I started out on this track by trying to put together a self-modifying feedback loop in VCVRack. Much to my dismay, I am really out of practice with Rack, and was getting absolutely nowhere. The number of modules is now astronomical, and I was getting bogged down in “what module do I use, and they're so small I can't really see this anyway” decisions, dragging modules around, flailing, and definitely not progressing.

So instead, I abandoned that, opened up Live and went to my old favorite, Buchla Easel V. It is possible to feed audio from one track to another via sidechaining in Live, so I sidechained the two instances to each other, chose an interesting self-playing patch, switched it around to feed in the preamp input to the patch, and started cranking up the various gains. It was then a matter of carefully tweaking levels inside the plugins and the feedback between each of the instances to send them into just-controlled mutual feedback oscillation.

To make it a bit more tasty, I added Valhalla Supermassive delays, set slightly differently, to both instances, and fed back the post-effects signal instead of the dry one. This finally got me to the density of texture I was looking for, and after a couple of takes to practice tweaking the feedback in real-time (adding the effects made it quite a bit more sensitive), I finally hit record in Audio Hijack and got a usable take. A little trimming of the silence in Fission and it was complete.

The title is from an early poem of Keats, “Woman! when I behold thee flippant, vain”. I first saw it quoted in a Dorothy Sayers mystery and as faintly ridiculous and infelicitous as it is, it’s still stuck with me.

…but when I mark
Such charms with mild intelligences shine,
My ear is open like a greedy shark,
To catch the tunings of a voice divine.

Disquiet Junto 

My Ear Is Open Like a Greedy Shark [disquiet0611]

Modular, ambient, abstract, and some beats too

My Ear Is Open Like a Greedy Shark [disquiet0611]

Equinox Deschanel (Joe McMahon)