improvisations. ambient. piano with other instruments. rhodes, field recordings, effects, live looping, grains. downtempo acoustitronica.

electroacoustic

experiments and atmospheres. adventures into unexpected places and textures. modular synth, with and without other instruments and field recordings.

modular

More on this 252nd weekly Disquiet Junto project — “Sonic Palindrome: Make music that sounds the same backwards and forwards” — at:

http://disquiet.com/0252/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

llllllll.co/t/make-a-sonic-palindrome-disquiet-junto-0252/

There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.

Photo by Ian McKenzie, used thanks to a Creative Commons license:

flic.kr/p/b3F6Wz

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/

Disquiet Junto Project 0252: Sonic Palindrome

songs created for weekly beats 2014 and 2016.

http://weeklybeats.com

weekly beats

Poem Here https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/53659
36184__loopcentury__ada-m
160036__anton__creaky-garden-door-1 (best dang creaking door sound ever)
Going with the palindrome idea I downloaded these sounds from free sound and made loops and combining with its reversed loop. I then crossfaded between the 2 tracks mixing up the forward/reverse and also transposed down 8 up and 8 down 4 up 4. I saw the first lines of the poem "It was when they determined that I had been born dead
That my life became easier to understand. 
I thought it fit the beginning is the end is the beginning idea well. Mixed live on the APC40 crossfading in an fx track of the vocal.
More on this 252nd weekly Disquiet Junto project — “Sonic Palindrome: Make music that sounds the same backwards and forwards” — at:

http://disquiet.com/0252/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

llllllll.co/t/make-a-sonic-palindrome-disquiet-junto-0252/

There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.

Photo by Ian McKenzie, used thanks to a Creative Commons license:

flic.kr/p/b3F6Wz

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/

J. Beer 1969-1969 By John Beer (disquiet0252)

mix of https://ambientonline.bandcamp.com/track/solar-rays from the new ambient online compilation

an audio palindrome remix for disquiet

inspired by the palindrome:

'drawn I sit; serene rest is inward'

..
http://llllllll.co/t/make-a-sonic-palindrome-disquiet-junto-0252/5128
Disquiet Junto Project 0252: Sonic Palindrome
Make music that sounds the same backwards and forwards.

Solar Rays (Aibohphobia mix) disquiet0252

Disquiet Junto Project 0252: Sonic Palindrome
Make music that sounds the same backwards and forwards.

- I toyed around with a palindrome of time signatures, and a couple other approaches, but the "sounds the same backwards and forwards" brought me back to the more obvious approach. Record a piece of music and then reverse the recorded version and slap it on the end of the original. 
- I created a four bar riff in 5/8. It's only heard for eight bars at the the end/beginning of the forward/backward versions.
- The riff was put on three other tracks with reverb from Logic's Space Designer with 100% wet and 0% dry with three presets. Those are the drone tones.
- The kit was pieced together to provide some more interesting tones in the backwards section.
- The forward and backwards sections overlap for four bars in the middle where I left in the tail of the forward part. 
- I tried it out and the piece does sound the same backwards and forward;)

More on this 252nd weekly Disquiet Junto project — “Sonic Palindrome: Make music that sounds the same backwards and forwards” — at:
http://disquiet.com/0252/

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

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
llllllll.co/t/make-a-sonic-palindrome-disquiet-junto-0252/

There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.

Photo by Ian McKenzie, used thanks to a Creative Commons license:
flic.kr/p/b3F6Wz
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/

An Audio Palindrome - disquiet0252

combined twenty five reggae drum fills and twenty organ fills.
fiddled a bit with the tempo,added an lfo filter and a reversed reverb.
thats it.

More on this 252nd weekly Disquiet Junto project — “Sonic Palindrome: Make music that sounds the same backwards and forwards” — at:

disquiet.com/0252/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

disquiet.com/junto/

Aibohphobia   disquiet0252

one sitting 2 hours first takes a bit o processing

Disquiet0252

layered improvisation for keys, modular synth, effects, and field recordings. sudden rainfall in the late afternoon.

this week's track was created with weekly beats 43 and disquiet junto 0252 ("sonic palindrome") in mind. to have a song begin and end in the same manner (ABA metastructure), and to have individual palindromic sections in between that contain their own mirrors, with little variations throughout. the shifting pads created with the modular were another way of adding symmetry, in the attack/release envelopes.

modular notes:  a few tracks of mangrove, played by earthsea and grid, running through ripples and clouds (and then through el capistan and bluesky), with just friends and peaks providing amplitude envelopes.

recorded for weekly beats 2016 #43 and disquiet junto 0252:

http://weeklybeats.com
http://disquiet.com/2016/10/27/junto-0252/

20161030 (disquiet0252)

live performance video: https://vimeo.com/ioflow/restlesssea

a live performance in one take. ambient improvisation. monome grid and arc, modular synthesizer, strymon effects, mlrv. recorded into ableton live.

patch notes:
the piece begins with the monome grid playing rhodes melodies i recorded earlier and loaded into mlrv.

monome arc is connected to ansible, running cycles, which opens a gate and envelope (happy nerding ADSR) that lets through white noise. that noise is generated by mannequins cold mac. (crease patched to survey, turn knob to noise at 3 o'clock, mac out to audio interface.)

flipping the switch at top left of isms connects the grid to monome earthsea, containing four patterns recorded earlier. notes are sent to mangrove, gate to just friends in sustain/shape mode. mangrove square out to 3sisters' "all" input. audio from that lowpass filter is sent to mutable instruments clouds, and then out to the strymon delay and reverb pedals (el capistan & bluesky).

recorded for weekly beats 2016 #48: http://weeklybeats.com

restless sea

video: https://vimeo.com/ioflow/gloriousblue

live performance in one take. an ambient drone improvisation for modular synthesizer, monome, cassette tape, effects, and field recording. gentle music for winter weather.

it's been mostly cold and gray where i live; intermittent rain showers and chill winds. yet every now and then, the clouds vanish entirely, and the deepest, palest winter blue fills the heavens.

for this week's song, which includes disquiet junto project #0258 (http://disquiet.com/2016/12/08/junto-0258/) and weekly beats 2016 #49 (http://weeklybeats.com), i wanted to place all that loveliness into a song using a new workflow. i recorded four long improvisations on rhodes and juno 106 to cassette tape, each one mono track. the tape deck, a yamaha mt4x, got one channel of the mixer, and two more for the modular, one for melodic swells and one for the field recording of the rainstorm at home.

i played melodies on the monome grid, via earthsea (oscillator: mannequins mangrove into three sisters filter, then mutable instruments clouds), while also bringing the tape drone sequences in and out by sliding the faders in real time, playing it like an instrument. constantly shifting between the mt4x, modular, mixer, and effects pedals. yet there were some moments so surprisingly pretty that i had to keep still and let the waves wash over me, as i had not heard everything together before starting the live session.

a glorious blue between storms

solo piano improvisation. an evening winter contemplation.

recorded for weekly beats 2016 #50: http://weeklybeats.com

20161218

piano improvisation + field recording. gentle melodies as the storm diminishes. rejoicing; quiet peace in the late hours.

recorded for weekly beats 2016 #51: http://weeklybeats.com

midnight, rainfall on christmas eve

live performance video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5gfjG0A6sg

an ambient+drone improvisation for modular, effects, and field recordings from a winter vacation in the southwest. sparrows and crows stirring, icicles shattering, snowclumps falling from bushes, the trickle of tiny drops. little worlds thawing.

modular patch notes:

a monophonic recording of a rhodes '73 is run through mutable instruments clouds and other effects; the resulting audio forms the pads throughout the piece. clouds parameters were modulated with envelopes and scratchy random motion from mannequins just friends and cold mac.

melodic swells were played with a monome grid connected to earthsea, controlling a mannequins mangrove oscillator, sent through the three sisters filter in lowpass mode. that audio goes through the isms spring reverb tank, then into strymon tape delay and reverb pedals.

the rhodes and winter sounds were captured with a zoom h5, then brought into ableton live for a tiny bit of normalizing and EQing.

recorded for weekly beats 2016 #52, my last song of the year. fifty-two weeks of completed songs. thank You, God, for making this happen.

meltwater, sunrays warming

gentle sounds for the cold season. the closing song for the final lines community album of 2017, "solstice."

https://lcrp.bandcamp.com/album/solstice

piano improvisations, lap harp through modular synthesizer and effects pedals, found objects through microphone and modular synthesizer, field recording of trickling stream and tiny birds cheeping in the trees and canyon all around.

solstice

free download

winterstream

ambient improvisations for piano, rhodes, modular synthesizer, effects, and field recording.

for the first disquiet junto project of the year (my last contribution was #0300 in october 2017), i followed the "blind recording" process i developed in 2016, starting with the field recording: crushed ice swirling in a glass, occasionally poured into another glass. as the ice melted, only the sounds of water and the largest ice cubes were left.

i then recorded the piano improvisation without listening to the ice; those clinks and little swishes serendipitously lined up with individual notes and longer phrases over different octaves.

finally, i recorded the rhodes swells by twisting the mixer volume knob, with that audio running through the modular synthesizer and strymon effects pedals. the whole thing was assembled in ableton live and audacity, with no other effects, eq, or compression.

recorded for disquiet junto 0314, "cold start."
https://disquiet.com/2018/01/04/disquiet-junto-project-0314-cold-start/

20180108

experimental ambient. live performance for monome norns.

video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BL3drqsfuo

two rhodes improvisations were recorded into norns and loaded into mlr. also present is a field recording of an anna's hummingbird, taken while on a nature walk in a canyon preserve.

the main rhodes improvisation is duplicated across the first two tracks. the second, shorter rhodes improvisation is on the third track, just above the hummingbird loop. all the rhodes tracks are played at different speeds and directions, jumbled, chopped and switched, accompanied by the gentle sounds of the hummingbird chirping happily to itself in the shadows of the dense canyon foliage, on a warm summer day.

this is my first recording with monome norns. sample-based grid apps--mlr, mlrv, rove, and all their variants--have been a part of my creative workflow for several years. being freed from the confines of desktop computers and their fidgety, cantankerous operating systems and software stacks; instead being able focus on the immediacy of hardware music-making, as easily as sitting down at my piano, is incredibly liberating. it's pretty much everything i've wanted to be able to do since i got my first monome grid in 2011. norns is wonderful, so full of possibilities. i'm looking forward to fulfilling more musical dreams.

canyon loops

my song for the ambient compilation "Friends," released december 6 2018, on @seilrecords.

modular synthesizer + piano + field recordings + effects. gentle melodies and birds; slow sunshine and cool shadows.

https://seilrecords.bandcamp.com/album/an-ambient-compilation

Friends

tanagers in paradise

ambient live performance for modular synthesizer. midnight. explorations and preparations. new material; looking ahead.

video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63Pxva56dFs

modular patch notes are on the YT video page. recorded june 1, 2019.

nightglow

live performance for eurorack modular synthesizer. ambient atmospheres. once more around the midnight sun. explorations and experiments with make noise morphagene.

video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiyozPdUxVs

modular patch notes are on the YT page. recorded september 28, 2019.

aphelion // beyond the horizon

an experimental ambient/drone live performance for modular synthesizer, originally as a four-part video for instagram. seven voices, gently drifting.

video: https://www.instagram.com/p/B3r7h7rhBoT/

modular patch notes are on the IG post. recorded october 16, 2019.

static currents

slow scenes from a few days ago. coast live oak and california scrub oak. tranquil groves and dappled sunshine. layered ambient improvisations: piano, modular synthesizer, rhodes, field recordings. birds, rings, clouds, keys.

video: https://www.youtube.com/c/ioflow

the sound of light shining down

experiments. moments. images. play. beautiful things to reflect the joy and peace of the Creator.