Disquiet Junto Project 0611: Music That Listens to Itself
The Assignment: Record a piece of music that repurposes itself as it proceeds.

Background: On September 29, 2023, there is going to be an event at a place called the Berkeley Alembic, in Berkeley, California, where I’ll play recordings of music that share a specific theme, and I’ll discuss the sounds with the people who come to listen. The event is titled Music That Listens to Itself, part of the Expanded Listening series developed by Erik Davis (Techgnosis, Burning Shore). That is the theme. Part of the goal of this project is to develop tracks for potential inclusion in the event, and to pursue ideas related to the event’s theme.

Step 1: The underlying idea is to produce music that, so to speak, listens to itself. This would be music that employs techniques to revisit itself — repurposes itself — as it proceeds. From reverb to echo to tape loops to granular synthesis to accessing a buffer, various techniques serve such a compositional and performance purpose. Consider a means to achieve this result.

Step 2: Record a piece of music that employs the technique you focused on as a result of Step 1. Please note: for the Berkeley Alembic event, I’ll be sharing music that is particularly quiet, particularly appropriate to a meditative state of mind. You don’t need to record quiet music for this project, but quiet music is what I’ll be playing at the event.

Additional details: disquiet.com 1. Tickets: eventbrite.com 3. About the venue: berkeleyalembic.org 1.

Eight Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0611” (no spaces or quotation marks) in the name of your tracks.

Step 2: If your audio-hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to also include the project tag “disquiet0611” (no spaces or quotation marks). If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to subsequent location of tracks for the creation of a project playlist.

Step 3: Upload your tracks. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your tracks.

Step 4: Post your track in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0611-music-that-listens-to-itself/

Step 5: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.

Step 6: If posting on social media, please consider using the hashtag #DisquietJunto so fellow participants are more likely to locate your communication.

Step 7: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Step 8: Also join in the discussion on the Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to marc@disquiet.com for Slack inclusion.

Note: Please post one track for this weekly Junto project. If you choose to post more than one, and do so on SoundCloud, please let me know which you’d like added to the playlist. Thanks.

Additional Details:

Length: The length is up to you. About 10 minutes maximum is best, and probably no shorter than three minutes.

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, September 18, 2023, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, September 14, 2023.

Upload: When participating in this project, 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.

Download: It is always best to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution, allowing for derivatives).

For context, when posting the track online, please be sure to include this following information:

Memory of a loss - disquiet0611

hello everyone,

in 1971, flower travellin' band released their epic album "satori". i found a reuters' news report from the same year and fed it through the excellent text-to-speech function built into microsoft edge, and then slowly added grit using audiothing's wires. i don't own a bass guitar, so i laid down the bass line with my gibson guitar and pitched shifted the recording down an octave. drums are native to ableton (64 pad rock kit). i also added some spitfire strings, four layers of live guitar, and one or two granular things. enjoy!!

- - - -

More on this 618th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Burying the Lede (The Assignment: Turn old news into new music), at: https://disquiet.com/0618/

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-0618-burying-the-lede/

[disquiet0618] burying the lede

release date:04/11/2023   
 naviarhaiku513 – a black dog

a black dog
transformed into a lantern!
the way in snow  
Author unknown, this week. According to The Penguin Book of Haiku, this poem was first published in 1765 in the pamphlet Yanagidaru I. 
Haiku di: Auto senza nome (dal libro dei pinguini di Haiku e Yanagidaru I)

La Via Nella Neve (naviarhaiku513)

This track started from a newspaper article (published in November 1973 in my home country). I processed it through a text-to-speech software and use it as a base to improvise melodies and rhythms. I then extracted elements that I liked and arranged them into the final piece.

The goal was to make the voice less audible as the track progresses. To achieve this, I used different set of effects on each sections of the track.

Original article : https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1973/11/03/entre-la-peur-et-l-espoir_2546275_1819218.html

More on this 618th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Burying the Lede (The Assignment: Turn old news into new music), at: https://disquiet.com/0618/

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-0618-burying-the-lede/

Between Fear and Hope (disquiet0618)

Disquiet Junto Project 0618: Burying the Lede
The Assignment: Turn old news into new music.

I googled for local newspapers from 1973 and found a review of a Pink Floyd concert (Dark Side Of The Moon, which is one of only a small number of CDs I still own) in Munich on Oct 15th 1973 in the daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. I used some middle part of the review, which describes the sound and talks about how Pink Floyd integrates noise in music. I used ttsmp3.com to read it in bad german. I added the speech to a ambience layer that has something of a concert atmo and of something nois-ish, both not well integrated.

The 1973 newspaper I found was this:
https://www.pulse-and-spirit.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/PF-1973-Munich.jpg - the article was written by journalist Michael Frank, who must then have been around 26 (and still wrote for the same newspaper some years ago). Today we might no longer imagine, what kind of ultra hot shit this album must have been at that time. 

--

Track image by Stability AI.

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More on this 618th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Burying the Lede (The Assignment: Turn old news into new music), at: https://disquiet.com/0618/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0618-burying-the-lede/

Die Fahrt Der Galaktischen Riesen [disquiet0618]

This track was created for the Disquiet Junto project 0618 (details see below): A 50 year old local newspaper-article was to be read, accompanied by music.
I found an article from 28th October 1973 from the "Seckenheimer Bote" (Seckenheim is 5 km away from where I live). It is available here
https://druckschriften-digital.marchivum.de/zd/periodical/zoom/510335.
The article announced a concert of Zarah Leander in Seckenheim, as part of the farewell tour of the then 66 year old Swedish singer and actress.
Zarah Leander is still known for her song "Ich weiss, es wird einmal ein Wunder geschehen" (https://soundcloud.com/zarah-leander-official/ich-weiss-es-wird-212274359) from 1942. This influenced the choice of music for this track.


More on this 618th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Burying the Lede (The Assignment: Turn old news into new music), at: Disquiet Junto Project 0618: Burying the Lede – Disquiet

About the Disquiet Junto: Disquiet Junto F.A.Q. – Disquiet 1

Subscribe to project announcements: Disquiet Junto by Marc Weidenbaum (Disquiet.com) 2

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co 4: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0618-burying-the-lede/

Zarah (Disquiet0618)

Sinny: shaker, tambourine, cowbell, samboga blocks, rattle, hamper, iKaossilator and SpaceCraft apps, synth and xylophone programming

InspectorJ: rooster sample

More on this 618th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Burying the Lede (The Assignment: Turn old news into new music), at: https://disquiet.com/0618/

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-0618-burying-the-lede/

Pumpkin Poaching (disquiet0618)

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

More on this 619th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Beat Accrual (The Assignment: Rebuild a complicated rhythm from scratch), at: https://disquiet.com/0619/

About the Disquiet Junto: Disquiet Junto F.A.Q. – Disquiet

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0619-beat-accrual/

Euclidean Dub [disquiet0619]

This piece kind of deconstructs a samba rhythm. Kind of. 

Recorded, mixed & mastered 08-10 Nov 2023 by Jim Lemanowicz at Blissville Electro-Magnetic Laboratories of Massapequa.

Synths, drum samples, effects

This original version of "I Am As Dry As A Fish" was submitted as part of Disquiet Junto Project 0619: Beat Accrual. The Assignment: Rebuild a complicated rhythm from scratch.

More on the Disquiet Junto at: disquiet.com/junto
Project discussion took place at https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0619-beat-accrual 
Artwork: Penn Station, NYC 17 Dec 2010, by Jim Lemanowicz

Look for me at patreon.com/blisterpop - patrons get my albums for free!

This track was originally released under the artist name "Smile Puppy."

Music & art - ©2010, 2023 Jim Lemanowicz

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

I Am As Dry As A Fish (disquiet0619)

I play the drums so this disquiet assignment appealed to me. 

I decided that complex for me meant complex timing. I wanted to play something in odd time signatures, and I feel like the number 23 is underrepresented in music. Here was my process:

1. I improvised a 4 bar drum beat in 23/8 time (which I really counted as 8/8, 5/8, 7/8, 3/8), and recorded it in Ableton. 

2. I experimented with a few ways to “accrue” the beat, and decided to accrue by time rather than by part.

3. In Ableton Live, I edited the beat to repeat, but only play a section before repeating. I chose Fibonacci numbers for the length. For the first repeat only 1 8th note of the 4 bar 23/8 repeat plays. Second repeat, 2 8th notes. Third repeat, 3 8th notes. Fourth repeat 5 8th notes, etc until the entire beat is revealed. It took on the feel of a breakbeat.

4. For more accrual, I copied the original 4 bar beat to another track, and used a filter slowly introduce it beneath the Fibonacci cut breakbeat. They are not aligned at first, so there is a kind of beating that takes place between the two until the last full repeat where they are completely aligned.

broke beat

Broke Beat [disquiet0619]

Just (Rework)

It's a long story.
Fature - https://tinyurl.com/bifalmmu

Just (Rework)

Binarysweets

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