Disquiet Junto Project 0717: Generation Gambit

Enjoy this with the visuals on the halF unusuaL YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/wkS2xkqAu-Y ... 

We recently unearthed a VERY rare set of tin cylinders with some of the creations from my unusually great uncle - dated 1910! I've taken the opportunity to riff on top of his proto-EDM - with sounds WAY ahead of their time! No way would they have found an audience in his lifetime ... Let's try again 😜

Family legend has it that my Great Uncle Crackleton P. Valve was not so much born as assembled! His crib rattled with loose copper coils, his lullabies were hummed through wax cylinders, and his first word was said to be a faint but distinctly glitchy “bzzzzzt” ...

By the turn of the last century, when most men were proud to own a sturdy hat, Uncle Crackleton was already soldering strange contraptions in the garden shed, where every evening the glow of red-hot valves spilled out into the hedgerows. He refused to play the piano “like a commoner,” preferring instead to hammer phonograph needles against tin cylinders until they shrieked, warbled, and sang with a peculiar beauty only he seemed to understand.

The neighbours swore they could hear his experiments late at night: a ghostly stutter of sound, like church bells melting, or a brass band tumbling downstairs. He called it Music of the Future, although others called it a dreadful racket.

It’s said he once built a mechanical echo chamber out of two bathtubs, a bicycle pump, and a dozen mismatched radio valves. When he cranked it up, it produced a looping hiccup that terrified the vicar's cats and made their milk curdle. Even so, he declared it his masterpiece.

Though none of his recordings were thought to have survived, until now (most cylinders were repurposed as makeshift candle holders), family lore insists that without him, modern glitch music would not exist. Every time a record skips, a tape warbles, or a speaker crackles, somewhere, faintly, Uncle Crackleton P. Valve is smiling.

More on the 717th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Generation Gambit — The Assignment: Layer two eras of recordings, one of them imaginary — at https://disquiet.com/0717/

visuals (YouTube)

halF 1910 [disquiet0717]

Recorded, edited, mixed & mastered on 25 Sep 2025 by Jim Lemanowicz at Blissville Electro-Magnetic Laboratories of Massapequa, USA.

Synths, effects

Photography/Art - Jim Lemanowicz, 30 Oct 2015, Central Park, Manhattan, NYC, USA

Music & art © 2015, 2025 Jim Lemanowicz

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This original version of “You Dance Like A Paranoid Old Goat” was submitted as part of Disquiet Junto Project 0717: Generation Gambit. The Assignment: Layer two eras of recordings, one of them imaginary.

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

More on the 717th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Generation Gambit — The Assignment: Layer two eras of recordings, one of them imaginary — at https://disquiet.com/0717/.

Discussion - https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0717-generation-gambit

Patreon & Soundcloud - blisterpop
YouTube - Jimmy Lem
TikTok - jimmlem
Bluesky - jimmylem.bsky.social

You Dance Like A Paranoid Old Goat  (disquiet0717)

I found some samples of rocks being hit and tumbling around and used them as percussion for this project.  I imagined my cave dwelling ancestors having a blast with stone tools.  Some of them included what sounded like leaves being disturbed by the rocks, so that was a nice detail.  Then I came up with a chord progression and put some synth sounds together to represent the modern era.

disquiet0717

Ancient or ancestral dance rhythms emerging from the mists of time and combined with a modern drone. Or is it an ancient drone with modern rhythms?

More on the 717th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Generation Gambit — The Assignment: Layer two eras of recordings, one of them imaginary — at https://disquiet.com/0717/.





Ancient and Modern (disquiet0717)

This week's Disquiet Junto, number 0717, invited us to collaborate with an ancestor. I recalled my kinship with a certain pioneering electronic musician, my reclusive great aunt Carly Wendos. (Her catalog is strangely absent from most streaming services, but she was something of a sensation in classical music.)

The piece is a favorite of hers, an interpretation of Beethoven's Piano Trio #5 in D Major, Op. 70 No.1, the so-called "Ghost Movement". Aunt Carly rocks the Moogs while I supply the string section via live electric violin.

In all seriousness, this one is dedicated to my trans elder Wendy Carlos. Thank you for making a way for us. 

(Cover photo is a shot of her studio circa 1968.)

More on the 717th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Generation Gambit — The Assignment: Layer two eras of recordings, one of them imaginary — at https://disquiet.com/0717/.

Ghost Movement (with Carly Wendos) (disquiet0717)

This was my contribution for Disquiet Junto Project 0717: Generation Gambit. The Assignment: Layer two eras of recordings, one of them imaginary.
Here’s a copy of my post on the Disquiet Junto 0717 discussion thread on Lines:
I imagined non-human ancestors, perhaps insect-like creatures, that lived hundreds of millions of years ago, that created a form of communication that could be considered musical. These sounds were somehow embedded within resonating rocks and stones. Using a newly developed form of technology, I was able to extract these sounds, and record my improvisation over it, resulting in the track presented here.

In reality, the base track was created using a noise box with a contact mic. The audio was routed through Vongon Ultrasheer and Polyphrase effect pedals, then recorded into Ableton Live. From there, I added additional tracks with Slate + Ash Primaries Strings plugin. No additional effects were added. 

More on the 717th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Generation Gambit — The Assignment: Layer two eras of recordings, one of them imaginary — at https://disquiet.com/0717/.

Opening Memory [disquiet0717]

This is my submission to this week's Disquiet Junto assignment. 

More on the 717th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Generation Gambit — The Assignment: Layer two eras of recordings, one of them imaginary — at https://disquiet.com/0717/.

Fujara [disquiet0717]

This is part of Disquiet Junto Project 0717: Generation Gambit. See more at https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0717-generation-gambit/73136/11.

Escapism 9

I imagine that my ancestors would have played disparate reflections in minor chords on an old piano as they awaited whatever fate would bring them. I happened to be at my cottage, where the previous owner has left an old piano, which I recorded with my phone, and then played back to the onbaord mic on an old Macbook, when was further aged using a "1920s" tape effect in Logic. The resultant track was looped a few times, subject to various effects and then layered behind variosu midi instruments triggered by an Instruo Scion, which I happened to have with me.

This composition is an imagined duet with a prehistoric ancestor, combining an emotional synthesizer track with an old mythological lithophone performance.
Inspired by this week's Disquiet Junto project, I first created the shamanic performance using a virtual stone xylophone. I then added the synthesizer parts to bring these ancient vibes into the present day.

More on the 717th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Generation Gambit — The Assignment: Layer two eras of recordings, one of them imaginary — at https://disquiet.com/0717/.

Le Message en Pierre (Disquiet0717)

When exactly ends the past? The rain is now, the echoes are forever.

More on the 717th weekly Disquiet Junto project at https://disquiet.com/0717/.

Distant times [disquiet0717]

The Assignment: Layer two eras of recordings, one of them imaginary.

Step 1: Imagine some long ago ancestor of yours, one who also made music. This doesn’t have to be a real person.

Step 2: Record a rough track that is supposedly by your ancestor from Step 1. It should be evident in the sound that this recording is quite old (e.g., warble, surface noise, degradation).

Step 3: Record something on top of the ancestor track from Step 2, so the result is a combination of your contemporary sounds and your (perhaps fictional) ancestor’s antiquated sounds.

More on the 717th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Generation Gambit — The Assignment: Layer two eras of recordings, one of them imaginary — at https://disquiet.com/0717/.

descend [disquiet0717]

flip for: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0717-generation-gambit/73136/1
and first beat for: *STBB Beat tape https://beatbattle.org/threads/stbb-969-tape-echoes.1891/#post-26783

Disquiet Junto 717 ( STBB 969 Teaser ) Tape Echoes *see descr.

Old 1960s tape recording of my Grandfather and Uncle playing on the front porch of my Grandfathers farm in Indiana. It was mostly destroyed and unusable, but I salvaged a bit. I had to do quite a bit of digital restoration to get anything usable.....  I filled in by playing some extra acoustic guitar, bass and dobro.

Front Porch disquiet0717

More on the 717th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Generation Gambit — The Assignment: Layer two eras of recordings, one of them imaginary — at https://disquiet.com/0717/.

THE OG ORC (disquiet0717)

Have you heard me? If not, look at me and you will understand. I am... the Sun.

I’ve used the ‘sound’ of the sun (the sun’s vibrations converted into sound and made available by NASA). The sun’s ‘sound’ runs throughout the track to symbolize the force and impact of the Sun despite anything that have been happening in our lives on Earth and also in space in modern times.

I Have Spoken (Disquiet0717)

A track created for the Disquiet(0717) challenge. I've been wanting to do a piece centered around the text; "from the foregoing it can readily be seen", for some time. This project provided the inspiration and vehicle for this idea.

Track 1: Guitar
Track 2: Guitar Resampled

Track3: ipad synth Sunrizer
Track 4: ipad synth Monolit

Track 5: Voice reading of various permutations of the text

 More on the 717th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Generation Gambit — The Assignment: Layer two eras of recordings, one of them imaginary — at https://disquiet.com/0717/.



from the foregoing(Disquiet0717)

Cat's Meow [disquiet0717]

This week's #disquietjunto prompt was to record something that could have been made by an ancestor and then add something modern to it.

Apparently, one of my great-great-uncles said the only cure for his asthma was to get away from our Midwestern family farm and head out towards the dry climes of the American west...where he had a grand old time playing piano in saloons and other similar places. As a fellow asthmatic who wanted to spread his wings and who has spent many happy nights playing in bars and clubs, his story resonates with me!

I found an upright piano tucked away at my workplace and banged out some oom-pah chords and melodies. The first take, I kept it fairly straightforward, and then I tried a different take with more adventurous chords, rhythms, and melodies. In my DAW, I added some RC-20 to get that beat-up old record sound, and I also tried to add some reverb as a little homage to The Caretaker (whose album "Everywhere at the end of time" also deals with old timey music and memories).

Then, I considered what I had access to now that my ancestor would not have, and I figured drum machines would have blown his mind. So, I got to try out BabyAudio's Tekno by making a lighter beat in the beginning of the track and then a heavier beat at the end.

* * * * *
More on the 717th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Generation Gambit — The Assignment: Layer two eras of recordings, one of them imaginary — at https://disquiet.com/0717/.

Way Out West (disquiet0717)

This was made in response to the disquiet prompt to imagine an ancestor's recording, add something too it to create something. I thought of my ancestor that was a mortician in Mound City, MO. I wondered if he left a hurdy gurdy and some lyrics to an old English folk song.

grav.e (disquiet 0717)

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.