Disquiet Junto Project 0632: Shear Wind  
The Assignment: Make the most of the disturbance within a field recording.

Step 1: Consider how when making a field recording, there can be disturbances in it, such as a passing car or plane, or a noise you didn’t notice until you listened back, or a malfunction in the recording equipment. A common such problem is wind shear. 

Step 2: Make a recording that has wind shear in it, perhaps by standing in the wind, or recording from a moving vehicle, or through some other technique. Or locate a pre-existing field recording with wind shear, perhaps on freesound.org.

Step 3: Make a piece of music employing the recording you made in Step 2, and make the wind shear a focus of the piece. That is, pay attention to, rather than avoid, this sound that you would likely in other circumstances identify as a shortcoming.

. . .

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, February_ 2, 2024, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, February 8, 2024.

. . .

More on this 632nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Shear Wind — The Assignment: Make the most of the disturbance within a field recording — at: https://disquiet.com/0632/

About the Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements: https://juntoletter.disquiet.com/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0632-shear-wind

Disquiet Junto Project 0632: Shear Wind

Poem "Land's End" by Weldon Kees
Accessed here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53030/lands-end-56d231f9ebd38

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More on this 632nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Shear Wind — The Assignment: Make the most of the disturbance within a field recording — at: https://disquiet.com/0632/

About the Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements: https://juntoletter.disquiet.com/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0632-shear-wind/

Marching Band at Lands End (disquiet0632)

More on this 632nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Shear Wind — The Assignment: Make the most of the disturbance within a field recording — at: https://disquiet.com/0632/

About the Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements: https://juntoletter.disquiet.com/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0632-shear-wind/

Shear Wind Drone (disquiet0632)

An original field recording made on the shore with wind shear & various glitches incorporated, modified using filters, a touch of delay & reverb, etc.

More on this 632nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Shear Wind — The Assignment: Make the most of the disturbance within a field recording — at: https://disquiet.com/0632/

About the Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements: https://juntoletter.disquiet.com/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0632-shear-wind/

Glitches Inc. (disquiet0632)

Disquiet Junto Project 0632: Shear Wind
The Assignment: Make the most of the disturbance within a field recording.

Something with frogs :-)

More on this 632nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Shear Wind — The Assignment: Make the most of the disturbance within a field recording — at: https://disquiet.com/0632/

Not Easy Being Green (disquiet0632)

The prompt for Disquiet Junto 0632, "Shear Wind", instructed us to take that awful wind-blowing-across-the-microphone sound and make it useful.

I live in a notoriously wind-swept city and the weather was cooperative, so I recorded several minutes of wind shear in my back yard with a stereo field recorder. I brought the recording into my DAW on three tracks, one reversed, and executed some glitch maneuvers to make them rhythmic. On top of everything is a Cmaj7 drone using a few layers of custom sampler instruments.

REMEMBER: Headphones are antennae, like an insect's, that pick up the thoughts of the composer.

More about this week's Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/0632/

Recorded at NOSIGNAL Multimedia Labs, The Shambles

Disquiet Junto

A Picnic on a Cliff (disquiet0632)

sound art for disquiet0632.

sparrows in a hedge.

More on this 632nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Shear Wind — The Assignment: Make the most of the disturbance within a field recording — at: https://disquiet.com/0632/

About the Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements: https://juntoletter.disquiet.com/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0632-shear-wind/

sparrow's breath (disquiet0632)

Recorded, mixed & mastered 07 Jun 2019, 27 Oct 2021 & 09-10 Feb 2024 by Jim Lemanowicz at Blissville Electro-Magnetic Laboratories of Massapequa.

Process notes

09 Feb 2024
I have a 5-track Live template for my Bubble Memory project name, so I loaded a windy backyard recording of a kalimba & a glass from Oct 2021 into that. I split the backyard recording into the two tracks I have set aside for field recordings. Each has tons of processing loaded in already. The template includes kick and snare parts so I started by creating a minimal beat that might hopefully hold this thing together and added some lesser probability to those notes. 

I also have a Simpler track in the template so I loaded some of the backyard recording into that one too. I found the entire thing too constantly noisy and wrote some ideas to my notes about gating & adjusting some of the effects before shutting down for the night.

10 Feb 2024
Loading this back up, I first worked on adding some gates to a few of the tracks to thin out the noise bits. I added an iAbyssal recording I made in 2019 to the final track in the template. Added sparingly both an Arpeggiator to the Simpler track & a Note Repeat to the drum track. Then I worked a bit on other automations, including panning. This felt like it was done and I rendered both a mastered and unmastered mix for later use and for this Junto. It still felt like wind to me.

Instruments & stuff - Ableton Live 12 & native devices, K-Devices Shaper 2 & Secta, iZotope Ozone 9, kalimba, wind, iAbyssal, iPhone, iPad, tabletop, bottle

Artwork: From the LIRR, NY, USA, 27 Jan 2011, by Jim Lemanowicz

©2019, 2021, 2024 Jim Lemanowicz

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This original version of “Brown Paper Lips” was submitted as part of Disquiet Junto Project 0632: Shear Wind. The Assignment: Make the most of the disturbance within a field recording.

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

Subscribe to project  announcements: https://juntoletter.disquiet.com/

Project discussion takes place on https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0632-shear-wind/

This track was originally released under the artist name "Bubble Memory."

Brown Paper Lips (disquiet0632)

I took a walk through the pedestrian area of Munich, namely Sendlinger Strasse. It was windy, and as the app used my noise-cancelling headset as its microphone, there are plenty of noises and dropouts in the recording... something you'd normally delete immediately. 

I wanted to make something tonal from this noisefest. 

The file underwent a treatment with Reaktors Molekular and Valhalla reverb. The accompanying chords and melodies come from S&A Landforms and Spectres, Spitfire BBC Orchestra, and the ever lovely Reaktor Snowflake ensemble. Nothing’s on grid, I tried to arrange the parts as they seemed to fit. It still feels a bit lopsided sound- and arrangement-wise, but that’s the Disquiet Junto: You only have a finite number of days to work on it (and that’s a good thing).

* * *

Disquiet Junto Project 0632: Shear Wind
The Assignment: Make the most of the disturbance within a field recording.

Step 1: Consider how when making a field recording, there can be disturbances in it, such as a passing car or plane, or a noise you didn’t notice until you listened back, or a malfunction in the recording equipment. A common such problem is wind shear.

Step 2: Make a recording that has wind shear in it, perhaps by standing in the wind, or recording from a moving vehicle, or through some other technique. Or locate a pre-existing field recording with wind shear, perhaps on freesound.org 1.

Step 3: Make a piece of music employing the recording you made in Step 2, and make the wind shear a focus of the piece. That is, pay attention to, rather than avoid, this sound that you would likely in other circumstances identify as a shortcoming.

Seven Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0632” (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 “disquiet0632” (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-0632-shear-wind/

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.

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.

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, February 12, 2024, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, February 8, 2024.

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).

Noise Canceling [disquiet0632]

Disquiet Junto Project 0632: Shear Wind
The Assignment: Make the most of the disturbance within a field recording.

Step 1: Consider how when making a field recording, there can be disturbances in it, such as a passing car or plane, or a noise you didn’t notice until you listened back, or a malfunction in the recording equipment. A common such problem is wind shear.

Step 2: Make a recording that has wind shear in it, perhaps by standing in the wind, or recording from a moving vehicle, or through some other technique. Or locate a pre-existing field recording with wind shear, perhaps on freesound.org 1.

Step 3: Make a piece of music employing the recording you made in Step 2, and make the wind shear a focus of the piece. That is, pay attention to, rather than avoid, this sound that you would likely in other circumstances identify as a shortcoming.

===

Track notes:

I spent a couple of days in my hometown/homearea of Normanville on the western coastline of the Fleurieu Peninsula. It's Summer here at the moment, and the weather down south has been particular lovely and warm. I took a long late afternoon walk along the beach, heading south with the heritage protected dunes on one side and a very still ocean on the other. 

Aside from the serene, still conditions there was a nagging, turbulent breeze throughout the afternoon and evening.

I made a few recordings along the way, including one at the foot of the dunes (feat. cicadas) and another on a shallow bed of dried seaweed at the tide break. Though I documented moments of transparency in the recordings, the wind (even with a jammer on the handheld recorder) was prominent throughout.

Since coming home and listening back to the recordings, I thought it would be interesting not only to feature the sound of wind shear, but use its dynamic peaks to control aspects of the composition.

I recorded a sample from the tide recording to my Morphagene module and routed the CV output directly to the clock. The dry/wet mix was set to roughly 60/40, so 60% of the mix would be the dune recording played back in real time, whilst 40% is the tide sample playing back on the Morphagene. Whenever a wind shear event arose (either form the tide or dunes) this would manipulate the time stretching, 'Morph' and 'Slide' parameters of the Morphagene. 

I'm letting the Morphagene play itself for the first half of this track, then subtly manipulating some of the controls to transition parts of the sample and close out the track with just the dune recording.

[Disquiet_Junto_0632] Tidal Jamming

For this project I used a recording of a walk in the lovely Swiss mountain village of Ernen. You can hear lots of cow bells, children and a stroller. I cut several parts out of the recording that have wind shear, I then pitched them down and looped them, gradually focusing more on the windy parts. Also I added a Glockenspiel arpeggio. Drawing is based on a mural in Ernen.

More on this 632nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Shear Wind — The Assignment: Make the most of the disturbance within a field recording — at: https://disquiet.com/0632/

About the Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/junto/ 1

Subscribe to project announcements: https://juntoletter.disquiet.com/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0632-shear-wind/

Disquiet0632 - Ernen

disquiet0632 promp (in part) was to "locate a pre-existing field recording with wind shear." I flipped through my own field recordings and located one with no wind shear, but with some nice banging noises from me trying to carry the Zoom H6 as I walked. So... shame on me for not following the instructions to the letter. Still I had fun.
I followed the Omri Cohen VCV Rack tutorial "Let Nature take control over your patch" at https://youtu.be/JfQsdJPGEnM

ZoomBumpThud (a VCV Rack Patch) [disquiet0632]

To create this track I exclusively used two samples that I processed in various ways with 'csound' and 'blue'.

csound.com/
blue.kunstmusik.com/
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More on this 632nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Shear Wind — The Assignment: Make the most of the disturbance within a field recording — at: https://disquiet.com/0632/

About the Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements: https://juntoletter.disquiet.com/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0632-shear-wind/

lagena vitto - disquiet0632

Almost 10 and a half years ago I made a short videoclip of a whistling windmill on the beach of the beautiful island of Schiermonnikoog. And then there was the Disquiet Junto 0632 with the assignment: do something wit wind shear in a fieldrecording. In the recording was a man speaking in the background and his speech had a nice melody to it. That gave me the idea to put the recording into music. The peaks of the wind trigger four percussion instruments, the whistling tones are randomly alternated and I derived a melody from  the recording by sample & hold to emphasize the rhythm (13 bars of 3/8)

More on this 632nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Shear Wind — The Assignment: Make the most of the disturbance within a field recording — at: https://disquiet.com/0632/

About the Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements: https://juntoletter.disquiet.com/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0632-shear-wind/

Shear Wind (disquiet0632)

Disquiet0632 - Shear Wind

Capsule Crunch (disquiet0632)

This track is built around the sound of the wind shear produced by cracking open the door of my wood-burning heater. 

More on this 632nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Shear Wind — The Assignment: Make the most of the disturbance within a field recording — at: https://disquiet.com/0632/

About the Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/junto/ 1

Subscribe to project announcements: https://juntoletter.disquiet.com/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0632-shear-wind/

WindShearFeverDream_disquiet0632

[disquiet0632] Swsh

More on this 632nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Shear Wind — The Assignment: Make the most of the disturbance within a field recording — at: https://disquiet.com/0632/

About the Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/junto/ 1

Subscribe to project announcements: https://juntoletter.disquiet.com/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0632-shear-wind/

Disquiet0632sheer

Two Arturia KORG MS-20 V, and an Arturia ARP2600 V3, processing two recordings made in the airstream of a circulation fan. The wind noise both contributes to the output sound, but also is used to trigger envelopes and, in the case of the MS-20s, follow the envelope of the recordings. The ARP2600 is responsible for the Morse code-like sounds.
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More on this 632nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Shear Wind — The Assignment: Make the most of the disturbance within a field recording — at: https://disquiet.com/0632/

About the Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements: https://juntoletter.disquiet.com/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0632-shear-wind/

shear (disquiet0632)

The assignment this week was to utilise the sound of wind in a field recording.

More on this 632nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Shear Wind — The Assignment: Make the most of the disturbance within a field recording — at: https://disquiet.com/0632/

About the Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements: https://juntoletter.disquiet.com/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0632-shear-wind/

windshear [disquiet0632]

This was my contribution for Disquiet Junto Project 0632: Shear Wind

Here’s a copy of my post on the Disquiet Junto 0632 discussion thread:

Used audio from a video taken a few months ago at a local beach using my iPhone. The surf was fairly large and the wind was moderately strong. I recorded the audio into Morphagene and changed playback speed/direction by manually manipulating the Vari-Speed control. Also used a LFO from Pamela’s Pro Workout to modulate the Morph level. A semi-generative ambient melody created by the SDKC Helical module was mixed in. Reverb effects by Strymon BigSky and Phonolyth Cascade were added in Ableton Live. Was a little crunched on time in creating this, so I’m somewhat happy with the outcome. Perhaps I’ll flush it out some more in the near future.     

More on this 632nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Shear Wind — The Assignment: Make the most of the disturbance within a field recording — at: https://disquiet.com/0632/
About the Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/junto/ 1
Subscribe to project announcements: https://juntoletter.disquiet.com/
Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0632-shear-wind/

Shoreline Field Notes With Wind [disquiet0632]

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.