Disquiet Junto Project 0661: Consumer Drone Product
The Assignment: Record a piece of drone music using sounds from your home.

There is just one step this week: Record a piece of drone music constructed entirely from sounds that are byproducts of consumer electronics products (e.g., alarm, refrigerator, clock, HVAC, etc.) in your home.

Deadline: Monday, September 2, 2024, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) wherever you are.

More on the 661st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Consumer Drone Product — The Assignment: Record a piece of drone music using sounds from your home — at https://disquiet.com/0661/

Disquiet Junto Project 0661: Consumer Drone Product

More on the 661st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Consumer Drone Product — The Assignment: Record a piece of drone music using sounds from your home — at https://disquiet.com/0661/

Tapeloop Fans And Fridges (disquiet0661)

A drone sequence derived from original recordings of a washing machine and a kettle.

More on the 661st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Consumer Drone Product — The Assignment: Record a piece of drone music using sounds from your home — at https://disquiet.com/0661/

Domestic Duo (disquiet0661)

Disquiet Junto Project 0661: Consumer Drone Product
The Assignment: Record a piece of drone music using sounds from your home.

I hadn't read the task properly and therefore recorded all kinds of things in the flat, and it's also the case that I'm currently living in Vienna and the flat is very minimalist: apart from the fridge, dishwasher and kettle, I don't have anything electronic that makes sound. (What is perceived as ‘minimalist’ here...) This two-part composition is dominated at the beginning by the fridge, which is slowly attacked by the kettle at around 3:00, which the dishwasher uses to push itself into the foreground (which is of no use to it, however, because that damn fridge can also be heard on the dishwashers recording). The squeaky floorboards of the flat, the sound of the stairwell being cleaned and the ambience of my balcony provide some consumer cosiness. The drummed upholstery of the sofa (at least somehow also a consumer good) serves as the bass drum in the second part. Some stacking of sounds, a little bit of FX. And yes, it's too long, but isn't the sound of this fridge wonderfully apocalyptic? It also hit me hard that I had to fade out the gurgling water drain at the end to at least get it under 9 minutes...

More on the 661st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Consumer Drone Product — The Assignment: Record a piece of drone music using sounds from your home — at https://disquiet.com/0661/

Discussion https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0661-consumer-drone-product/68444

Slow Moving Consumer Goods [disquiet0661]

Home intimity_disquiet0661

Recorded & mixed on 07 Nov 2009 & 30 Aug 2024 by Jim Lemanowicz at Blissville Electro-Magnetic Laboratories of Massapequa. 

Process notes -
I started with a Nov 2009 “home field recording” I made using a small 1960s transistor radio to detect/probe electromagnetic fields around my apartment, which itself was inspired by Nicolas Collins’ book *Handmade Electronic Music.* 

I recorded this using a Sony Cybershot DSC-W50. I recorded things like computer hard drives, a Blackberry phone, a TV, an electric toothbrush, a microwave, a refrigerator and light fixtures using this technique. Not sure what made it onto this piece. 

I selected small pieces of this 9.5 minute recording and dragged them into a total of 11 tracks in Ableton Live. Some tracks use MIDI instruments and others play the tracks in real time or altered with Live’s warping modes.

Tools used -
Ableton Live, IRCAM IM-Mover, Slate + Ash Cycles, Ableton Granulator III & other native Live devices

The full audio/video for this “radio probe” source can be heard/seen on my YouTube here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK4vmRqBd68. 

I put together a small body of raw material inspired by the book back in 2009, some of it is still on YouTube. The YouTube videos use Magix Music Maker for video editing, IIRC. 

Artwork/Photography - Long Island, NY, USA, North Fork - 19 Oct 2008 - using the same Sony camera mentioned above.

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This original version of “Bags Of Mostly Verdant Electrons” was submitted as part of Disquiet Junto Project 0661: Consumer Drone Product. The Assignment: Record a piece of drone music using sounds from your home.

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

More on the 661st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Consumer Drone Product — The Assignment: Record a piece of drone music using sounds from your home — at https://disquiet.com/0661/

Bags Of Mostly Verdant Electrons  (disquiet0661)

They say that home is where the heart is. Sometimes, late at night, the sound of it beating can keep you awake.

Disquiet Junto 0661 invited us to devise a drone made from the sounds of consumer electronics and appliances around our homes. "It's Just an Old House Settling" is composed entirely from the dulcet tones of an air purifier, a DVD player, a dehumidifier, a ringing cell phone, a clothes dryer, a computer booting up, and an air fryer.

More about Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/0661

It's Just An Old House Settling (disquiet0661)

This was my contribution for Disquiet Junto Project 0661: Consumer Drone Project

Here’s a copy of my post on the Disquiet Junto 0661 discussion thread on Lines:

Recorded the following consumer electronics sounds using a Tascam DR-100MK3 digital recorder:
1. Static and noise in between AM radio station bands from a 1990s GE Superadio III.
2. The initial pre-wash stage of a Bosch dishwasher.
3. An oscillating tower fan recorded from behind.
Copied the three sounds on three tracks in Ableton Live, then added delay and reverb using Valhalla Delay and Phonolyth Cascade. Also used low cut and high cut filters with FabFilter Pro-Q3 at the beginning and end of each track. Rather than manipulating the sounds too much, I decided to keep them mostly as they were recorded. 

More on the 661st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Consumer Drone Product — The Assignment: Record a piece of drone music using sounds from your home — at https://disquiet.com/0661/

Three Liminal Contrasts [disquiet0661]

Disquiet0661

Here is a drone made from a short stereo recording of our dishwasher during its last rinse cycle. 

I made time stretched and pitch shifted copies and layered them, and added more pitch shifting with the Elastique Pitch plug-in, along with EQ and reverb and GRM shuffle on one track.

It's shapely and short. It sounds more like an aircraft carrier starting up than a dishwasher finishing, or a typical musical drone. 

≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

More on the 661st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Consumer Drone Product -- The Assignment: Record a piece of drone music using sounds from your home -- at https://disquiet.com/0661/

DDDDDishwasher disquiet0661

Disquiet Junto Project 0661: Consumer Drone Product
The Assignment: Record a piece of drone music using sounds from your home.
Record a piece of drone music constructed entirely from sounds that are byproducts of consumer electronics products (e.g., alarm, refrigerator, clock, HVAC, etc.) in your home

This composition harnesses the ambient resonance of a vacuum's low-frequency hum as a bass drone, setting a foundation of mechanical continuity. Over this, a power drill punctuates with a jagged, metallic cadence, injecting an abrasive, industrial rhythm. The cyclical churn of the washing machine and dryer grounds the piece with a percussive undertone, while a re-synthesized mid-range wash of oscillating water from the kitchen sink adds a swirling, aqueous texture. The rhythmic qualities of the dishwasher sync with the ones of the washing machine.

Appliance Suite in D Minor (Disquiet0661)

Ewan McGregor Is In My Stream (disquiet0661)

aeolian (dsiquiet0661)

Made of the sound of a small ventilator and wipers.

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More on the 661st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Consumer Drone Product — The Assignment: Record a piece of drone music using sounds from your home — at https://disquiet.com/0661/

aeolian (disquiet0661)

Living city centre London my home environment is surprisingly quiet, but doing this @disquiet project allowed me to focus on listening to those permanent hums in the background. I got close into the very-old-needs-replacing refridgerator and the air filters throughout the flat.

Recording 22 seconds worth of sound each time, some were deleted when other noises interrupted their sounds. Stripping this down to four looped samples, I played each track inidiviudally, live mixing these effects in Ableton Live:

sound one - Around the head auto pan; Vibrato special chorus ensemble, then add phasing
sound two - Concrete Chamber and Big Room reverbs
sound three - Drums in a Canyon hybrid reverb, Bright Small Box cabinet, Shifter Flanger shifter
sound four - Stereo Notch, Only the good parts, Kick Boom auto filter

I then layered the four tracks to create what you hear here.

More on the 661st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Consumer Drone Product — The Assignment: Record a piece of drone music using sounds from your home — at https://disquiet.com/0661/

consumer drone product (disquiet0661)

Nespresso machine with heavy effects from an SP-404, Kaoss Replay, and Eventide H-90.

Disquiet0661 - Consumer Drone Product - Espresso Machine

Disquiet Junto #0661
"There is just one step this week: Record a piece of drone music constructed entirely from sounds that are byproducts of consumer electronics products (e.g., alarm, refrigerator, clock, HVAC, etc.) in your home."

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More on the 661st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Consumer Drone Product — The Assignment: Record a piece of drone music using sounds from your home — at https://disquiet.com/0661/

disquiet0661

disquiet0661_uefsaandfriends

Recordings of various household appliances, layered, looped, EQd, and then processed through Rings, Clouds, and Lubadh in the modular, with delay and reverb.  The 'choir' sound is purely the result of the resonator in Rings, with pitch variation in both rings and clouds at different times giving the thick choral harmonic texture. 

More on the 661st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Consumer Drone Product — The Assignment: Record a piece of drone music using sounds from your home — at https://disquiet.com/0661/

Domestic Choir (Disquiet0661)

This track was inspired by this week's Disquiet Junto project. I recorded our washing machine in the spin cycle, added two effect tracks with different modulations, created a version with PaulXStretch and mixed the resulting track from these four sources.

For me this track is the soundtrack of a movie with an apocalyptic vision of a megalopolis.

More on the 661st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Consumer Drone Product — The Assignment: Record a piece of drone music using sounds from your home — at https://disquiet.com/0661/

The Washing Machine Orchestra (Disquiet0661)

[disquiet0661] Bzz

Two bathroom fans recorded directly and using EMF pickups, and a kettle boiling. The fans and kettle are passed through wave folders and Chebyshev filters and are combined to modulate each other before being passed through a modulated filter banks and modulated high and low resonant filters, and a modulated delay.

boiled extractions (disquiet0661)

Based on recording of an anxious rehomed cocker spaniel awaiting our return and howling the place down... her name is Tully. We’ve had her for five days. She is still very anxious about the huge change in her life. This recording was made because I was curious to see if she howled when we went out for an hour or so without her. A big “yes”.

I was going to do something a little more adventurous/interesting, but ended up just folding, compacting, cutting and reverbing a chunk of it. Also overlaid is a big furry sound. That’s the ambience of the house when she was silent. The odd ringing effect is because one track was pitched up and that5’s how it turned out – an Audacity accident.


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More on the 661st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Consumer Drone Product — The Assignment: Record a piece of drone music using sounds from your home — at https://disquiet.com/0661/

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

Tully is anxious [disquiet0661]

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.