My first take on rhythm for dream work and journeying. I am curious to feel how an electronic version of traditionally hand percussion works translates in subconscious spaces. I intentionally didn't alter much in real time with this but am tempted to make another version with subtle changes through out.

Please note: This doesn't follow typical drumming protocol in that there is no signal to return other than a one minute fade out starting at minute thirty.

30 Minute Drumming For Journeying

It is said that if one were to stand on the Equator at Noon during a Vernal Equinox it is possible that they would cast no shadow. Did you feel the Earth tilt on its axis? (To really hear the shift, headphones are encouraged.

Cast No Shadow (Tilting Axis Mix)

A harmonic study for 10% pulse width square wave & 18dB resonant filter.

Video

Harmonic Study For 10% Square Wave & 18dB Resonant Filter

More on the 636th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Left (1 of 3) — The Assignment: Record the first third of a trio — at https://disquiet.com/0636/

Left (1 Of 3) disquiet0636

My first attempt to manifest sound using multiples of the number 13. This work springs as a direct result of my improvisations with Plato & The Western Tradition and conversations with Boyd about his growing integration of Kabbalah, Sacred Geometry, Sound, Manifestation, and multiples of 13. 

ALM's Pamela's Workout in partnership Modcan's Quad LFO with  did the lion's share of the lifting in this with Pammy's eight outputs each dialed into a multiple of 13. The main clock was set at 26 BPM (our "Here" Between Above and Below) and each of the 7 remaining outputs either added or subtracted 13 pulses to that starting number. These eight pulse streams were then moved around the modular with the first four streams sent to the four gates of the Quad LFO. The same four streams were additionally multed and distributed to the CV in of the Quad LFO. I then selected a variety of rates on the LFO to create multiplications or divisions of thirteen with a range of one to thirteen. With these signals in play, I routed them primarily to the E350 Morphing Terrarium which served as the only oscillator in this piece. All morphing inputs available were fed multiples of thirteen. The output of the E350 was first fed into the Pittsburgh Modular high pass filter (with all of its CV inputs influenced by multed LFO clocks) and then on to the Ecophon which was also clock synced to a division of thirteen. The feedback loop of the Ecophon was fed into a STG Sea Devils low pass filter whose resonance and cutoff were modulated by multed clocks from the LFO which had been slewed by an SSF Positronic Transient Gate. The Sea Devils filter was then fed into the Thonk Spring Reverb (in a proper homage to the Putney) and out. This created much of the upper frequencies in this work.  The same signal path from the E350 was also sent to a Toppobrillo Sport-Modulator for a bit of sample and hold. The XY output of the E350 went to the top channel, while the Z output went to the bottom channel. The two CV inputs of the sport modulator took clock from multed LFO signals and the comparator output of the unit was used to feed the E440 low pass filter. The CV inputs of the the E440 were thrummed by multed LFO clock slewed through the other side of the PTG. This chain outputted the fairly steady bassline in the track.

Thirteenth Manifestation for Boyd Nutting (13:26:26:52 Kabbalistic Clock Winding on 12/13/14)

A third recording of my bowl. This time using the wooden tool to scrape up sounds using a circular motion.

Scraping Harmonics (Contact Microphone Test)

Here is a recording, warts and all, of a walk my dog Blixa and I took an hour ago. It was sunny and one degree fahrenheit while we walked. I experimented mounting my microphones to the side of my glasses using small binder clips. This is my first attempt trying to fake a binaural technique. There are several times you can hear me cough, adjust zippers and velcro, and breathe heavily as I walk and adjust. Blixa is noticeable too. You can hear our wind chimes on the front porch as we exit the house. Then our neighbor's dog Jade barks hello as we walk by. Soon you can hear the thrum of the generators by the dam. Eventually you can hear the flowing St. Joseph river and a variety of birds. This recording features zero gain from the recorder and the only processing afterwards is the fade out.

Check out the beautiful composition that the collective (PLATO & the Western Tradition) made with this, and several other recent field recordings: https://soundcloud.com/plato-3/plato-no-3220-walking-on-water

Take Me to the River (From the House Mix)

Update: 05/13/17 replaced MP3 with full WAV file: A walk from my hotel La Casona to the Rio Marañón in Iquitos Peru. I don't normally share in MP3 format, but the upload speeds here in Peru make it a necessity.

Walk to Rio Marañón

For a video work featuring a processed version of this recording please visit: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uyPFlBOxoA

Recorded at dusk on Sunday April 12th in the first bend of the river back towards town just to the West of downtown San Roque: http://goo.gl/elJlHU

The right hydrophone was in about 2 feet of water where the water was really flowing from heavy rains on Saturday and Sunday. The left hydrophone was a few feet away from the right, closer to the shore, in a little pool about 8 inches deep.

Rio Cumbaza

Sold Out

Sprott

Working with Martin Howse's TOAD circuit for this as the description of "resonant, clanging and metallic sounds" made me think of bells. By virtue of patching it with other ERD modules to allow chaos a more firm grip on the proceedings, I imagined the resultant sputtering to be in some sort of alignment for the deconstruction of a peel o' bell.

"TOAD can also model a mass-spring-damper system, or series of damped oscillations, which also can be used as a state variable filter.

Here the equation is: x’’=1/m(-(Dx’ + sx) with m as mass, D as damping coefficient and s as springiness. This is a simple equation to begin with, and can produce resonant, clanging and metallic sounds.

x represents the vertical displacement of the spring, x’ is the first derivative of x (which would be speed) and x’’ is the second derivative (which would be acceleration). We patch the equation by feeding the lower derivatives (x’ and x) produced by the first two integrators into the collector. Paying attention to norms, this can be seen in the next diagram. We can use the first multiplier pair as VCA for our input"

Disquiet Junto Project 0682: Unring a Bell
The Assignment: What if you could?

There is just one step to this project. The idea that one cannot “unring a bell” is a fairly common saying, at least in English. But what if you could? What might it sound like? And what use might the unrung bell serve in the making of music. Please record a track in which you try to unring a bell.

More on the 682nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Unring a Bell — The Assignment: What if you could? — at https://disquiet.com/0682/


Unring a Bell disquiet0682

Ipsative Factorum

Resonant/reverberant space is something I've thought about a lot since high school, but I never have dragged mics and equipment into a concrete stairwell or washroom before today.

I work at Alfred University in New York and our division of Expanded Media in the School of Art & Design has a four story stairwell which feeds the back of house to two of our galleries and the sonic/video arts studios. I set out four Tascam DR-100 field recorders and captured the sound of my wallet being dropped from the highest point to the lowest. In the accompanying artwork you can see two pictures of this stairwell (one from the bottom looking up [the bottom left picture], and one from the top looking down [the top right picture]). My calves always tighten up a bit at the top.

For the less reverberant space, I chose an old storage closet we're in the midst of transforming into a vocal/studio booth. It has rubberized floors, and a much lower drop-ceiling. I placed the quartet of recorders in the corners of the room, and then dropped my wallet from a much shorter height to the floor. You can see two images from this room set up in the other half of the cover art.

All of this for less than five seconds of audio total. In the first two seconds you'll hear the initial hit of the wallet, followed by a second quieter hit after it bounced in the concrete stairwell. At four seconds you hear the other room with a much more muted single drop (which to my ears sounds a bit like a champagne cork popping, but I've had champagne maybe twice in my life so I probably don't really know what that sounds like.)

More on the 683rd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Space Shot — The Assignment: Combine reverberant and non-reverberant — at https://disquiet.com/0683/

Space Shot disquiet0683

MeAndOr

Pentserdrone

Minimopped

And it Dropped

Darkening

Droisened

Afore Sound

Crosstalked

Eh, Deal

Known-un

Gurgle

Smollone

Introductory Ritual

A recording of wind moving the tall, brittle grasses which occupy the dividing line between the sandy shore and the beginning of dune elevation in Warren Dunes State Park. It was a blustery day with constant wind rustling the stalks. I was able to wedge the two contact microphones at the base of two clumps and they held them, almost like a clothes pin, while the wind whipped the tops. I was surprised how sharp and pointy the drier stems were as they jabbed me while I got the microphones in place.

Marram Grass

I'm bummed that I won't be in town for this year's MIMF (Michiana Improvisational Music Festival) so I decided to create some sounds that might be useful to them in my absence. Have fun!

I recently aquired a Verbos Dual Four Pole Filter (which traces its design to the Buchla 291) and was eager to explore the new tonalities it will open in my case. All sounds from the DPO and filtered by the heavily modulated Four Pole.

llDiorll.Hban (A Filter Essay for MIMF 2015)

A drone for five square waves and resonant 24 dB filter.

How Going Over Niagara Works

During the Peace Walk on Sunday, June 7, 2020, all who gathered took a knee in front of the Berrien Springs High School while the walk’s student organizers read out a list of names of black lives taken through brutality and murder by police and vigilantes . After each name was read, the crowd of over 1,000 people responded with cries of "I can't breathe!" When the students reached George Floyd's name on the list and read it out, again the gathered people cried out "I can't breathe" and then fell silent for eight minutes and forty-six seconds—the length of time that Derek Chauvin kept his knee pressed to the neck of George Floyd while murdering him. During this silence, the sound of an arial drone could be heard buzzing overhead, along with the distant hum of vehicles on the village’s streets. 

Two days ago, PLATO & the Western Tradition (who have been creating as a Postmodern Improvisation Ensemble for more than 30 years), raised their creative voices in search of justice and equality by posting this original track:

https://soundcloud.com/plato-3/plato-no-7336-against-brutality

In this contribution to “Weaving Indra’s Net” I have explored a new node through the addition of a field recording I gathered during the Peace Walk. In listening to this new strand you can hear the calling out of each name, but miss the real-time immediate response of “I can’t breathe”. The first time you hear the full call and response of a name and “I can’t breathe” comes after the reading of George Floyd’s name. This is immediately followed by the 8:46 section of amplified ambient silence, where in the first moments you can just make out a voice commenting that “someone has a drone.” Gradually PLATO’s meditation rejoins this amplified silence. After the 8:46 portion, an electronically re-coded version of the crowd’s responses are heard one after another in trio form to conclude the piece. The left channel is sped up by 13 percent and the right channel is slowed by 13 percent, while the middle channel plays out in real time at exactly the pace of the unified crowd responding.

————————————
Please seek out organizations committed to demanding justice for All and support them with your action and donations. There are many possibilities for this including:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd

https://www.communityjusticeexchange.org/nbfn-directory

https://www.naacpldf.org
————————————
 
This recording includes material from PLATO & The Western Tradition, No. 7336, ‘Against Brutality.’

If you would like to participate in the “Weaving Indra’s Net” project, please see below:

PLATO & The Western Tradition invites others in the Electronic Music Community to participate in the creation of an on-line compilation called “Weaving Indra’s Net.” Here are the “rules”:

1. Download from @plato-3 any of the improvisations by PLATO & The Western Tradition that capture your attention.
2. Use some or all of what you download as a part of your own music making.
3. Post your piece to SoundCloud, and post the SoundCloud link on Plato’s FaceBook page: www.facebook.com/PLATOandTheWesternTradition
4. Please comply with our Creative Commons attribution requirement (see creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) by including in your description of your piece this language: “Includes material from PLATO & The Western Tradition, No. 2811, ‘Limitless Geometries’”. (You should substitute the number and title of the piece that you are using.)
5. PLATO will organize and maintain the compilation as a playlist titled “Weaving Indra’s Net” on the PLATO SoundCloud site.

Please post any questions or comments on the FaceBook page listed above.

PLATO No. 7336 Against Brutality (I Can't Breathe Version)

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!

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