Some experimental tracks combining classical instruments, glitch & noise, samples, field recordings, electronica and treatments.
Composed and performed by D.D.

Experimental- Noise

Disquiet 0244
This is a remix proposed @ Disquiet Junto Project 0244: Euro Mixin
The Assignment: Combine tracks from three different European netlabels (Portugal, Spain, Switzerland) into one sonic union.
Source tracks (20 first seconds each)
 “The Station and the Underclass,” performed by the Phonetic Orchestra, released on the Insub. netlabel based in Geneva:
“Cloud Scissors” composed by Lo Wei; performed by Cristián Alvear, Santiago Astaburuaga, Gudinni Cortina, and Rolando Hernández, released on the Impulsive Habitat netlabel based in Portugal:
“Zraerza,” performed by Geeksha Beka and Berio Molina, released on the Alg-a netlabel based in Galicia

hard-disquiet0244 by DD
September 2nd 2016; Paris, France.

00:00 zraerza + ebow Strato solo
00:24 zraerza + ebow Strato solo + vox continental (organ) drone
01:04 cloud scissors, + gradually zraerza + ebow Strato solo
01:47 The Station and the Underclass + vox continental (organ) drone 
02:07 zraerza + ebow start solo
02:20 zraerza + ebow start solo + cloud scissors
03:20 I’m done
 
FX used : delay, reverb, filter, comrpession

More on this 244th weekly Disquiet Junto project — “Combine tracks from three different European netlabels (Portugal, Spain, Switzerland) into one sonic union” — at:

http://disquiet.com/0244/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

http://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0244-euro-mixin/4361

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

Image associated with this project is by Thomas, used via Flickr and a Creative Commons license:

flic.kr/p/92xKFZ


Hard - disquiet0244

disquiet 0248
Celebrate the new celestial holiday in music.

Here’s my angry chaotic interstellar trip to this birthday party far out there. A one minute and-a-half journey.

I took some of NASA’s free downloadable files I’ve got( from their Soundcloud account most probably) and that I use a lot.

Here, 16 first seconds of the track is full NASA sounds, including the low stabs in F that set the tonal centre and the amazing 5/8 groove that plays throughout. And astronaut’s (and Houston's) voices and a Saturn noise pad that glues everything, that's all NASA shares..

Then added some synths, played a F minor sequence , translated the 5/8 NASA groove to a distorted to hell midi drum track, and that’s it.

More on this 248th weekly Disquiet Junto project — “Celebrate the new celestial holiday in music” — at:
http://disquiet.com/0248/
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
http://disquiet.com/junto/
Subscribe to project announcements here:
http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
llllllll.co/t/music-for-the-galactic-tick-disquiet-junto-project-0248/4744
There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.

Vortex Me, Please - disquiet0248

Disquiet Junto Project 0253: Doorbell Rehab/Record some welcome music.

Not really “welcome” music, cause a bit creepy, but listening to other excellent shares to this project inspired me to reload this old piece I never quite finished.
Mostly based on “clock” bells it was a demo for a "Time” themed collection.

I recorded some bells, wind chimes, analogue alarm clocks and on top of that my old German upright piano, open lid, and picked with my finger nails.

This is a full-acoustic recording. No FX, no treatments.
No midi, no processing, just one delay,  2 convolution reverbs and the sound of the rooms.


More on this 253rd weekly Disquiet Junto project — “Doorbell Rehab: Record some welcome music” — at:

http://disquiet.com/0253/1

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/2

Subscribe to project announcements here:

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

llllllll.co/t/make-a-doorbell-disquiet-junto-project-0253/5220

Expanded Time - disquiet0253

Created on November26th 2016 for
Disquiet Junto Project 0256: Music in Place
Record a short piece of music using the sounds around you.

I live and work very close to Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. My studio and area is quite silent and uninteresting sound wise but boy, when the cathedral’s bells start to ring it is something that resonates in the tiny streets. Particularly on special catholic days where there’s a lot of bell-calling. That particular day earlier this year, can’t tell what was going on but it really sounded as Quasimodo went nuts. And it was a warm afternoon, many people and kids playing around the square by the cathedral and the river. Kids provided some light to that day, but when I first opened the window and hear those bells going crazy I could imagine people living here on the dark years (middle age) and the sound and intensity was really sinister to me.
I took my lap top and made some recordings with a cheap stereo microphone. This is the first use for those tracks.
Field recording comes and goes mixed with some bells from my collection (real bells but pitch-shifted and compressed like hell) and a couple of synth tracks to make it more musical and more sinister.
This is a messy track really; hope it’s not too loaded.
Happy thanksgiving everybody, and Thank you!
dd


More on this 256th weekly Disquiet Junto project — “Music in Place: Record a short piece of music using the sounds around you.” — at:

disquiet.com/0256/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0256-music-in-place/5482

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

Notre Dame's Dark Moment - disquiet0256

Disquiet Junto 0259: Lost Signals. 


“....the radio halted its roll at the very far end of the electronic dial. After a brief silence, the weak signal transmitted indistinct sounds, like whispers, intermingled with an odd chanting that faded in and out like a spectral dirge”

Love this week’s challenge.
When I was a kid in down in Buenos Aires, I remember being in my bedroom in the middle of the night with an old radio my parents gave to me. It had FM, AM and...SW. Man, that was magic, those sounds so fragile, coming from so far away, a weak, ghostly signal, faint and vacillating, once you got the dial on that sweet spot where that voice was finally clear and louder than the static  (was it Chinese? Some African dialect?) suddenly it faded out as taken by some stratospheric wind.
Boy, did I love that...

Here you’ll hear:
FM radio (recorded in Paris) FM and AM radio (recorded in Greece) AM radio (rec. In Marrakesh) and worldwide Shortwave radio recorded at home by night like in those happy days. 
All that radio feast spiced with a couple of synthesiser tracks (Microkorg and AAS Ultra Analog Session); plus  orchestral samples including a vinyl rip from Sibelius Symphony N°2 (2nd movement).
Also a public domain recording Churchill's first radio address as Prime Minister, 1940, treated a little bit...

Love,
DD, December 16th 2016.


More on this 259th weekly Disquiet Junto project — “Signals Lost: Summon up a horror story in sound” — at:
http://disquiet.com/0259/
The text that inspired this is from the book Lost Signals, from by Perpetual Publishing out of San Antonio, Texas. More details on the book at:
perpetualpublishing.com/product/lost-signals/
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
http://disquiet.com/junto/
Subscribe to project announcements here:
http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0259-lost-signals/5726

On The Radio - disquiet0259

Track created on January 6th 2017for the Disquiet Junto 0262 project: Ice Music. Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something of it.

This is not an inspiring theme/challenge for me, that’s why I decided to go for it.
I recorded some ice cubes on a big wine glass, after playing back that raw recording the challenge was even less inspiring, if possible.
After listening to the early birds AudioObscura Noimspartacus and Bassling I’ve found their efforts much inspiring (thanks guys) so here’s mine (first ice cube audio experience for me)

My wife bought some plastic ice cubes. Yes she did. Guess most of you know they exists, but I was surprised.
She has a point, you know, when you add ice cubes to a not-fairly-cool drink you need some time for the ice to operate it’s magic and by then you have water in your drink. I don’t like that, so these little plastic friends are ice cold with no pollution on your beloved drink.
But they sound awful.
You’ll hear a track of the plastic (in the photo BTW) rattled inside the glass, another track of the same coloured cubes dropping on a glass of water, and then the same procedures with normal ice cubes.
I wanted this to sound like some classy dandy stirring his ice-cube drenched cocktail but it sounds like some space rain drops on a rusty railroad..
Recipe: I pitched down the rattling tracks, pasted the ice-cube-drops to NI FM8 synth and used a plastic-rattling-cubes track as a carrier for an instance of Waves Morphoder plugin, Played back the whole thing through convolution reverbs. And that’s it. You can add a zest of lemon and enjoy. On the rocks.

More on this 262nd weekly Disquiet Junto project — “Ice Code: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something of it”:

http://disquiet.com/0262/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/1

Subscribe to project announcements here:

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

llllllll.co/t/ice-music-years-first-project-disquiet-junto-0262/5990

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

Plastic Ice Cubes - disquiet0262

Recorded by DD Friday 10th March 2017 in Paris.
Vinyl samples (Beethoven's 9th Symphony) synthesisers, electronica, bowed upright bass.

Disquiet Junto Project 0271: Prison Sky
Mark the 5th anniversary of open-source software engineer Bassel Khartabil’s detention.
Create a short piece of music in response to that image, that scenario, that mix of hope amid hopelessness.

I wasn’t familiar with his story so it’s good to be informed.
The bitter-sweet feelings of Bassel contemplating that square blue sky through his jail window is expressed by the contrast between sweet classical music and dissonant electronica and sytnhs. I also performed some noisy bowed upright bass here.
I took Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, the proto-joyful classical piece par excellence (here it’s 3rd moment thought, not the happy, almost maniac 4th with it’s  Ode To Joy) and inserted that in a Bb dissonant chord that goes from cluster abstraction to Beethovens BbMaj7 and back to the dissonance. I followed Beethoven’s harmonies in the middle section with my synthesisers.
Love
DD

More on this 271st weekly Disquiet Junto project — “Prison Sky: Mark the 5th anniversary of open-source software engineer Bassel Khartabil’s detention” — at:
http://disquiet.com/0271/
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
http://disquiet.com/junto/
Subscribe to project announcements here:
http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
llllllll.co/t/prison-sky-disquiet-junto-project-0271/6877
There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.

Bassel's Square Sky - disquiet0271

Disquiet Junto Project 0272: Exoplanetary Intervals
The Assignment: Use music to express the relationships between planets.

Exoplanetary Ingredients:
Backround sound courtesy of NASA.
Electric Bass Guitar (Drake DIAZ CUSTOM5) 6 tracks
Synthesizer
Reverb and filters

Exoplanetary Recipe:
1-Download some background sounds from NASA’s site, to create the right ambience.
2-Record a click track with 2 harmonics (D+G) on El. Bass, playing a 5 beat pattern (five 1/4th notes)
3-Create a simple, not really earthy harmony: E7#9 – EbMaj7 – G/D, performed on a warm synth pad.
4-Play that harmony in 4 partswith short rhythmic notes (1/4th) with four  El.Basses.
5-Following Mark Lentczner’s excellent dissection on the TRAPPIST-1 Exoplanets: the ratios of the orbits are 8:5 , 5:3 , 3:2 (twice) and 4:3
So first harmony voice (bass1) performs 8 notes every 5 clicks, second harmony voice (bass2) perform its voice on 5:3 (5 notes every 3 clicks) etc.
6-Add a low bass part performing the tonics in a 3+2 beat pattern .
7-Add one instance of bFilter to each voice, play with its cutoff and drive.

Photo courtesy of www.nasa.gov

http://www.trappist.one/
 
It’s been a while since I don’t follow this “intellectual” modus-operandi instead of the usual “musical” one, trusting my ears.
Here I followed the exoplanet orbit’s ratios to create a coherent yet out of phase poly-rhythm. Recorded each track just listening to my 5 beat click (harmonics). Then I un-soloed every track to hear how this mess sounded like.
Well, it has that cosmological Steve Reich side that’s charming, but it still sounds as messy as it was supposed to.
Comments are welcome more than ever!
Love DD


http://www.ozonehouse.com/mark/dj/trappist.html6

Recently, scientists announced the discovery of a nearby star system, TRAPPIST-1. Orbiting its ultra-cool dwarf star are seven planets, three in the habitable zone. From the slowest, the planets orbit at: 1x, 4/3x 2x, 3x, 5x, 8x. Create an original musical composition that explores the exoplanets’ relationships.

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
llllllll.co/t/exoplanetary-interv-disquiet-junto-project-0272

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

Exoplanetary Phases - disquiet0272

Every single noise here comes from Chris Kallmyer’s recording using bells and bowls he constructed from clay sourced on the banks of the Mississippi River in St. Louis. 

Precessing used: pitch shift, convolution reverb, panner/surround, infinite reverb through wah-wah pedal

Photo by Paul Itkin https://unsplash.com/@itkin

Source audio: http://www.chriskallmyer.com/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0284-creative-commonfield/

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

Casi Crepuscular (disquiet0284)

Music for this Haiku:

By the shanty church
Tombstones hum their winter lullabies
Of the long sleep

Photo by Yuriy Garnaev
Poem created @ Naviar's Haiku Fest


Created for Naviar Haiku Fest, October 7th 2017.

The Church Of The Long Sleep (Naviar Haiku Fest)

Sine waveforms from these synths:
z3Ta
Emu Vintage Keys
Ultra Analog by AAS

Vinyl noise sampled from my personal collection.

Created on a rush, March 31st 2018 in Paris for:
Disquiet Junto Project 0326: Wave Turntable
The challenge: Compose a short piece of music using only sine waves and the surface sounds of vinyl played on a turntable. Those two sources are inspirations for the Clay/Fischer exhibit.


More on Clay and Fischer at:
http://dclaymusic.com 7
http://feather2pixels.com

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


FREE DOWNLOAD

Sinusoidal (disquiet0326)

Created for:
Disquiet Junto Project 0328: Sonic Pentimento
That word is “pentimento,” which is defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “a reappearance in a painting of an original drawn or painted element which was eventually painted over by the artist.” Familiarize yourself with the term.
Think about how the term “pentimento” can be borrowed from painting and applied to sound.

Recently I could get my hands on a collection of music boxes my mother had and that I adored when I was a little child. I have that stuff in my place now, along with a big clock with a gorgeous carillon with the “Big Ben” melody.

For this junto I sampled those objects from the past and composed a melody reminiscent of the music-box melancholic type of melody, performed on a nice freebie for Kontakt called “W Music Bow”

I mixed all that with some oneiric soundscapes and played around the faders to bring the music from the past back and forth.


Created by DD 
Friday 13th April 2018.
Image by Johannes Vermeer

FREE DOWNLOAD


More on this 328th weekly Disquiet Junto project (Sonic Pentimento: Record a piece of music inspired by a term from painting) at:https://disquiet.com/0328/

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

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

Painting From Memories (disquiet0328 )

music boxes
carillons
clock bells
metal tubes
FM8 synthesizer
Geo Generator

performed by DD in Paris, France, April 2018.

Free Download


created for Ambient Online Image inspired Dare 26

Metallic Infinity Mirror

Cymbals soundscape.
The challenge was to use an instrument in an "unnatural" way.
Recorded some cymbals, then used many techniques, familiar to me and my workflow,  to make an abstract arrhythmic soundscape out of it:
-paulstrech
-pitch-shift and notably pitch -bend(sound forge)
-infinite reverbs with wah wah pedal
-Pitched delays

Inspired by Disquiet Junto Project 0329: Extended Version
Make a piece of music in which you expand the functionality of an instrument — and document your technique. Think about how an instrument can be used to do things it wasn’t necessarily designed to do.

More on this 329th weekly Disquiet Junto project (Extended Version / Make a piece of music in which you expand the functionality of an instrument — and document your technique) at:
https://disquiet.com/0329/

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-0329-extended-version/

Platos Rotos (disquiet0329)

Created for:
Disquiet Junto Project 0331: Born Under a Bad Sine
What does it sound like when a robot has the blues?

Can’t quite tell for other cities, but believe me: this is  the kind of music robots like to listen to in my hometown when they get sad and low.
Buenos Aires is a melancholic city, and robots are not spared.

I won’t be surprised if this track becomes a hit among robots, my vacuum cleaner got weird while I was mixing this earlier this morning.
Me too, mind...

Bandoneon performed by Olivier Manoury, the rest by D.D.

Created in Paris, France 
Friday 4th May  2018.
Image by Franck V.


More on this 331st weekly Disquiet Junto project (Disquiet Junto Project 0331: Born Under a Bad Sine / What does it sound like when a robot has the blues?) at:
https://disquiet.com/0331/

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

When Robots Cry in Buenos Aires

When Robots Cry In Buenos Aires (disquiet0331)

The Assignment: Record a piece of music in this imaginary genre:  “rude mechanicals.”

Went back to my vaults, all the metals and household objects  I recorded for my CD “Musique Mecanique” back in 2010. An album that could be filed under the “Rude Mechanicals” genre.
Also recorded some fresh tracks, mostly metallic objects and instruments:

Knives
Hang
Trash lid (Ikea)
Thermos (inox)
Spacedrum
Electric Bass
Chris Watson’s “Wire” samples (field recording)
Bowed upright bass noises
Metal box (percussion)

Free Download

More on this 339th weekly Disquiet Junto project (Rude Mechanicals: The Assignment: Record a piece of music in this imaginary genre) at:
https://disquiet.com/0339/

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

Of Metals And Mechanicals (disquiet0339)

Assignment: Record a piece of music in tribute to Terry Riley’s In C using only samples of water sounds)

Used:
Several water samples, drops on a glass, waves of the sea (Baltic and South Atlantic) , a brandy glass hit with a stick, rain drops (field recording) + several instances of Chris Watson's  Ice and Water Recordings for Geosonics. And a grand piano.

Photo by Tim Marshal

Created by DD, Paris July 20th 2018


More on this 342nd weekly Disquiet Junto project (In Sea / The  at:
https://disquiet.com/0342/

Water in C

Instrumental created using samples by Nathan Moody as part of Disquiet Junto Project 0354: Rituals & Canticles
The Assignment: Make music using instruments from a future that doesn’t fully remember our present.

I used most of his samples, constructed a sample instrument using his spring_18cm_bowed_constantCircularStrokes mixed with different orchestral samples and a bass instrument using his “  bass construction” sample. 
The dices gave me number 5 = Coming of Age, that, being completely ignorant of how such a rite fells (never went through one yet) I imagined as some kind of epic mini micro trip with bitter sweet undertones, feeling free and stressed,  ecstatic and anguished at the same time.

DD, Paris, Frace October 12th 2018

More on this 354th weekly Disquiet Junto project (Rituals & Canticles / The Assignment: Make music using instruments from a future that doesn’t fully remember our present) at: https://disquiet.com/0354/ 2
Thanks to Nathan Moody @noisejockey (noisejockey.net) for proposing and providing the sounds and images and ideas for this project.

FREE DOWNLOAD

Ritual (disquiet0354)

Photo by Yuriy Garnaev
Performed by DD in Paris, May 2019.
Stratocaster guitar, vibraphone, bass, reverbs and filters

Disquiet Junto Project 0386: New Colors
The Assignment: Out with the old white noise, in with the new. 
I don’t know how could  this track fit in the project’s avant-propos, but hey: I didn’t participate on the junto for a little while and really like this one.
I have my own favourite noise, I’ll call it black noise.
Black is the new white.

But instead of going for my idea of pure “noise” and make an ambient track out of it (I will do, mind) I take advantage of this track I finished mixing this morning that includes loads of that noise.

I’m infatuated with convolution reverbs, the more unreal and outrageously long the better, and I use it as background noise quite a lot, particularly infinite reverbs and very long ones, passed thorough wah wah or other extreme filters to make them sing and get some sort of pitch.

In this track (a new version of a 2017 track, performed on electric piano and bells back then) I used my Stratocaster electric guitar and vibraphone. The background is mostly 25-40sec reverbs passed through filters and wahwah. That’s my “black noise” and besides the track could be good as a lullaby for any dark, depressive and cold blooded child.


https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0386-new-colors

Single 2019

The Long Sleep

Buy/Stream

The Long Sleep (black noise) - disquiet0386

This is National Anthem of Mordor (official version)

Composed and performed by DD:
All sorts of bowed upright basses, playing notes, noises, cries and effects.
Bamboo drums.
Guests: Hermy Wolf and Lisa Z(tortured souls)
Field recordings: insects and crazy birds on a jungle (sound bank)
More on this 392nd weekly Disquiet Junto project — Another Country / The Assignment: Compose the national anthem for a fictional country — at:
https://disquiet.com/0392/ 1

Mordor National Anthem (disquiet0392)

multi-instrumentalist & composer.
Genre fluid music for images / instrumental / contemporary post-fusion / experimental jazz / electro acoustic ambient / melodic noise / neoclassical / naive hard core / cosmopolitan world music.

bio here:
http://dedeland.com/daniel-diaz-bio/


In some words:
Composer, arranger, producer, multi-instrumentalist. Born in Argentina,
I studied music in Buenos Aires, New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Paris.

For 20 years, I developed an important career as a session and backing musician in Argentina and Europe, playing, among other instruments, the bass, touring and recording with many jazz, rock, fusion, world, Latin and tango bands.

At the same time, I worked as an arranger, producer and musical director with many projects and artists in the USA, Argentina and Europe.

From 1992 to 1997, I performed my compositions live with my own band in Buenos Aires and began a solo recording career with the worldwide release of my first album "The Years Alone" on the North American label Green Linnet/Xenophile. On this album I arranged and performed 11 of my songs written between 1986 and 1993. I played most of the instruments, but included guest appearances by some great South American players.

My recording career continued with "Segundo Ciclo" (1997), released worldwide by Timeless Records, and 12 more albums released between 2000 and 2016.

Currently, I work as an on-demand film/TV composer while continuing to play live and produce.

Experimental- Noise

Daniel Diaz