Disquiet Junto Project 0717: Generation Gambit

"Oh no, another vocal prompt" was my first reaction to Disquiet Junto # 0709: Vocal Chords. Nonetheless, I committed myself to doing something cool despite being constrained to my least favorite instrument.

I quickly recorded a high repeating A -> E in time to a metronome. I then routed the audio out to my Roland VT-4 Voice Transformer, a fun little desktop device that I picked up a while back. I proceeded to record 7 additional tracks with the original vocal being processed 7 different ways. I mixed and blended and faded the resulting layers in and out to create a narrative texture. At the crescendo of this piece, there are 33 simultaneous voices harmonizing.

My technical inspiration came from 10cc's "Not In Love," which was performed live on a mixing board with 16 tape loops of the singer holding long "aaaaaaahhhhh"'s in various pitches. Godley and Creme are divine.

More on the 708th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Vocal Chords — The Assignment: Do something with layers of the sound of your voice. — at https://disquiet.com/0708/.

Use Your Inside Voice (disquiet0708)

Disquiet Junto | Ahhhhhhhhhh~ - disquiet0708

A short voice recording repeated numerous times, slightly slowed down and arranged in a canon of six layers with a touch of delay and reverb.

More on the 708th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Vocal Chords — The Assignment: Do something with layers of the sound of your voice. — at https://disquiet.com/0708/

Voiceful Canon (disquiet0708)

read more here https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0708-vocal-chords/72599

[disquiet0708] dreams and lies

m.organ (disquiet0709)



Inspired by Naviar Haiku 607:
https://www.naviarrecords.com/naviarhaiku607-winter-waterfall/

Thanks to Marco Alessi from Naviar Records for the weekly challenge!

Photo by zenbytes (Sibratsgfäll, Austria, 2021)


a rock untouched - Naviarhaiku607

More on the 714th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Remix Yourself — The Assignment: Rework your own music as if someone else had — at https://disquiet.com/0714/.

disquiet0714 - 060

N1xyn - At Home (Remix) - disquiet0714

Enjoy this with the visuals on the halF unusuaL YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/wkS2xkqAu-Y ... 

We recently unearthed a VERY rare set of tin cylinders with some of the creations from my unusually great uncle - dated 1910! I've taken the opportunity to riff on top of his proto-EDM - with sounds WAY ahead of their time! No way would they have found an audience in his lifetime ... Let's try again 😜

Family legend has it that my Great Uncle Crackleton P. Valve was not so much born as assembled! His crib rattled with loose copper coils, his lullabies were hummed through wax cylinders, and his first word was said to be a faint but distinctly glitchy “bzzzzzt” ...

By the turn of the last century, when most men were proud to own a sturdy hat, Uncle Crackleton was already soldering strange contraptions in the garden shed, where every evening the glow of red-hot valves spilled out into the hedgerows. He refused to play the piano “like a commoner,” preferring instead to hammer phonograph needles against tin cylinders until they shrieked, warbled, and sang with a peculiar beauty only he seemed to understand.

The neighbours swore they could hear his experiments late at night: a ghostly stutter of sound, like church bells melting, or a brass band tumbling downstairs. He called it Music of the Future, although others called it a dreadful racket.

It’s said he once built a mechanical echo chamber out of two bathtubs, a bicycle pump, and a dozen mismatched radio valves. When he cranked it up, it produced a looping hiccup that terrified the vicar's cats and made their milk curdle. Even so, he declared it his masterpiece.

Though none of his recordings were thought to have survived, until now (most cylinders were repurposed as makeshift candle holders), family lore insists that without him, modern glitch music would not exist. Every time a record skips, a tape warbles, or a speaker crackles, somewhere, faintly, Uncle Crackleton P. Valve is smiling.

More on the 717th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Generation Gambit — The Assignment: Layer two eras of recordings, one of them imaginary — at https://disquiet.com/0717/

visuals (YouTube)

halF 1910 [disquiet0717]

Recorded, edited, mixed & mastered on 25 Sep 2025 by Jim Lemanowicz at Blissville Electro-Magnetic Laboratories of Massapequa, USA.

Synths, effects

Photography/Art - Jim Lemanowicz, 30 Oct 2015, Central Park, Manhattan, NYC, USA

Music & art © 2015, 2025 Jim Lemanowicz

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This original version of “You Dance Like A Paranoid Old Goat” was submitted as part of Disquiet Junto Project 0717: Generation Gambit. The Assignment: Layer two eras of recordings, one of them imaginary.

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

More on the 717th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Generation Gambit — The Assignment: Layer two eras of recordings, one of them imaginary — at https://disquiet.com/0717/.

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

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

You Dance Like A Paranoid Old Goat  (disquiet0717)

Ancient or ancestral dance rhythms emerging from the mists of time and combined with a modern drone. Or is it an ancient drone with modern rhythms?

More on the 717th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Generation Gambit — The Assignment: Layer two eras of recordings, one of them imaginary — at https://disquiet.com/0717/.





Ancient and Modern (disquiet0717)

This week's Disquiet Junto, number 0717, invited us to collaborate with an ancestor. I recalled my kinship with a certain pioneering electronic musician, my reclusive great aunt Carly Wendos. (Her catalog is strangely absent from most streaming services, but she was something of a sensation in classical music.)

The piece is a favorite of hers, an interpretation of Beethoven's Piano Trio #5 in D Major, Op. 70 No.1, the so-called "Ghost Movement". Aunt Carly rocks the Moogs while I supply the string section via live electric violin.

In all seriousness, this one is dedicated to my trans elder Wendy Carlos. Thank you for making a way for us. 

(Cover photo is a shot of her studio circa 1968.)

More on the 717th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Generation Gambit — The Assignment: Layer two eras of recordings, one of them imaginary — at https://disquiet.com/0717/.

Ghost Movement (with Carly Wendos) (disquiet0717)

This is my submission to this week's Disquiet Junto assignment. 

More on the 717th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Generation Gambit — The Assignment: Layer two eras of recordings, one of them imaginary — at https://disquiet.com/0717/.

Fujara [disquiet0717]

Cat's Meow [disquiet0717]

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.

Cat's Meow [disquiet0717]

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