Disquiet Junto Project 0607: Silence Wave
The Assignment: From close to zero and back again, alter the relative amount of sound to silence in a piece of music.

There’s just one step to this project:

Compose a piece of music in which the relative amount of sound to silence starts at zero (that is, no sound), rises to approximately 40 percent (that is, 60 percent silent) and returns to zero again. Keep the pace fairly steady.

Rhythmic Wave(disquiet0607)

Disquiet Junto Project 0611: Music That Listens to Itself
The Assignment: Record a piece of music that repurposes itself as it proceeds.

Background: On September 29, 2023, there is going to be an event at a place called the Berkeley Alembic, in Berkeley, California, where I’ll play recordings of music that share a specific theme, and I’ll discuss the sounds with the people who come to listen. The event is titled Music That Listens to Itself, part of the Expanded Listening series developed by Erik Davis (Techgnosis, Burning Shore). That is the theme. Part of the goal of this project is to develop tracks for potential inclusion in the event, and to pursue ideas related to the event’s theme.

Step 1: The underlying idea is to produce music that, so to speak, listens to itself. This would be music that employs techniques to revisit itself — repurposes itself — as it proceeds. From reverb to echo to tape loops to granular synthesis to accessing a buffer, various techniques serve such a compositional and performance purpose. Consider a means to achieve this result.

Step 2: Record a piece of music that employs the technique you focused on as a result of Step 1. Please note: for the Berkeley Alembic event, I’ll be sharing music that is particularly quiet, particularly appropriate to a meditative state of mind. You don’t need to record quiet music for this project, but quiet music is what I’ll be playing at the event.

Additional details: disquiet.com 1. Tickets: eventbrite.com 3. About the venue: berkeleyalembic.org 1.

Eight Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0611” (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 “disquiet0611” (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-0611-music-that-listens-to-itself/

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.

Step 8: Also join in the discussion on the Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to marc@disquiet.com for Slack inclusion.

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. About 10 minutes maximum is best, and probably no shorter than three minutes.

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, September 18, 2023, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, September 14, 2023.

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).

For context, when posting the track online, please be sure to include this following information:

Memory of a loss - disquiet0611

Disquiet Junto Project 0612: Drum Vector
The Assignment: Walk the listener through variations on the same percussive instrument.

Dragged my wooden tongue drum out of the closet for this one. Recorded too many variations and had to cut a few. Basically just used different reverbs and delays to give each variation it's own space.  Also played with panning on the cross fades to make it seem like you're walking from one area to the next.  Then for a noise bed I routed everything to a new track with more reverb, resonator, effects and so on.  Automated the stereo width on that one rather randomly.

More on this 612th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Drum Vector (The Assignment: Walk the listener through variations on the same percussive instrument), at: https://disquiet.com/0612/

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-0612-drum-vector/

splinter vector (Disquiet0612)

I assembled a handful of drum vignettes using different types of sequencing methods, using recordings of rusty metal sounds from an airbnb I visited in Elmore, VT in July 2023. (Notes to follow)

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"Rust Drum Collage" was submitted as part of ​the Disquiet Junto Project 0612: Drum Vector. The Assignment: Walk the listener through variations on the same percussive instrument.

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

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

Rust Drum Collage • [disquiet 0612]

Something I've been meaning to do is explore the (electric) upright bass, which has hardly been used over the years it's been in the house. A disquiet YouTube video is also well overdue and I have also been meaning to experiment with a bottleneck on bass ... So, this is a triple whammy of stuff I've been wanting to get around to ...

Check out the accompanying video @ https://youtu.be/dJRC3Uw-EhQ

More on this 613th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Test Drive (The Assignment: The Assignment: Do something you’ve been meaning to do), at: https://disquiet.com/0613/

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-0613-test-drive/

visuals (YouTube)

halF tesT [disquiet0613]

This track started from a newspaper article (published in November 1973 in my home country). I processed it through a text-to-speech software and use it as a base to improvise melodies and rhythms. I then extracted elements that I liked and arranged them into the final piece.

The goal was to make the voice less audible as the track progresses. To achieve this, I used different set of effects on each sections of the track.

Original article : https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1973/11/03/entre-la-peur-et-l-espoir_2546275_1819218.html

More on this 618th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Burying the Lede (The Assignment: Turn old news into new music), at: https://disquiet.com/0618/

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-0618-burying-the-lede/

Between Fear and Hope (disquiet0618)

Disquiet Junto Project 0618: Burying the Lede
The Assignment: Turn old news into new music.

I googled for local newspapers from 1973 and found a review of a Pink Floyd concert (Dark Side Of The Moon, which is one of only a small number of CDs I still own) in Munich on Oct 15th 1973 in the daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. I used some middle part of the review, which describes the sound and talks about how Pink Floyd integrates noise in music. I used ttsmp3.com to read it in bad german. I added the speech to a ambience layer that has something of a concert atmo and of something nois-ish, both not well integrated.

The 1973 newspaper I found was this:
https://www.pulse-and-spirit.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/PF-1973-Munich.jpg - the article was written by journalist Michael Frank, who must then have been around 26 (and still wrote for the same newspaper some years ago). Today we might no longer imagine, what kind of ultra hot shit this album must have been at that time. 

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Track image by Stability AI.

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More on this 618th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Burying the Lede (The Assignment: Turn old news into new music), at: https://disquiet.com/0618/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0618-burying-the-lede/

Die Fahrt Der Galaktischen Riesen [disquiet0618]

Disquiet Junto Project 0620: Beat Accrual Accrual
The Assignment: Turn someone’s slow-build beat into a finished track.

Step 1: In the previous project, people built beats that accrue slowly over time. Familiarize yourself with the instructions at disquiet.com/0619 5.

Step 2: Several of the musicians who participated last week have allowed their tracks to be reused for this project. The majority are in this playlist. If you’d like your track from the previous project included this week, just get in touch and let me know.


For this test I used 2 pieces from the previous compilation:
1) GoingModular - Disquieting Polyrhythm
2) fakeg3nius - [disquiet0619] Rhythm
 I was particularly fascinated by the loop, which with very few notes and chords manages to create this suspended sensation of strong melancholy and, at the same time, of hope. On the other hand, the response, dry and peremptory, of the phrasing and timbre of the drums. I added, at the beginning and end of the piece, some "disturbance" lines, always rhythmic.

Going Fake(disquiet620)

two seahorses
dancing in seagrass
slivers of sunlight

Haiku by: Corine Timmer www.bicadeideias.com (first published on FemkuMag Issue 34, November 2022)

More information: https://www.naviarrecords.com/about/naviar-haiku

more halF unusuaL

halF twO [naviarhaiku516]

The Sunniest Of Bonfires

Rubidium

Welcome to halF unusuaL, an evolving space inspired by play in the spirit of ‘hai’ (meaning “fun” or “unusual” in the word haiku). Here, improvisation connects the unexpected, mining the boundary between music and non-music to shape sound worlds that feel oddly familiar in their oddity. Listen freely, explore deeply, and for the sounds to live for your eyes as well as your ears, please stop by the YouTube channel. Thank you for joining this journey! Your support helps keep this afloat ... and is HUGELY appreciated 🥰