the percussion reminds me of a clock, nice...

mm I somehow like that brassy sound that I call "grandmother" inside myself, so it makes another level of old times

More on this 137th Disquiet Junto project — “Produce an original piece of music that fits the genre ‘old-time electronica’″ — at:

http://disquiet.com/2014/08/14/disquiet0137-oldtimeelectronica/

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/

Photo associated with this track, of a working Babbage Engine, by Larry Johnson, courtesy of a Creative Commons license at:

https://flic.kr/p/8uw1KJ

Disquiet Junto Project 0137: Old-Time Electronica

Really vague about what electronica means but it suggests "pop" to me rather than experimental. "Old-time" brought to mind the Wendy Carlos "Switched on Bach." Disco music also came to mind. 

I used a Kaosillator with 2 patches that sounded retro to me, created 2 tracks and then aligned them in Logic and wrapped it up using a Channel EQ preset called Boombox, a word which for me conjures days of yore.


Rather goofy, was not sure if I should post it, but it is mercifully short.

***********



More on this 137th Disquiet Junto project — “Produce an original piece of music that fits the genre ‘old-time electronica’″ — at:

http://disquiet.com/2014/08/14/disquiet0137-oldtimeelectronica/

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/


Heckuva Pile  [disquiet0137-oldtimeelectronica]

This is a remix of the Edison Concert Band's recording of "Nearer, my God, to Thee" (1902). The original recording was downloaded from archive.org. I did "electronic processing" on this old-time hymn to create something impossible at the time it was created: a time-stretched version with a drone created from part of the recording as well, and a phasing effect created by slightly different stretch lengths. My hope is that this version helps people hear this hymn in a new way. (Apologies that I went over the time-limit guidelines a little.)

More on this 137th Disquiet Junto project — "Produce an original piece of music that fits the genre 'old-time electronica'" — at:

http://disquiet.com/2014/08/14/disquiet0137-oldtimeelectronica/

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/

Nearer, my God, to Thee (remix) [disquiet0137-oldtimeelectronica]

Disquiet Junto Project 0137: Old-Time Electronica

Pineal Pionears [disquiet0137-oldtimeelectronica]

For me, this means going back to composers like Louis and Bebe Barron and their 1956 magnetic tape soundtrack to “Forbidden Planet” (check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNKhju6Pryg ), as well as Morton Subotnick, Walter Carlos and all those records from the Princeton University computer music workshops that I got my hands and ears on in the 60s.

Steps taken:

In the spirit of minimalism, I worked only with 2 sine waves and a click track, both generated by Audacity. These were modified using plugins and pitch shifting, with shorter more heavily modified sections used to create a gradually changing soundscape.

(See the whole Forbidden Planet poster here: http://cdn-images.9cloud.us/476/piccit_the_forbidden_planet_poster_1296502960.jpg


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The Assignment: Produce an original piece of music that fits the genre “old-time electronica.”

All Disquiet Junto projects employ constraint as a means to stimulate creativity and productivity. Sometimes this means limiting oneself to specific source material, other times to a conceptual approach, and there’s always the additional constraint of time: the deadline is approximately four days, depending on your time zone.

For this Disquiet Junto project, the constraint is a matter of terminology. This week we’re exploring how the concept of “genre” can itself serve as a restraint, and we’ll accomplish this by pushing back at genre conventions.

The project instructions are straightforward: Record an original piece of music that you feel belongs within the genre of “old-time electronica.”

Restrictions: You can use any source material, any instrumentation, except the human voice.

More on this 137th Disquiet Junto project — “Produce an original piece of music that fits the genre ‘old-time electronica’″ — at:

http://disquiet.com/2014/08/14/disquiet0137-oldtimeelectronica/ 

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/?p=16588


Join the Disquiet Junto at:

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




Pineal Pionears [disquiet0137-oldtimeelectronica]

As a solo parent this weekend, my plans to hook up gear and produce handmade electronica haven't eventuated. So I returned to an earlier idea to work with a MIDI file and honour my introduction to electronic music as a child listening to Wendy Carlos' Switched On Bach.

This piece uses Lokomotiv, Absynth and the Minimojo Reaktor VST synths and was edited for brevity.

More on this 137th Disquiet Junto project — “Produce an original piece of music that fits the genre ‘old-time electronica’″ — at:
http://disquiet.com/2014/08/14/disquiet0137-oldtimeelectronica/

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: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Johann_Sebastian_Bach.jpg

Switched on Joy of Man's Desiring [disquiet0137-oldtimeelectronica]

My interpretation of "old time electronica" was to take a song associated with the dawn of pop music and treat it as the raw material for an electronic track. My choice is "Daisy Bell", a public domain song written in 1892 by Harry Dacre, and used in the first computer speech synthesis at Bell Labs in 1961; Arthur C. Clarke saw this demonstration and incorporated it into the screenplay and novelization of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The first section of the track is the original chorus melody and chord progression played on soft synths in Ableton, with a light percussion track made from samples from Beats & Breaks. For the second run-thru of the chorus melody  the chord progression is replaced with a version made using the Coltrane Changes; John Coltrane pioneered chord substitutions in his performances that used a major third movement to give an odd, airy quality to the harmony. For "Daisy Bell", which is in C major, the original chord progression follows the melody closely, as is the custom for most popular music. In its place I used the Dm7-G7-C progression. 

The jazzy timbre of those chords reminded me of Squarepusher's record Hard Normal Daddy, which used chords and melody combinations usually associated with jazz in conjunction with breakbeats. This track gradually adds more percussion elements, all chopped up from samples from Beats & Breaks.   

Once the new chord progression is introduced, the softsynth playing the melody has a random MIDI note generator, C major scale effect, and Bass-Beat Decoder added to it, with MIDI notes being triggered at the same rhythm as the original melody. The random notes were played & recorded to a separate track, and that MIDI information was placed in the initial softsynth track, with the MIDI effects removed. 


////

More on this 137th Disquiet Junto project — “Produce an original piece of music that fits the genre ‘old-time electronica’″ — at:

http://disquiet.com/2014/08/14/disquiet0137-oldtimeelectronica/

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/

Daisy Hell [disquiet0137-oldtimeelectronica]

String ensemble, brassy lead, chimes, and found sound percs.
(NuSofting StringDreams, Fabfilter Twin, Chromaphone, SoundDust modular chaos engine #1 going through an array of SonicCharge Permut8 and Volcano filter, and a few Live effects)

More on this 137th Disquiet Junto project — “Produce an original piece of music that fits the genre ‘old-time electronica’″ — at:

http://disquiet.com/2014/08/14/disquiet0137-oldtimeelectronica/

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/

CoaT Remembering Old Time (disquiet0137-Oldtimeelectronica)

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 Remembering Old Time (disquiet0137-Oldtimeelectronica)

Conjecture of a Time

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