Name: Something Lurks (3rd) by Timo Carlier
Duration: 7 min 26 s
Description: Experimental track using field recording of Revox reel-to-reel tape spinning out of control, and some analogue synth sounds created on the Nyborg-12.

Originally composed for surround (5 speakers, 1 subwoofer)at Spoutnik, Geneva, 17 december 2021, this version is a stereophonic mid/side adaptation for headphones / good speakers listening

It's a sequel to my master's final work, "Faire (m)onde" which was presented on 8 speakers hanged at 5m of height, generatively playing a collection of sounds I had made over the past 3 years with modular synthesis. A ladder was available to listen more closely to the speakers.

Faire (m)onde

Experimental track using field recording of Revox reel-to-reel tape spinning out of control, and some analogue synth sounds created on the Nyborg-12.

Something Lurks (3rd)

Father Yog-Astley by Smile Puppy

In the fall of 2001, I started creating pieces using Fruity Loops, like many people were doing.  When I was working on this Junto in Ableton Live, using mostly the FM synth Operator, it reminded me of that time.  

Recorded, mixed & mastered 18/19/20 Jun 2022 by Jim Lemanowicz at Blissville Electro-Magnetic Laboratories of Massapequa.

©2022 Jim Lemanowicz

Process notes
I decided to encode the names of cult leader “Father Yod” and YouTube legend “Rick Astley” via numerological nonsense via https://www.boxentriq.com/code-breaking/letters-to-numbers (Letters To Numbers (online tool) | Boxentriq). Of course, I misspelled “Yod” as “Yog,” so now that’s part of the code too. Let’s call that “Jimcryption.” This was a working title as well.

25 15 7 1 19 20 12 5 25

Happy accidents
The title is accidentally a nod towards the decay of the analog/physical world and how the decay of the digital world equals data corruption, or something like that. Much of the work was done on Father’s Day, so that was kind of a happy accident. Also, “Yog-Astley” includes the word “ghastly,” so another nice accident.

Then divided by 7 and kept both the quotient and the remainder
quotients  - 3 2 1 0 2 2 1 0 3 
remainders - 4 1 0 1 5 6 5 5 4

Then used a purported East Asian notation, Jianpu. Zeros = rests.  I wasn't altogether too careful here but I liked the results, so perhaps more Jimcryption/Jimcorruption.  

Solfège:  do  ré  mi  fa  sol la  si
Notation: 1    2   3     4   5   6   7

I am gonna go with F# for this
F♯ G♯ A♯ B C♯ D♯ E♯
1    2    3   4  5   6   7 

So my tone rows are 
A♯ G♯ F♯ R   G♯ G♯ F♯  R   A♯
B   F♯  R   F♯ A♯ D♯ A♯ A♯ B

I have 9 sets of two, so I went with 9/8, BPM of 86 with a "bridge" of half-time 43.  Ended up varying the tempo throughout the piece.

Bottom row (by 3s)
- accented the first beat of each dotted crochet 123 456 789.  
- used a lower octave
- tonal with a percussive quality - FM marimba (Ableton Operator, "Metallic Noise Pluck" preset variation)
- 8th notes, no swing
- automated a few parameters in Operator

Top row (by 4s)
- accented the first beat of each of these divisions 1234 5671 2345 6712 3456 7123 4567 1234 etc.  
- used a higher octave
- tonal, FM pluck sounds (Ableton Operator, "Plastic Marimba" preset variation)
- 8th notes, no swing
- automated a few parameters in Operator

"Bridge"
Touched on some "reverse-steganography."  Processed 1 photo of Rick and 2 of Yod and 13 wives and ran them through CoagulaLight1666.  This produced three short grainy sound samples that were then stretched to varying degrees using Live's Tones or Texture modes.  I then sliced each raw Coag track to MIDI and superimposed the marimba MIDI into each, leaving them roughly in time with the marimba part.  After that I added a Nectar plug-in to each and pitch corrected to F# maj.  Finally, the entire Coag group was passed through an Ableton Delay preset, "Full Range Spatial."  

Decided to grab some 9/8 drum ideas from a book I have - "3,5,7,9 Rock!" by Don Reid - and add these in to create sections.  Used Live's "Jazz Kit" drum rack, tweaked a bit.  I tried to accent similar to the marimba pattern and lower the probability of playing the hits off-accent (23 56 89).

Continuing with previous experiments with iZotope's mixing and mastering tools, I used Neutron Equalizer, Neutron Sculptor & Neutron Visual mixer during mixing and used Ozone 9 for mastering. Mastered it twice and chose the first attempt for this Junto.  

Artwork: Penn Station, NYC 17 Dec 2010, by Jim Lemanowicz

-------
This original version of "Father Yog-Astley" was submitted as part of ​Disquiet Junto Project 0546: Code Notes. The Assignment: Make music that includes a secret message.

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

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

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

Something Lurks (3rd)

Timo Carlier

Related tracks