...Kingdom, Ever Darkly

Magma Chamber

Disquiet Junto Project 0580: Evo Evol Evolve

The Assignment: Record a piece of music that develops like an organism evolves.

Step 1: You’re going to record a piece of music informed by evolution. Think of stages of evolution, perhaps choosing a specific animal or other life form that evolved over time.

Step 2: Record a piece of music that evolves as it proceeds, based on the patterns (phases, stages) you explored in Step 1. And yes, animals that went extinct are a potential subject.

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Track notes:

I took my inspiration from the long evolution of insect species on the planet, considering the vast scale of evolution from primordial epochs up to the present, where insect species are front-and-centre in the Sixth Great Extinction of the late Anthropocene.

SuperCollider came to mind again as a tool for realisation, since I had ‘traditional’ forms of ‘computer music’ in mind - especially Bernard Parmegiani’s epic La Creatione De Monde (1984)

Now, obviously I don’t have a) a year up my sleeve; and b) the coding faculty in SC to pull off such a gargantuan feat, but I thought it might be a cool point of reference that I could fold into my current understanding (as a beginner) in the SC environment.

Recently I got to grips with buffering audio samples and using sequences to control various patterns - both melodic and percussive. I created a couple of dictionaries of short percussive samples (kalimba, woodblock and guiro) as well as instantiating a couple of Synth objects that produce pure waves. The percussive sounds turned out well when triggered, sequenced and manipulated and I liked the interplay with the pure waves.

My track is a bit longer than my usual submissions (~6 mins) but I thought I needed a decent span of time to realise a time compression of a few hundred million years of evolution.

For the realisation, I live-coded from the initial script (see GitHub link below) and then adjusted various parameters, arguments and variable throughout. The idea was to start amongst the matter of the cosmos and then gradually render a semblance of life on Earth. Eventually, an abundance takes form, before the insect population starts to diminish at the close. It not strictly a linear progression; rather, a fairly wobbly negative exponential progression. I’m still getting to grips with controlling instruments on the fly in SC, but I think I’m improving.

I was happily surprised when I saw the spectrogram of this track. Its progression of blobs, smears and flurries of activity over a time series seemed fitting!

https://github.com/TristanLouthRobins/Supercollider/blob/main/junto0580-evo_compressor.scd.scd

[Disquiet_Junto_0580] Evo Compressor (w/SuperCollider)

An old master rediscovered and reworked today:
Synths, drum beat , vocoder.
Photo by Cerqueira


for: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0582-x-techno

Techno Bossa (disquiet0582)

A lullaby for the lonely.

A walking meditation on internal struggle.

Forever on my own, a lament

This is my entry for https://disquiet.com/2023/04/20/disquiet-junto-project-0590-concrete-roots/

I took a brief portion of a field recording I made several years ago of high tide in Provincetown Harbor (Provincetown, MA), and subjected it to a process inspired by Alvin Lucier's "I Am Sitting in a Room". I iteratively processed the sound through a convolution reverb using an impulse response (IR) from an empty concrete nuclear reactor hall, Each successive generation re-applies the reverb so that eventually we hear only the resonant frequencies in the space from which the IR was derived. This was a manual process, as I wanted to preserve the ever-increasing reverb tails, and also to control the reverb level to avoid digital distortion (which can be cool, but not what I was after).

When I assembled the segments into a single track, I decided to reverse the order so that the most highly-processed segment comes first, and the original recording is only heard at the end of the piece.

Made in Reaper using the Waves IRLive Stereo plugin. The IR is from the OpenAIR Project: https://www.openair.hosted.york.ac.uk/?page_id=626

I Am Tiding In A Concrete Room [disquiet0590]

A simple chord sequence courtesy of Tonnetz Sequent, which is split between a chord that has its filter rhythmically opened and a muxlicer arpeggiating through the oscillators. I played with the volume and reverb settings as it ran through for a few minutes. Should be plenty of space for more parts to go over this.

More on this 591st weekly Disquiet Junto project, The Loneliest Number (The Assignment: Record the first third of a trio), at: https://disquiet.com/0591/

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

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0591-the-loneliest-number/

The Loneliest Number(disquiet0591)

This is the first part of a 3-part collaboration for the Disquiet Junto. All the sounds used in this basic rhythm track (85bpm) are from a recent session where the numerous noises a bass guitar makes were recorded using a contact mic on the body of the bass rather than through the normal pickups.

More on this 591st weekly Disquiet Junto project, The Loneliest Number (The Assignment: Record the first third of a trio), at: https://disquiet.com/0591/

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

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0591-the-loneliest-number/

85bpM

halF numbereD [disquiet0591] 85bpM

Generative patch on the Serge modular. Dark ambient drone.

Base track for collaboration with Disquiet Junto members.

Triskadisko (disquiet 0591)

More on this 593rd weekly Disquiet Junto project, The Charm (The Assignment: Complete an asynchronous trio begun by two other musicians), at: https://disquiet.com/0593/

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

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0593-the-charm/

Sim Kitchen Brap  Featuring Paul Matthew Moore And Sonaura [disquiet0593]

Disquiet Junto Project 0643: Stone Out of Focus
The Assignment: Make music inspired by a poem.

Step 1: This project is inspired by a brief poem by Yoko Ono, in which she wrote, “Take the sound of the stone aging.” Consider that sound.

Step 2: Record your impression of the sound of stone aging.

Background: This week’s project is based on a text by Yoko Ono, originally published in her book Grapefruit 60 years ago, back in 1964.

Freely inspired by:  
Singende Steine Rhythmus-Studien an drei katalanischen Kreuzgängen romanischen Stils By Marius Schneider · 1955

Singende Steine II(disquiet0643)

💼 Wealth Whispers 963Hz 🎵: Unlock Prosperity with Rapid Melodies 💰

Thanks for stopping by - please enjoy what you hear! 🤗 Any time you want to look as well as listen, head over to the YouTube channel ...

Apparently, the ‘hai’ in ‘haiku’ translates to ‘joke’, ‘fun’, or ‘unusual’, which is part of the inspiration for the odd name of this venture; an evolving project nurtured by Darren Bourne, in collaboration with countless others, past and present. The ongoing obsessions of halF unusuaL are improvisation, chance and the music / non-music boundary, with the aim of (impossibly) creating sound worlds never heard before ... Thank you so much for your support 🥰

halF numbereD [disquiet0591] 85bpM

halF unusuaL

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