Name: Counting Heartbeats (Disquiet 0719) by Alex Brightlight in Disquiet Junto Project 0719: Riding on the Metronome
Duration: 2 min 45 s
Description: More on the 719th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Riding on the Metronome — The Assignment: Play with and against a steady beat — at https://disquiet.com/0719/.

Disquiet Junto Project 0719: Riding on the Metronome
The Assignment: Play with and against a steady beat.

Step 1: Locate a metronome and set it to play at a speed of your choice. Recommended: 70 bpm.

Step 2: Practice playing with, and against, and entirely apart from the beat.

Step 3: Record a piece of music in which you start off playing with the beat, and then veer away from it, and then are drawn back to it, and then veer away, around and again. End the piece while playing apart from the beat, not in sync with it.

Deadline: Monday, October 13, 2025, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) wherever you are.

Details: disquiet.com/0719

Disquiet Junto Project 0719: Riding on the Metronome

Mondriaan

https://www.nts.live/shows/guests/episodes/bjork-12th-january-2018

Björk 120118

Special Thanks to @marcus_fischer for sharing the beautiful samples used in this track.
More on this 600th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Reaching Out (The Assignment: This is a shared sample project. Rework a set of seven WAV files provided by Marcus Fischer), at: https://disquiet.com/0600/

About the Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0600-reaching-out/

This project’s cover image is a detail of a photo by Marcus Fischer.

Dandelion's Flight (disquiet0600)

More on the 700th weekly Disquiet Junto project, View Frame — The Assignment: Share the view and some sounds inspired by the view — at https://disquiet.com/0700/

SONG 98 - Disquiet0700 - View Frame

This was my contribution for Disquiet Junto Project 0704: Right on Cumulus. The Assignment: Compose 8-bit music inspired by a Cory Arcangel / Super Mario video.

Here’s a copy of my post on the Disquiet Junto 0704 discussion thread on Lines:

Recorded a simple repetitive melody using a Casio VL-1 into Ableton Live. Took several tries since I’m not a very good keyboard player and it’s really easy to mess up on the tiny keys. Added reverb with Valhalla Supermassive using the “Happy Little Clouds” preset. This was fun, thanks!

More on the 704th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Right on Cumulus — The Assignment: Compose 8-bit music inspired by a Cory Arcangel / Super Mario video — at https://disquiet.com/0704/

Just A Few Casiotone Clouds [disquiet0704]

An electronic composition, sounds from various sources.

More on the 718th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Planet Jam It — The Assignment: Record the sound of an advanced alien civilization — at https://disquiet.com/0718/.

Exoplanetary Noise Soup (disquiet0718)

sound art for disquiet0718.

More on the 718th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Planet Jam It — The Assignment: Record the sound of an advanced alien civilization — at https://disquiet.com/0718/.

artificial planet (disquiet0718)

While the far-flung Asarian homeworld is the first inhabited system that we've discovered, this is not our first time encountering the intelligent cloud beings of Asar. We've learned that Asarian explorers visited our earth thousands of years ago, touching down somewhere in the Nile river valley. When the gas giants finally departed, the Pharaoh whose hospitality they had enjoyed bestowed two gifts on her alien visitors. The first was a scroll with plans they could use to build their own pyramids back home. But the most remarkable gift was a papyrus describing a peculiar set of frequencies that, when resonated in certain sequences, could reveal spiritual and mathematical truths. We believe the audio captured by our surface drone may be a sacred performance of this ancient harmonic "spell".

This one was a lot of fun to put together! It gave me a great excuse to experiment with microtonal composition, and learn how to configure custom tunings in Logic. I chose the Maqam scale, a traditional scale in Arabic music believed to have originated in ancient Egypt. The scale consists of two "half-flats": in this case, A, B half-flat, C, D, E half-flat, F, G, and A. The main melodic line is typical for the scale, arcing from root to  octave and then descending again. The percussion was inspired by reading about Wahda w-Nuss rhythms. 

More on the 718th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Planet Jam It — The Assignment: Record the sound of an advanced alien civilization — at https://disquiet.com/0718/.

The Asar Sequence (disquiet0718)

Track created for the Disquiet(0718) Challenge. Four Tracks from a single patch in VCV Rack.


More on the 718th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Planet Jam It — The Assignment: Record the sound of an advanced alien civilization — at https://disquiet.com/0718/.


D718 Disquiet(0718)

What's the difference between 85bpm and 84bpm? I think you'll agree, that 1bpm makes all the difference! 🤯 Enjoy! 😁

For the eagle-eared among you, you'll notice the music is based on the Dali project which you can see on the halF unusuaL YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/1C3-wesgtec

More on the 719th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Riding on the Metronome — The Assignment: Play with and against a steady beat — at https://disquiet.com/0719/

more halF unusuaL

halF metronomE [disquiet0719]

Recorded, edited, mixed & mastered on 09 Oct 2025 by Jim Lemanowicz at Blissville Electro-Magnetic Laboratories of Massapequa, USA.

Synths, effects

Photography/Art - Jim Lemanowicz, 04 Oct 2025, Marjorie Post Park, Massapequa, NY, USA

Music & art © 2025 Jim Lemanowicz

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This original version of “Obey Your Mistress Bonnie” was submitted as part of Disquiet Junto Project 0719: Riding on the Metronome. The Assignment: Play with and against a steady beat.

More on the Disquiet Junto at: disquiet.com/junto/

More on the 719th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Riding on the Metronome — The Assignment: Play with and against a steady beat — at https://disquiet.com/0719/

Discussion - https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0717-generation-gambit/

Patreon & Soundcloud - blisterpop
YouTube - Jimmy Lem
TikTok - jimmlem
Bluesky - jimmylem.bsky.social

Obey Your Mistress Bonnie  (disquiet0719)

A contrapuntal composition created using Pure Data with alternating sections of regular (120 bpm) and irregular or free rhythms.

More on the 719th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Riding on the Metronome — The Assignment: Play with and against a steady beat — at https://disquiet.com/0719/.

Breaking Free (disquiet0719)

sound art for disquiet0719.

More on the 719th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Riding on the Metronome — The Assignment: Play with and against a steady beat — at https://disquiet.com/0719/.

our cups overflow with light (disquiet0719)

Brut quartet: Metronome, Me, Me and a couple of comments from a 3-string boxy dulcimer.

More on the 719th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Riding on the Metronome — The Assignment: Play with and against a steady beat — at https://disquiet.com/0719/.

disquiet0719 taktell tak tak

More on the 719th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Riding on the Metronome — The Assignment: Play with and against a steady beat — at https://disquiet.com/0719/.

Counting Heartbeats (Disquiet 0719)

a satellite, an outpost, an instrument in synchronous rotation with the earth. a watcher, a traveler, an extraterrestrial deity employed by hidden forces. mother culture brought from the skies. messages sent and received by way of interplanetary reverberations. all an attempt to please the celestial deities of weather and harvest with musical charms.  

performed on a rainy day under a gold gilded sky light at Better; For Living in San Francisco.

hollow moon rings like bell

My 33 1/3 series book about the Aphex Twin album <i>Selected Ambient Works Volume II</i> was published in 2014. The book was one of the top 5 bestselling titles for the calendar year, and in 2015 was ranked by Pitchfork as one of the "33 best" of the 100-plus books in the 33 1/3 series. It has subsequently been translated into Japanese (2019) and Spanish (2018)

Since 2012 I have moderated the Disquiet Junto group, which began on SoundCloud. More at disquiet.com/junto. 

I've written for Nature, Pitchfork, The Wire, Down Beat, Boing Boing, NewMusicBox, Red Bull Music Academy, Art Practical, the website of The Atlantic, and many other publications. 

I've exhibited sound art at galleries in Los Angeles (Crewest), Manhattan (apex art), and Dubai (DUTAC), and I had a audio-visual installation at the San Jose Museum of Art as part of its 45th anniversary.

And since 1996 I've run the website Disquiet.com about the intersection of sound, art, and technology.

Counting Heartbeats (Disquiet 0719)

Alex Brightlight

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