment are always appreciated.

Title/Tag: When adding your track to the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com, please in the title to your track include the term “disquiet0206-threeswitches.” Also use “disquiet0206-threeswitches” as a tag for your track.

Download: It is preferable that your track is set as downloadable, and that it allows for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution).

Linking: When posting the track, please be sure to include this information:

More on this 206th weekly Disquiet Junto project (“Compose a track with a trio of through-lines that repeatedly alternate relative prominence”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/12/10/disquiet0206-threeswitches/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

Source photo (“Three Light Switches”) by Zoran Kovacevic used thanks to a Creative Commons license:

https://flic.kr/p/2YdqLK
  

Tangle (disquiet0206-threeswitches)

For this weeks project I constructed three loops, two melodic, one rhythmic, adding effects to give each part constant motion. I then used some physical sliders to automate the parts, making them drift in and out of the mix. Some backwards reverb was added at the mixer level to even out the flow of the soundscape.

Note: I had a perhaps more interesting, more rhythmic piece worked out before but my computer crashed and I seem to have lost the samples I made : (

More on this 206th weekly Disquiet Junto project (“Compose a track with a trio of through-lines that repeatedly alternate relative prominence”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/12/10/disquiet0206-threeswitches/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

Source photo (“Three Light Switches”) by Zoran Kovacevic used thanks to a Creative Commons license:

https://flic.kr/p/2YdqLK


Jagged Edges Smoothed - Disquiet0206 - Threeswitches

I make no bones about loving the number 3 and have no truck with those that see. I started with a three measure melody at 111 bpm. I used the CS-80(soft synth,of course) and fiddled with the knobies and recorded that and used the crossfader with a straight track making the sound fx be the background. Took a drum track and made another similar track be the background using the same envelopes. I kept the bass foreground the whole time. I used the camelphat fx on the Outfront preset and used that same envelope to put what ever was to be out front having it on full mix when they were taking center stage. I liked it and thought it could use a vocal track to accentuate the foreground parts with a slight echo in the background. I chose this song from a public domain website. It was written in 1905 for the musical "The Wizard of Oz". I have no idea where this was sang in the play. I only used the chorus and have no idea what it originally sounded like. More on this 206th weekly Disquiet Junto project (“Compose a track with a trio of through-lines that repeatedly alternate relative prominence”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/12/10/disquiet0206-threeswitches/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

Source photo (“Three Light Switches”) by Zoran Kovacevic used thanks to a Creative Commons license:

https://flic.kr/p/2YdqLK

By Marc Weidenbaum


Can't You See I'm Lonely-Felix Feist (disquiet0206-threeswitches)

Tridimensional (disquiet0206 - Threeswitches)

**Production Notes**

This assignment was the perfect excuse to give in to my gear acquisition syndrome: I bought the Buddha Machine Collection 1-5. I really love these boxes, have experimented with them for years now and was always keen to get them sampled properly (at least, thats my excuse for buying them).

Imported three of the samples that sat together nicely, treated them accordingly to the assignment (see below).

Some slight mastering added, exported, uploaded, tagged them and went back to playing Fallout 4 (Maaaybeeee…)

* * * 

**Disquiet Junto Project 0206: Three Switches**

Compose a track with a trio of through-lines that repeatedly alternate relative prominence.

Note: It is generally helpful to read through all the steps before starting the first step.

Step 1: This week’s project involves a single piece of music with three separate simultaneous parts. Each of those three parts should run for the full length of the piece. The parts should individually be relatively consistent throughout.

Step 2: The one change that should occur is that every few beats, two of the three parts should be pushed to the background and the one remaining part should be prominent in the foreground. These relative positions should alternate every two seconds to four seconds or so for the full length of the piece.

Step 3: For the final few seconds, the three lines should be heard at equal (foreground, not background) volume for the first and only time in the piece.

Step 4: Upload your completed track from Step 3 to the Disquiet Junto group on SoundCloud.

Step 5: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Deadline: This project was posted in the early afternoon, California time, on Thursday, December 10, 2015, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, December 14, 2015.

Length: The length is up to you, though between one and three minutes seems appropriate.

(…)

More on this 206th weekly Disquiet Junto project (“Compose a track with a trio of through-lines that repeatedly alternate relative prominence”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/12/10/disquiet0206-threeswitches/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

Source photo (“Three Light Switches”) by Zoran Kovacevic used thanks to a Creative Commons license:

https://flic.kr/p/2YdqLK


Ridante Budho [disquiet0206 - Threeswitches]

As soon as I read Marc's email, I knew that my Doepfer sequential switch would be the star of the show this week. I fed three variations of a sound created in Elements into it as follows:

1-Raw Elements
2-Granularized Elements via Clouds
3-Basstravaganza courtesy of Warps having its way with Elements

Using Pressure Points' Touch Gate Out I controlled when the switch moved from one of the three spots. The trick, as I was working without my main rack, was I had no proper mixer to allow a subtle conclusion with all three variations playing at once. I routed things through the PM Mult and used it as a cheater mixer, and left the right side cable of the master outs unplugged until the culmination. 

Note: each time the switch moves, and in particular moving on or off the bass sound, there is a strong click. I like it and think it brings and interesting imperfection into play.

More on this 206th weekly Disquiet Junto project (“Compose a track with a trio of through-lines that repeatedly alternate relative prominence”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/12/10/disquiet0206-threeswitches/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

Source photo (“Three Light Switches”) by Zoran Kovacevic used thanks to a Creative Commons license:

https://flic.kr/p/2YdqLK

Video

I've Got At Least Three Problems (But A Switch Ain't One) [disquiet0206-threeswitches]

I was asked by the Dutch musician Michel Banabila to contribute a remix to Marilli Remixed, a collection of reworkings of tracks from his very first album, Marilli, released in 1983. I selected the fourth track on the first side of the LP.

The original was elegant, but had percussion throughout. I wanted the ambient quality more formalized, and the percussion a little more muted and arhythmic.

. . .  

Here are some notes on my remix. I’ll note in advance, they’re fairly technical, as a notebook entry on what went into this, and what I learned in the process.

I used the my modular synthesizer (mostly filters, and a little triggered live sampler), the software Audacity (to sequence it, and also for some effects), and my Monome (running the mlr patch in the software Max). 

First I stretched a relatively percussion-less segment of the original track to get an ambient bed, yielding in the end something about 30 seconds long. I set it to run eight times in a row, overlapping to varying degrees at each repeat. 

Then I extracted a small percussion loop from the original. I did a "live performance" of that percussion loop with the Monome (four simultaneous tracks: one straight through, two running tighter sub-loops against each other a little quieter, and one in reverse even quieter still, though it's also the last bit to fade out of that sequence, so it has a little moment in the sun). The loop ran a little slower than the original, and I used a small Novation Launch Control to manage the relative volume of the four tracks within mlr.

And then I used my modular synthesizer to create variations on the ambient bed, which I layered in at various stages. 

In the end I had eight tracks in Audacity:

The 1st and 3rd tracks are the eight sequential repeats of the ambient sound bed, each intersection overlapping to varying degrees.

The 2nd track is a filtered version of the ambient bed, which has a slow LFO on it (giving it a light Laurie Anderson–ish "ha ha ha" feel) and some echo. This was done on the modular using a filter (either the A-121 or the A-136 or the Z2040 — my notes are unclear — influenced by a digital LFO, the Hikari Sine, and then run through an Eko module).

The 4th is the "live performance" on the Monome of the percussion loop, running mlr. It has four tracks of the loop doing different things. I used a Novation Launch Control to balance the volume of those four tracks.

The 5th is a copy of the ambient sound bed, pitched lower for the full length of the loop. This gives it that deep vibe for the penultimate repeat of the ambient bed. In track 1 at that same stage the volume of the original ambient bed is a little quieter, to let the deep version sound even louder than it is, in relative terms. 

The 6th track is a copy of the ambient bed but pitched higher, and I just use it for a very short moment, a final peak before the track fades out. 

And the 7th and 8th are two different instances of the same tweak of the ambient bed, which I did in the modular using a Harvestman Polivoks. It's a tingling, slightly irritating sound, a momentary breach in the ambience.

The whole idea is it opens with this expanse, and then goes to something a little tribal, and then returns to the expanse. I'll be honest about my influences here. The ambient bed is striving toward Brian Eno's Thursday Afternoon, and the rhythmic part has Peter Gabriel's soundtrack to The Last Temptation of Christ in mind. The first appearance of the Polivoks "irritant" is then repeated toward the end to provide a sense of reflection on where the piece started, but in between is that percussion performance. The deep vibe in track 5 gives an orchestral sense of closure, and the peak in track 6 is little filigree, like the clouds breaking, before it all ends.

At least that's where I ended up. It wasn't where I started. When I started, it was all gonna be about this firecracker/rattle sound in the original, but in the end I went a totally different direction.

Free Album Download

"A4. Marilli Rmxd 14"

Portishead • Glory Box (Mudflap Mix)

"Vocat aestus in umbram"
Nemesianus Es. IV.

E. P. Ode pour l'élection de son sépulchre

For three years, out of key with his time,
He strove to resuscitate the dead art
Of poetry; to maintain "the sublime"
In the old sense. Wrong from the start --

No, hardly, but, seeing he had been born
In a half savage country, out of date;
Bent resolutely on wringing lilies from the acorn;
Capaneus; trout for factitious bait:

"Idmen gar toi panth, os eni Troie
Caught in the unstopped ear;
Giving the rocks small lee-way
The chopped seas held him, therefore, that year.

His true Penelope was Flaubert,
He fished by obstinate isles;
Observed the elegance of Circe's hair
Rather than the mottoes on sun-dials.

Unaffected by "the march of events",
He passed from men's memory in l'an trentiesme
De son eage; the case presents
No adjunct to the Muses' diadem.

II.

The age demanded an image
Of its accelerated grimace,
Something for the modern stage,
Not, at any rate, an Attic grace;

Not, not certainly, the obscure reveries
Of the inward gaze;
Better mendacities
Than the classics in paraphrase!

The "age demanded" chiefly a mould in plaster,
Made with no loss of time,
A prose kinema, not, not assuredly, alabaster
Or the "sculpture" of rhyme.

III.

The tea-rose, tea-gown, etc.
Supplants the mousseline of Cos,
The pianola "replaces"
Sappho's barbitos.

Christ follows Dionysus,
Phallic and ambrosial
Made way for macerations;
Caliban casts out Ariel.

All things are a flowing,
Sage Heracleitus says;
But a tawdry cheapness
Shall reign throughout our days.

Even the Christian beauty
Defects -- after Samothrace;
We see to kalon
Decreed in the market place.

Faun's flesh is not to us,
Nor the saint's vision.
We have the press for wafer;
Franchise for circumcision.

All men, in law, are equals.
Free of Peisistratus,
We choose a knave or an eunuch
To rule over us.

A bright Apollo,

tin andra, tin eroa, tina theon,
What god, man, or hero
Shall I place a tin wreath upon?

IV.

These fought, in any case,
and some believing, pro domo, in any case ..

Some quick to arm,
some for adventure,
some from fear of weakness,
some from fear of censure,
some for love of slaughter, in imagination,
learning later ...

some in fear, learning love of slaughter;
Died some pro patria, non dulce non et decor" ..

walked eye-deep in hell
believing in old men's lies, then unbelieving
came home, home to a lie,
home to many deceits,
home to old lies and new infamy;

usury age-old and age-thick
and liars in public places.

Daring as never before, wastage as never before.
Young blood and high blood,
Fair cheeks, and fine bodies;

fortitude as never before

frankness as never before,
disillusions as never told in the old days,
hysterias, trench confessions,
laughter out of dead bellies.


V.

There died a myriad,
And of the best, among them,
For an old bitch gone in the teeth,
For a botched civilization.

Charm, smiling at the good mouth,
Quick eyes gone under earth's lid,

For two gross of broken statues,
For a few thousand battered books.

Yeux Glauques

Gladstone was still respected,
When John Ruskin produced
"Kings Treasuries"; Swinburne
And Rossetti still abused.

Fœtid Buchanan lifted up his voice
When that faun's head of hers
Became a pastime for
Painters and adulterers.

The Burne-Jones cartons
Have preserved her eyes;
Still, at the Tate, they teach
Cophetua to rhapsodize;

Thin like brook-water,
With a vacant gaze.
The English Rubaiyat was still-born
In those days.

The thin, clear gaze, the same
Still darts out faun-like from the half-ruin'd face,
Questing and passive ....
"Ah, poor Jenny's case" ...

Bewildered that a world
Shows no surprise
At her last maquero's
Adulteries.

"Siena Mi Fe', Disfecemi Maremma"

Among the pickled fœtuses and bottled bones,
Engaged in perfecting the catalogue,
I found the last scion of the
Senatorial families of Strasbourg, Monsieur Verog.

For two hours he talked of Gallifet;
Of Dowson; of the Rhymers' Club;
Told me how Johnson (Lionel) died
By falling from a high stool in a pub ...

But showed no trace of alcohol
At the autopsy, privately performed --
Tissue preserved -- the pure mind
Arose toward Newman as the whiskey warmed.

Dowson found harlots cheaper than hotels;
Headlam for uplift; Image impartially imbued
With raptures for Bacchus, Terpsichore and the Church.
So spoke the author of "The Dorian Mood",

M. Verog, out of step with the decade,
Detached from his contemporaries,
Neglected by the young,
Because of these reveries.

Brennbaum.

The sky-like limpid eyes,
The circular infant's face,
The stiffness from spats to collar
Never relaxing into grace;

The heavy memories of Horeb, Sinai and the forty years,
Showed only when the daylight fell
Level across the face
Of Brennbaum "The Impeccable".

Mr. Nixon

In the cream gilded cabin of his steam yacht
Mr. Nixon advised me kindly, to advance with fewer
Dangers of delay. "Consider
            Carefully the reviewer.

"I was as poor as you are;
"When I began I got, of course,
"Advance on royalties, fifty at first", said Mr. Nixon,
"Follow me, and take a column,
"Even if you have to work free.

"Butter reviewers. From fifty to three hundred
"I rose in eighteen months;
"The hardest nut I had to crack
"Was Dr. Dundas.

"I never mentioned a man but with the view
"Of selling my own works.
"The tip's a good one, as for literature
"It gives no man a sinecure."

And no one knows, at sight a masterpiece.
And give up verse, my boy,
There's nothing in it."

* * *

Likewise a friend of Bloughram's once advised me:
Don't kick against the pricks,
Accept opinion. The "Nineties" tried your game
And died, there's nothing in it.

X.

Beneath the sagging roof
The stylist has taken shelter,
Unpaid, uncelebrated,
At last from the world's welter

Nature receives him,
With a placid and uneducated mistress
He exercises his talents
And the soil meets his distress.

The haven from sophistications and contentions
Leaks through its thatch;
He offers succulent cooking;
The door has a creaking latch.

XI.

"Conservatrix of Milésien"
Habits of mind and feeling,
Possibly. But in Ealing
With the most bank-clerkly of Englishmen?

No, "Milésian" is an exaggeration.
No instinct has survived in her
Older than those her grandmother
Told her would fit her station.

XII.

"Daphne with her thighs in bark
Stretches toward me her leafy hands", --
Subjectively. In the stuffed-satin drawing-room
I await The Lady Valentine's commands,

Knowing my coat has never been
Of precisely the fashion
To stimulate, in her,
A durable passion;

Doubtful, somewhat, of the value
Of well-gowned approbation
Of literary effort,
But never of The Lady Valentine's vocation:

Poetry, her border of ideas,
The edge, uncertain, but a means of blending
With other strata
Where the lower and higher have ending;

A hook to catch the Lady Jane's attention,
A modulation toward the theatre,
Also, in the case of revolution,
A possible friend and comforter.

* * *

Conduct, on the other hand, the soul
"Which the highest cultures have nourished"
To Fleet St. where
Dr. Johnson flourished;

Beside this thoroughfare
The sale of half-hose has
Long since superseded the cultivation
Of Pierian roses.

                1920



Ezra Pound • Hugh Selwyn Mauberley

January 07003: Bell Studies for the Clock of the Long Now

Brian Eno • Tsar Kolokol III (And Friends)

The scene is cold and gray. Several rows of conferents look down the amphitheater at Doctor “Fingers” Schafer standing on a platform in the center.

Doctor Schafer
Gentlemen, the human nervous system can be reduced to a compact and abbreviated spinal column. The brain, front, middle and rear must follow the adenoid, the wisdom tooth, the appendix....I give you my master work: The Complete All American De-Anxietized Man!

We hear a loud metal door opening and closing. Enter The Man carried by two Negro Bearers who drop him on the platform with bestial, sneering brutality. They wait by the door.

The Man wiggles.

The conferents look down in disgust. Strange digesting sounds and a loud roar are heard off-screen. Waves of green smoke fill the room. The conferents hold their noses.

Doctor Schafer
Clarence!! How can you do this to me?? Ingrates!! Everyone of them ingrates!!

The conferents start back muttering in dismay. We hear:

Conferent #1
...I’m afraid Schafer had gone a bit too far...

Conferent #2
...I sounded a word of warning...

Conferent #3
...Brilliant chap Schafer...but...

Conferent #4
...Man will do anything for publicity...

Conferent #5
Gentlemen, this unspeakable and in every sense illegitimate child of Doctor Schafer’s perverted brain must not see the light....Our duty to the human race is clear...

A fat, frog-faced Southern doctor lifts his head up from a mason jar full of corn juice.

Southern Doctor
We must stomp out the Un-American crittah!

He advances drunkenly off-screen in direction of the thing.

Southern Doctor
(O.S.)
Fetch Gasoline! We gotta burn the son of ***** like an uppity Nigra!

Negro Bearer
(to his colleague)
Man he done see the light

FADE OUT

FADE IN

Int. Courtroom

Judge
Order in the court!

The D.A rises to face the jury.

D.A.
Gentlemen of the jury, these “learned gentlemen”...

He points to the familiar faces of the conferents at the plaintiff stand.

...claim that the innocent human creature they have so wantonly slain suddenly turned himself into a huge black centipede and it was “their duty to the human race” to destroy this monster before it could, by any means at it’s disposal, perpetrate it’s kind....Are we to gulp down this tissue of horse ****? Are we to take these glib lies like a greased and nameless *******? Where is this wondrous centipede? “We have destroyed it”, they say smugly....And I would like to remind you, Gentlemen and Hermaphrodites of the Jury, that this Great Beast-

He points to Doctor Schafer at the defendant stand.

D.A.
-has on several occasions, appeared in this court charged with the unspeakable crime of brain rape....In plain English-
(he pounds his fist on the rail of the jury box)
-in plain English, Gentlemen, forcible lobotomy!

The Jury gasps. One member dies of a heart attack. Three fall to the floor in writhing orgasms of prurience.

The D.A. points dramatically to Doctor Schafer.

D.A.
He it is....He and no other who has reduced whole provinces of our fair land to a state of bordering on the far side of idiocy....He it is who has filled great warehouses with row on row, tier on tier of helpless creatures who must have their every want attended....”The Drones” he calls them with a cynical leer of pure educated evil....Gentlemen, I say to you that the wanton murder of Clarence Cowie must not go unavenged: This foul crime shrieks like a wounded faggot for justice at least!

A loud roar and crashing sounds are heard coming from the court entrance.

All turn their heads to the chaos.

Voice
(O.S.)
Man, that mother ****er’s hungry! I’m getting out of here, me.

The Negro bearer comes crashing through the door out of sight.

A wave of electric horror sweeps through the conferents.

They storm the exits screaming and clawing.


William S. Burroughs • Meeting of International Conference of Technological Psychiatry

This piece was written to Harper's Magazine in response to the question, "When did you stop wanting to be President?"

When did I stop wanting to be President? At birth, certainly, and perhaps before. In this life or any previous incarnations I have been able to check out, I NEVER wanted to be President. This innate decision was confirmed when I became literate and saw the President pawing babies and spouting bullshit.

I attended Los Alamos Ranch School, where they later made the atom bomb. And bombs bursting in air over Hiroshima gave proof through the night that our flag was already there. There was the Teapot Dome Scandal under President Harding, and I remember the unspeakable Gaston Means. Scion of an aristocratic Southern family, infamous private eye and go-between in this miasma of graft, I remember him walking into a hotel room full of bourbon-drinking, cigar-smoking lobbyists and fixers with a suitcase he puts in the middle of the table. "Fill it up, boys, then we can talk business."

I do not mean to imply that my youthful idealism was repelled by this spectacle. I had by then learned to take a broad, general view of things. My political ambitions were simply of a humbler and less conspicuous caliber: I hoped at one time to become Commissioner of Sewers for St. Louis County. Three hundred dollars a month with every possibility of getting one's slimey little paws deep into a slush fund. And to this end I attended a softball game, where such sinecures were assigned to the deserving and the fortunate. And everybody I met said "Now, I'm old so-and-so runnin' for such-and-such, and anything you do for me I'll appreciate."

My boyish dreams fanned by this heady atmosphere and three mint juleps, I saw myself already in possession of the coveted post which called for a token appearance twice a week to sign a few letters at the old courthouse. While I'm there, might as well put it on the Sheriff for some of the marijuana he has confiscated, and he'd better play ball or I will route a sewer through his front yard. And then across the street to the courthouse cafe for a coffee with other lazy worthless bastards in the same line of business as we wallow in corruption like contented crocodiles.

I never wanted to be a frontman like Harding or Nixon, taking the rap, shaking hands, and making speeches all day. Who in his right mind would want a job like that? As Commissioner of Sewers, I would not be called upon to pet babies, make speeches, shake hands, or have lunch with the Queen. In fact, the fewer voters who knew of my existence, the better. Let Kings and Presidents keep the limelight; I prefer a whiff of coal gas as the sewers rupture for miles around. I have made a deal on the piping which has bought me a 300 thousand dollar home. Although there is talk in the press of sex cults and drug orgies, carried out in the stink of what made them possible, fluttering from the roof of my ranch-style house, over my mint and marijuana, Old Glory floats lazily in the tainted breeze.

But there were sullen mutters of revolt from the peasantry: "My teenage daughters are threatened by this immorality! Is this the American way of life?"

I thought so, and I didn't want it changed.

Sitting in my garden, smoking the sheriff's reefer, coal gas on the wind sweet in my nostrils as the smell of oil to an oilman, or the smell of bullshit to a cattle baron. I sure did a sweet thing on those pipes, and I'm covered too. What I got on the governor wouldn't look good on the front page, would it now? And I have my special police to deal with vandalism and sabotage. All handsome youths, languid and vicious as reptiles. Described in the press as no more than minions, lackeys, and bodyguards to his majesty the Sultan of Sewers.

The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. Then I met the guvernatorial candidate, and he looked at me as if trying to focus my image through a telescope, and said in effect, "Anything I do for you I'll depreciate."

And I felt the dream slipping away from me, receding into the past. Dim, jerky, far away, the discreet gold letters on a glass door:

William S. Burroughs, Commissioner of Sanitation


Somehow, I had not intersected. I was not one of them. Perhaps I was simply the wrong shape. Some of my classmates, plump, cynical, unathletic boys with narrow shoulders and broad hips made the grade and went on to banner headlines concerning two million dollars of the taxpayers' money, and a nonexistent bridge or highway, I forget which. It was a long time ago, and I have never aspired to political office since. The Sultan of Sewers lies buried in a distant, 1930s softball game.

William S. Burroughs • The Sultan of Sewers or “When did I stop wanting to be President” (1975)

disquiet 0245
Disquiet Junto Project 0245: Practical Music
Write a piece of music for getting things done, suitable for playing on repeat.

Clean up, routine, tiding up....that leads me to repetitive stuff.
I played a simple riff on my “diaz custom5”  drake bass guitar, very repetitive and yet variations going from A to D to D/E with no real structure.
Added a synth bass drone, and a Wurlitzer A200 electric piano improvising a bit.
Then some repetitive voices (tah-tah-tah-tah...) in four part harmony/
My usual rhythmic delays played a big role, here in 1/8th and 1/4th notes.
You can loop this, there’s no lead in or lead off.
Love
DD
Recorded in Paris, France September 9th  2016.

More on this 245th weekly Disquiet Junto project — “Write a piece of music for getting things done, suitable for playing on repeat” — at:

http://disquiet.com/0245/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

http://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0243-synth-trial/4288

There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.

Image associated with this project is by jurek d. and is used thanks to Flicker and a Creative Commons license:

http://flic.kr/p/npLwcU

clean it and loop it - disquiet0245

This is based on a Pure Data patch I made called "Oval Noise" because it reminded me of Markus Popp's ovalcommers-era sound. 

The patch is a mess since I just kind of threw it together with 3 oscillators playing one of four pitches randomly, with 2 of them summed up and the other being sent to another effect along with being summed with the other 2. 

Pure Data measures tempo by millisecond, so I started at 500 (i beat every half second), then divided it by 2, 4 and 6. The last little bit is divided by 8. 

Recorded into Audacity where I cropped it and fixed some clipping issues. 

||||

More on this 246th weekly Disquiet Junto project — “Compose a piece of music that increases speed in stages as it proceeds.” — at:

http://disquiet.com/0246/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

http://llllllll.co/t/double-quadruple-sextuple-music-disquiet-junto-project-0246/4549

There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.

Image associated with this project is by Oliver Gouldthorpe and is used thanks to Flicker and a Creative Commons license:

flic.kr/p/sMDxq

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/

Latticeworks (disquiet0246)

Max Tundra: Playboy (Hot Chip cover)

Marnie Stern: The Things That You Notice (Max Tundra Remix)

heart-open & earth-honoring 
synthesist & field-recordist 
journalist & dreamtime walker
visualist & connector
​
The seemingly limitless manifestations that are observed during improvisational performance of electronic audiovisual materials drive me to seek collaborative interactions between compositional systems, machines, and myself. In holding space to facilitate an emergence of indeterminate phenomenon through analog synthesis, feedback systems, and field recordings, I share elements from multiple sources to celebrate shapes, patterns, and spaces.
​
I hold BAs in Art and English from Andrews University, and am currently enrolled in the Electronic Integrated Arts MFA at Alfred University. I was an artist in residency in 2017 at Signal Culture in Owego New York and in 2015 at Sachaqa Centro De ARTE, San Roque Peru. My visual works, and live electronic improvisational performances, have been featured across Peru, at The MuseumsQuartier in Vienna, and throughout the Midwest of America.
 
Note: Much of the work here is subtle in nature and I encourage you to listen via headphones or using a decent system whenever possible. Most computer speakers will not reveal the tracks fully.  Unless otherwise noted in the track description, everything is recorded direct to stereo track live and on the fly with no overdubs. Thanks for stopping by and listening!

I've Got At Least Three Problems (But A Switch Ain't One) [disquiet0206-threeswitches]

337is (three three seven is)