Disquiet Junto Project 0553: Break That Cycle
The Assignment: Record in a steady tempo but break it on occasion.

This is a one-step project: Record in a steady tempo but break it on occasion. For example, you might record a piece of music in 4/4 at a steady pace, but occasionally break it by including an extra bar or a stray three-bar sequence, or a segment that’s notably faster or slower.

. . .

More on this 553rd weekly Disquiet Junto project — Break That Cycle (The Assignment: Record in a steady tempo but break it on occasion) — at: https://disquiet.com/0553/

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

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0553-break-that-cycle/

The image shows a detail of a mural painted by the artist Pablo “Raíz” Ruiz Arroyo at the record store Noise in San Francisco.

Disquiet Junto Project 0553: Break That Cycle

Disquiet0553 Embracing Contradiction - Break The Cycle: Three unique guitar tracks, migrating from 4/4 to 3/4 with breaks and counter melodies

Disquiet0553 Embracing Contradiction - Break That Cycle

More on this 553rd weekly Disquiet Junto project — Break That Cycle (The Assignment: Record in a steady tempo but break it on occasion) — at: https://disquiet.com/0553/

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

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0553-break-that-cycle/

The image shows a detail of a mural painted by the artist Pablo “Raíz” Ruiz Arroyo at the record store Noise in San Francisco.

chyle calf

halF cyclE [disquiet0553]

Great, a one step task, on vacation
spend a few days at the baltic sea
i played my guitar through Steinberg UR 22mkII
recorded in aum
added some granular effects
there were actually only two tempi
one slower, one faster

inner circle/outer circle(disquiet0553)

Any break or interruption in tempo might classify as a form of bond fission. To compose a piece that celebrates fracture as a creative element, Suss Müsik sought to understand how to locate bonds in non-musical terms. Enter Colorado School of Mines geochemistry professor Mark Eberhart, author of the book Why Things Break:

“Picture yourself flowing in space. Off the right and left are atomic nuclei. Neither can be seen, however, as each is surrounded by a dense cloud of electrons. Move up or down, backward or forward and, as if you were descending through a cloudbank, the fog diminishes. Alternatively, move toward one of the nuclei, and the electronic fog engulfing you becomes denser. Follow the path to the nucleus along with the electronic fog is densest and you are moving along the bond.”

That’s the approach Suss Müsik took with this weird piece for piano, fake strings, and rudimentary homemade synth. A simple, repetitive chord sequence was twinned on two instruments in 4/4 time. An occasional blip of piano arpeggios exceed the time signature while staying relatively in tempo. 

Things bust loose midway through the piece, as the strings succumb to excessive glitch refactoring at a much higher tempo (moving toward the “nuclei” of the arpeggio tempo). Meanwhile, an electronic gadget burps in approval at the same rate. In true Sun Ra fashion, the piano tries to hold it all together before the primary chords resume their respective places, this time accompanied by a fake cello mirroring the arpeggios. 

The piece is titled Homolysis, a form of fission by which each broken part of a bond retains fragments of the other.

More on this 553rd weekly Disquiet Junto project — Break That Cycle (The Assignment: Record in a steady tempo but break it on occasion) — at: https://disquiet.com/0553/

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

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0553-break-that-cycle/

The image shows a detail of a mural painted by the artist Pablo “Raíz” Ruiz Arroyo at the record store Noise in San Francisco.

Homolysis [Disquiet0553]

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

More on this 553rd weekly Disquiet Junto project — Break That Cycle (The Assignment: Record in a steady tempo but break it on occasion) — at: https://disquiet.com/0553/

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

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0553-break-that-cycle/

Four Four Walks Into A Bar (disquiet0553)

This started as a generative modular patch run with a varying clock. The results were kinda wallpapery and the tempo shifts not that obvious, I needed something with a steady pulse to give context and contrast. I dug out an old drumloop from a project from 10 years ago which I abandoned cuz I wasn’t happy with the rigidity of the beat. I had the file playing while adjusting the tempo of the modular track. This led to a warbly tape like effect that reminded me of badly wound cassettes where the b-side would faintly bleed through



More on this 553rd weekly Disquiet Junto project — Break That Cycle (The Assignment: Record in a steady tempo but break it on occasion) — at: https://disquiet.com/0553/

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

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0553-break-that-cycle/

The image shows a detail of a mural painted by the artist Pablo “Raíz” Ruiz Arroyo at the record store Noise in San Francisco.

Four Four Walks Into A Bar (disquiet0553)

Hugh G Twatt