More on this 188th Disquiet Junto project (“Take a provided track and make it more complex”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/08/06/disquiet0188-complexcomplex/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

Image associated with this project from the notes that accompany the album Complexification (Entr’acte), by Guy Birkin and Sun Hammer, and on which project is based.

More on Complexification:

http://entracte.co.uk/projects/guy-birkin–sun-hammer-e187/

Disquiet Junto Project 0188: Complex Complex

for me complexity is a conceptual endeavour, it's more about the process than the outcome. at the moment, i see complexity as an integration of disparate elements: subjective-objective, creative-analytical, individual-communal, present-past etc. i'm aware that every piece of music i do follows on from another, they are related to each other in some (small?) way. working intuitively allows this to come out i think, but in addition i always combine conscious conceptual elements from previous efforts - my hope is that my soundcloud timeline provides a natural progression track to track. 

i've been working a lot with samples on my last few tracks, so i didn't add anything else. i just went through and isolated small sounds i liked then stretched them and blended in over the course of track (like in sleeping church) but here i was more interested in getting a balance between texture and frequency. i've been working with dronefx on my mixcloud pieces so i used that to generate some note progressions and changed the pitch of the low end sounds. i wanted to make an ambient piece that gradually develops with more texture (again like in all my recent pieces) and i used the concepts of the last two disquiet projects to complement this: i recorded the piece to tape as in summer:impermanence (& fortuitously coz it was the same decrepit old tape a little snippet of that track comes through right at the start!) then i faded between the tape version into the 'clean' version as the track progresses (like in last weeks project).

i wanted the finished piece to sound completely different to the source but still retain something of the spirit of it. i tested this by fading in and out my favourite section of the original  right at the end and i think it works pretty well.
₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

Disquiet Junto Project 0188: Complex Complex
Take a provided track and make it more complex.

This project was proposed by Guy Birkin and Jay Bodley (aka Sun Hammer). It extends the thinking that went into their album Complexification, released by the record label Entr’acte. (http://entracte.co.uk/projects/guy-birkin–sun-hammer-e187/)

These are the steps for this project:

Step 1: Pick one of the two tracks at the following URL: https://goo.gl/tN4Oit.

Step 2: Modify that one track in any way, using as much or little of it as you like, to make a new piece that sounds “more complex” than the original. You may add other sounds. (Note: You are free to use any definition or measure of “complexity.” You should be sure to describe your process and how it “increases” the complexity of the original track.)

Background: The album Complexification by Guy Birkin and Sun Hammer “explores musical complexity through a collaborative process based on a set of rules.” Those rules involved the two musicians swapping successive copies of a track in order to make it progressively more “complex.” For their purposes, they defined “complexity” as follows: “In this project, complexity is understood in terms of the quantity and variety of musical elements or patterns. The result is two parallel threads of music, each representing a progression of increasing complexity.”

More on this 188th Disquiet Junto project (“Take a provided track and make it more complex”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/08/06/disquiet0188-complexcomplex/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/


hidden complex (summer mix) (disquiet0188)

This weeks task was to take a track and make it more complex...

Complexity can be approached from various angles, I myself, not being a virtuoso musician, use blunt tactics. 
Previewing the material, I chose to sample (Complexification0010SH by Sun Hammer), The original material was sliced into sections and played back via pads in Ableton, triggering, bouncing and combining the material. After creating a rough sequence of events and patterns by hand and unquantized, I then added some sound design elements to add depth and texture to the sound.  Chains of effects where layered to try and add width.  I'm relying on a mixture of delays and edits to create transitions between the past and I just tried to make an interesting sound collage.

Oh yeah, and it was fun!

More on this 188th Disquiet Junto project (“Take a provided track and make it more complex”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/08/06/disquiet0188-complexcomplex/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

Image associated with this project from the notes that accompany the album Complexification (Entr’acte), by Guy Birkin and Sun Hammer, and on which project is based.

More on Complexification:

http://entracte.co.uk/projects/guy-birkin–sun-hammer-e187/


Consumer Complex  - Disquiet0188 - Complexcomplex

Lately, I've been enjoying taking a single sample of something and building a whole new track around it. 

I did that mostly with this, a short sample from the 2nd mp3 and then used a bunch of PD samples from freesound along with some VST instruments in Ableton Live - throwing everything but the kitchen sink.. and yet somehow it still sounds unfinished. Will revisit this track in the future.

Started and completed in one session in about 2 hours.

***

Disquiet Junto Project 0188: Complex Complex
Take a provided track and make it more complex.

This project was proposed by Guy Birkin and Jay Bodley (aka Sun Hammer). It extends the thinking that went into their album Complexification, released by the record label Entr’acte. (There’s more background on album below the project description.)

These are the steps for this project:

Step 1: Pick one of the two tracks at the following URL: https://goo.gl/tN4Oit.

Step 2: Modify that one track in any way, using as much or little of it as you like, to make a new piece that sounds “more complex” than the original. You may add other sounds. (Note: You are free to use any definition or measure of “complexity.” You should be sure to describe your process and how it “increases” the complexity of the original track.)

Step 3: Upload your completed track to the Disquiet Junto group on SoundCloud.

Step 4: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Deadline: This assignment was made in the afternoon, California time, on Thursday, August 6, 2015, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, August 10, 2015.

Background: The album Complexification by Guy Birkin and Sun Hammer “explores musical complexity through a collaborative process based on a set of rules.” Those rules involved the two musicians swapping successive copies of a track in order to make it progressively more “complex.” For their purposes, they defined “complexity” as follows: “In this project, complexity is understood in terms of the quantity and variety of musical elements or patterns. The result is two parallel threads of music, each representing a progression of increasing complexity.”

More on this 188th Disquiet Junto project (“Take a provided track and make it more complex”) at:
http://disquiet.com/2015/08/06/disquiet0188-complexcomplex/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:
http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:
http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:
http://disquiet.com/forums/

More on Complexification:
http://entracte.co.uk/projects/guy-birkin–sun-hammer-e187/

Lee Rosevere - Test Pattern [disquiet0188-complexcomplex]

More on this 188th Disquiet Junto project (“Take a provided track and make it more complex”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/08/06/disquiet0188-complexcomplex/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

Image associated with this project from the notes that accompany the album Complexification (Entr’acte), by Guy Birkin and Sun Hammer, and on which project is based.

More on Complexification:

http://entracte.co.uk/projects/guy-birkin–sun-hammer-e187/

i took the original sample and copied it 8 times as different layers which I then placed into garageband, with each layer being placed slightly to the left of the previous one. this created a complexity in the different spacing of notes and sounds.
I then deleted the beginning 20 secs of the second track (and deleted an extra 20 secs from each of the following tracks so that they all came in slowly to add complexity over an expanded period. i then added 1 effect to each of the layers
layer 1 no effects
layer 2 pitch shift down 
layer 3 slow panning tremolo
layer 4 vocal transformer (pitch down and fierce degradation)
layer 5 pitch shift down
layer 6 vocal trans. (pitch -15 slight degradation)
layer 7 delay (fast sweep)
layer 8 pitch shift down (-12) + 6 second reverb.


Strudel (disquiet 0188 - Complexcomplex)

Disquiet Junto Project 0188: Complex Complex
Take a provided track and make it more complex.

- My intention was to have increasing complexity acting upon increasing complexity.
- Did this on my iPad. I used the 2nd track, but really used both. 
- The Sparkle app was used to apply the temporal characteristics of the 1st track onto the 2nd track, so the 2nd track was played with the sound characteristics of the 1st track.
- I took 3 minutes of each track. The 1st track was played at half speed and the 2nd a normal speed. So for this six minute piece the 2nd track (3 minute segment) played twice.
- For the first three minutes it is just the increasing complexity of the 1st track acting on the 2nd track, which itself is increasing in complexity.
- At three minutes delay was added, and then gradually increased.
- Around the last minute I manipulated the filter for additional complexity.
- Recorded the piece in Sparkle, then applied EQ and Compression in Auria.

More on this 188th Disquiet Junto project (“Take a provided track and make it more complex”) at:
http://disquiet.com/2015/08/06/disquiet0188-complexcomplex/

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

Join the Disquiet Junto at:
http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:
http://disquiet.com/forums/

Image associated with this project from the notes that accompany the album Complexification (Entr’acte), by Guy Birkin and Sun Hammer, and on which project is based.

More on Complexification:
http://entracte.co.uk/projects/guy-birkin–sun-hammer-e187/

Transferred Complexity [disquiet0188-complexcomplex]

 I used Reichatron to superpose 4 Complexification010SH at slightly different and varying speed, which makes it more complex for me. THen I ran the result at twice the speed: not to complexify but to keep it under 3 minutes ;-)

More on this 188th Disquiet Junto project (“Take a provided track and make it more complex”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/08/06/disquiet0188-complexcomplex/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

Image associated with this project from the notes that accompany the album Complexification (Entr’acte), by Guy Birkin and Sun Hammer, and on which project is based.

More on Complexification:

http://entracte.co.uk/projects/guy-birkin–sun-hammer-e187/



CoaT - Reichification (disquiet0188 - Complexcomplex)

This week's Junto involves making music for meditation.  A bell is required to toll a minute into, and a minute before the end of, the music. 

Medidation often involves focusing your attention on something that is organically changing - so I wanted my music to give some options for this, such as the repeated piano notes, or the short looping elements that gradually evolve, or the timbral and spacial changes of the reverb cloud.  I wanted the piece to gradually 'defocus' and then regain an altered focus towards the end, returning to the piano notes that it started with. Often what is sought in meditation is not 'The Answer', but a different way of questioning ourselves / our situations - so I tried to evoke that concept with a slightly questioning manner in the coda rather than having a more usual stable harmonic resolution.   With these ideas in mind, I then improvised the music using several tools to create a series of mental spaces to move through.

More on this 323rd weekly Disquiet Junto project (Music for Meditation: Record a piece of music suited to meditation) at:

https://disquiet.com/0323/2

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/1

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0323-music-for-meditation/

There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.

The image associated with this project is by Chris Corrigan and is used thanks to a Creative Commons license:

https://flic.kr/p/4XtNyA

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/

(Dis)Quiet Meditation  (Disquiet0323)

Loops of different lengths laid over each other.

Meditation - disquiet0323

“Write a poem imagining your conception,” recommends Andrei Codrescu in an essay titled Exercises for Poets. “Use the breath measures that might have been those of your conceivers ... [then] write a poem about your birth. The poem itself should be concerned mainly with the journey from the moist darkness of the womb through the birth canal into the light of the world.”

Suss Müsik declines to envision such grotesque imagery, thank you very much. That being said, effective meditation is understood to be something like returning to a womblike state. One concentrates solely on breathing in order to achieve a deep form of relaxation, helping to clear the mind from the cognitive detritus that collects day-to-day.

For this lengthy piece, Suss Müsik began with a simple organ riff that was played through a Moog MF-102 ring modulator. The sound of breathing was sampled and distressed to match the timbre of metallic percussion. You might hear voices and flutes in there as well. A chime enters at the 1-minute mark and repeats just before the final ascension back to consciousness.

The piece is titled Lůno, named after the Czech word for “womb” and dedicated to little Zachary Isaac (who was born this week to good friends of Suss Müsik). The image is magnified cotton.

More on this 323rd weekly Disquiet Junto project (Music for Meditation: Record a piece of music suited to meditation) at:

https://disquiet.com/0323/2

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/1

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0323-music-for-meditation/

There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.

Lůno [Disquiet0323]

I initially was going to only use singing bowls as the primary sound and add some ambient birdsong until I accidentally came across the recording of the Montezuma Orependola, which completely inverted the idea. I assembled the field recordings and treated some of them with Reaktor's "Spinning Through Space" effect, but only between the starting and ending chime. I'm not sure if this is everyone's cup of meditative tea, but it's definitely mine.

Recordings:
 - Scimitar Babbler: https://freesound.org/people/genghis%20attenborough/sounds/27334/
 - Laughingthrush: https://freesound.org/people/genghis%20attenborough/sounds/27434/
 - Montezuma Orependola: https://freesound.org/people/tim.kahn/sounds/184463/
 - Singing bowl 2:00 and 9:00 marker: https://freesound.org/people/Cpt_Asteroid/sounds/138671/

Soundcloud

Scimitar Babbler, Laughingthrush, Montezuma Orependola [disquiet0323]

Disquiet Junto Project 0323 - Music for Meditation
Record a piece of music suited to meditation.

This is inspired by and dedicated to my wife, Mairead. 

I hope to bring you peace and inner calm as you meditate, my love.
Namaste.

Maireaditation (disquiet0323)

“The most indubitable respect in which ideas have helped mankind is numbers,” wrote the philosopher and logician Bertrand Russell. “We have become, in certain respects, progressively less like animals [in] that forethought more and more dominates [our] impulses.”

Russell believed that all human knowledge was, at most, a best guess based upon knowledge attained to that point. In his 1903 book The Principles of Mathematics, Russell argued that mathematical concepts were immune from doubt because they were constructed entirely of logic. An algorithm is really nothing more than a process — a set of rules to be followed in order to achieve a result.

The logic breaks down because life and language are slippery, inexact and subjective. A famous example of Russell’s Paradox is the barber who shaves everybody in town except those who shave themselves. Who shaves the barber? If he shaves himself, then he doesn’t shave himself; if he doesn’t, then he does. Groucho Marx once remarked that he would never join a club who would have him as a member. Suss Müsik doesn’t really make music, nor do we do much sussing. Paradoxes abound.

For this piece, a simple four-note phrase was played on piano utilizing a scale of 8 notes. The 2431 algorithm was applied not only to note sequences, but also to sustain levels and attack times. This created a weird phasing effect during transitions. The algorithm was also applied to a “scale” of wordless vocal recordings by Suss Müsik friend, collaborator and mentor Wm. Wolfgang Allen. Expect more such collaborations from this team in the very near future. 

The piece is titled Russellian. Many thanks to NorthWoods for contributing this inventive and interesting assignment to the Disquiet Junto community.

More on this 377th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Algorithms Assemble / The Assignment: Have fun with rules applied to scales, in coordination with the Algorithmic Art Assembly — at:
https://disquiet.com/0377/ 2

The project is lightly adapted from one proposed by Junto member Charlie Kramer (aka NorthWoods).

More on the Disquiet Junto at:
https://disquiet.com/junto/ 1

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0377-algorithms-assemble/ 2

There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.

Russellian [Disquiet0377]

vcv rack      release date: 24_ 03_ 2019     
More on this 377th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Algorithms Assemble / The Assignment: Have fun with rules applied to scales, in coordination with the Algorithmic Art Assembly — at:

https://disquiet.com/0377/ 2

The project is lightly adapted from one proposed by Junto member Charlie Kramer (aka NorthWoods).

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/ 1

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0377-algorithms-assemble/ 2

There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.

Algorithms (disquiet0377)

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.

CoaT - Reichification (disquiet0188 - Complexcomplex)

Conjecture of a Time

Recent comments

337is (three three seven is)

337is (three three seven is)

aScytheThroughNettles

Related tracks