This was made for Disquiet Junto Project 0515: Talking Cure. I wanted to create a sound that would be relaxing and meditative and so kept it deliberately simple, using loops and simple inputs.

breathing space disquiet0515

A song in four parts, based on an image by John Cage and a statement by Brian Eno.

More on this 557th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Condensation Is a Form of Change (The Assignment: Interpret a graphic score that depicts four phases) — at: https://disquiet.com/0557/

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-0557-condensation-is-a-form-of-change/.

condensation [disquiet0557]

This track makes use of Aphex Twin's new software Samplebrain.

https://gitlab.com/then-try-this/samplebrain

Audio samples used (from Freesound):
Coyotes running during the night in the woods felix.blume
Goose passes.wav straget
Heavy rain lebaston100
City terrace night 2 Sotiris_Laskaris
Bird whistling, robin, single, 13.wav InspectorJ
Birds in Spring (Scotland) BurghRecords

More on this 561st weekly Disquiet Junto project — Samplelicker (The Assignment: Rework environmental sound recordings with Aphex Twin’s new software) — at: https://disquiet.com/0561/

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-0561-samplelicker/

strain [disquiet0561]

The Assignment: Use a picture of the clouds as a plan for adjusting your sound.

Step 1: Think about the use of a gate in music production. A gate can be described as an “on/off switch, allowing signals over threshold to pass while muting everything below.” (It’s likely that discussion will occur during this project regarding useful explanations of the concept.)

Step 2: Take a picture of some clouds.

Step 3: Think of how to interpret the clouds as a model of a gate.

Step 4: Record a track employing the approach you determined in Step 3 using the picture from Step 2.

More on this 604th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Heaven’s Gate (The Assignment: Use a picture of the clouds as a plan for adjusting your sound), at: https://disquiet.com/0604/

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-0604-heavens-gate/

gatekeeper [disquiet0604]

The assignment: start a song at 0 volume, then gradually rise to 40%, then gradually back to 0.

More on this 607th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Silence Wave (The Assignment: From close to zero and back again, alter the relative amount of sound to silence in a piece of music), at: https://disquiet.com/0607/

Thanks this week to Jason Richardson and Klaus-Dieter Hilf.

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-0607-silence-wave/

send it all back [disquiet0607]

This assignment had us use a field recording of a train by Todd "Toaster" Elliott

More on the 635th weekly Disquiet Junto project, ’Round the Bend — The Assignment: You’re in a duo, and your bandmate is a train — at https://disquiet.com/0635/

entrain [disquiet0635]

For this assignment, I chose to create music for the Shirley Jackson short story The Lottery.

The Assignment: Set a favorite story to music.

Step 1: Choose a favorite short story.

Step 2: Compose a piece of music that follows the arc of the story’s narrative or otherwise conveys something about the story you want to express. You may closely follow plot points, or convey an overall atmosphere, or incorporate related sound effects, or do something else entirely.

More on the 652nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, By the Tale — The Assignment: Set a favorite story to music — at https://disquiet.com/0652/

The Lottery [disquiet0652]

Music made from a graphic score.

More on the 659th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Reading the Body — The Assignment: Interpret the markings on the back of a cello as a graphic score — at https://disquiet.com/0659/

Image: detail from a painting by Don MacKeen

reading [disquiet0659]

The Assignment: What’s it sound like when the devil lives across the street?

There is just one step for this project. The devil happens to live across the street from you. What’s it sound like on an average evening?

Thanks to Paolo Salvagione, who proposed this project many hundreds of projects ago.

More on the 667th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Neighbor of the Beast — The Assignment: What’s it sound like when the devil lives across the street? — at https://disquiet.com/0667/

vicinus bestiae [disquiet0667]

The Assignment: Make music to help a forest regenerate.

A scientific research paper this month documented evidence that sound can help fungus grow. The conclusion: “Demonstrating a tangible impact on fungal activity, our findings suggest that carefully tuned acoustic parameters might be able to enhance ecological processes.”

Record music to help a forest grow. Imagine an array of solar-powered speakers is spread through a forest-in-need. Or come up with another deployment scenario of your own imagining. What sort of music would you play for the forest to encourage its regeneration?

The research paper: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2024.0295.

Coverage in the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/04/science/fungus-sounds-growth.html

The paper is the work of four people from the College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, in Australia.

Thanks to Michael Rhode for having shared with me the research coverage.

More on the 669th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Phonosynthesis — The Assignment: Make music to help a forest regenerate — at https://disquiet.com/0669/

music for plants [disquiet0669]

The Assignment: Make an atmosphere of your own.

Step 1: Rather than record music, in the traditional sense, you are going to spend time assembling a sonic environment, what might be thought of as an atmosphere. Think about what that might entail. Please begin this process with the understanding that you will create the atmosphere from scratch, which is to say: not using field recordings of existing environments.

Step 2: Think about the sort of atmosphere you want to make. It might help to experiment by first making some quick rough drafts, in order to see what sorts of atmospheres your skills and equipment lend themselves to.

Step 3: Now record the atmosphere you decided upon in Step 2, adhering to the directions mentioned in Step 1.

More on the 671st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Right of Way — The Assignment: Music for turn signals — at https://disquiet.com/0671/

Image: Detail from a painting by Don MacKeen

atmosphere [disquiet0671]

The Assignment: Make the quiet part loud, and vice-versa.

Just one step this week: Record a piece of music in which you make loud that which is usually quiet and quiet that which is usually loud.

More on the 673rd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Switch Back — The Assignment: Make the quiet part loud, and vice-versa — at https://disquiet.com/0673/

gone fishing [disquiet0673]

The Assignment: Bury a slow melody deep inside a drone.

Step 1: We did a drone project last week and it went well, so let’s do another one. You needn’t have done last week’s to do this week, as is always the case. Again, you may, yourself, be experienced recording drone music, or you may never have recorded any. You may not even be sure what drone music is, in which case read up a bit. Not matter your experience and familiarity, please give some thought as to what constitutes drone music.

Step 2: Think about what makes a melody, even a very slow and simple melody, different from a drone.

Step 3: Now record a piece of music that is, objectively, a deep drone, but somehow within it, somewhere well below the surface, include a slow-moving melody. 

More on the 676th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Sub Melody — The Assignment: Bury a slow melody deep inside a drone — at https://disquiet.com/0676/

bury the lead [disquiet0676]

Year's end,
all corners
of this floating world, swept.

The final poem of the year is by the greatest haiku master of all.

Haiku by Matsuo Bashō (translated by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto)

To find out more and participate, visit https://www.naviarrecords.com/haiku-music-challenge/

years end [naviarhaiku573]

Curve of time -
a thought takes flight,
scent of a rose.

Vincenzo, aka El Wud, is an electronic musician from Naples, Italy.

A regular participant in our haiku music challenge, El Wud uses sound overlaps, causal collisions and cosmic echoes to create evocative soundscapes.

I translated Vincenzo's haiku from Italian, and made some minor variations. I hope you'll find it inspiring.

Haiku by El Wud

curve of time [naviarhaiku577]

The Assignment: What if you could?

There is just one step to this project. The idea that one cannot “unring a bell” is a fairly common saying, at least in English. But what if you could? What might it sound like? And what use might the unrung bell serve in the making of music. Please record a track in which you try to unring a bell.

More on the 682nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Unring a Bell — The Assignment: What if you could? — at https://disquiet.com/0682/

unrung [disquiet0682]

Disquiet Junto Project 0684: Early Bird
The Assignment: Record not so much an alarm as a guided wakening.

Step 1: You are going to record a piece of music intended for someone to listen to almost immediately upon waking up. Think about your mornings, and what a more optimal morning might entail.

Step 2: Consider a scenario in which someone wakes up and, rather than look at their work or check the news, they take a period of time to just get centered. Think about how long you might want this to take, say three minutes, or five minutes, or twenty minutes.

Step 3: Consider the stages of awakening, from quiet to loud, from slow to fast (or a middling pace), from simple to complex. Perhaps the sounds go full circle, returning to where they started.

Step 4: Consider what sound at the end — a gong, a bell, a bird call, etc. — might signal that the waking process has concluded.

Step 5: Having reflected on the topics brought up in the instructions thus far, record a track that might guide someone slowly into consciousness upon waking each morning.

More on the 684th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Early Bird — The Assignment: Record not so much an alarm as a guided wakening — at https://disquiet.com/0684/

morning song disquiet0684

Disquiet Junto Project 0691: Un-Ravel
The Assignment: Make a recording of a string quartet fall apart.

Step 1: Download the first movement of the Ravel string quartet at this URL: https://bit.ly/un-ravel

The original source is the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/3-capet-sq-col-d-15057-60-ravel-1928-mov-3/

Step 2: Listen to the track closely.

Step 3: Create a new piece of music by employing the provided recording as source material. The goal for your piece is that it should make the Ravel sound like it is falling apart — that is, like it is unraveling, or un-Ravel-ing.

More on the 691st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Un-Ravel — The Assignment: Make a recording of a string quartet fall apart — at https://disquiet.com/0691/

unravelling [disquiet0691]

This song done in collaboration with Leon Clowes 
https://soundcloud.com/leonclowes/hole-third-disquiet0697

Disquiet Junto Project 0698: Second Third
The Assignment: Record the second third of a trio.

There are two versions of the instructions for this week’s project — one very short, the other very long.

Very short version (about 25 words): Select a track from last week’s project (disquiet.com/0697), pan it to the left, and add your own line to the right, leaving room in the center for someone to eventually turn it into a trio.

More on the 698th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Second Third — The Assignment: Record the second third of a trio — at https://disquiet.com/0698/



two of three [disquiet0698] with Leon Clowes

Collaboration with @henuri and @morgulbee https://soundcloud.com/user-807707609/b-drone-aftermath-disquiet0698

Disquiet Junto Project 0699: Third Third
The Assignment: Record the final third of a trio.

There are two versions of the instructions for this week’s project — one very short, the other very long.

Very short version (roughly 25 words): Select a track from last week’s duet project (disquiet.com/0698) and add a third part dead center between the left and right stereo channels to complete a trio.

More on the 699th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Third Third — The Assignment: Record the final third of a trio — at https://disquiet.com/0699/


one two three [disquiet0699] with henuri and morgulbee

Collaboration with Fake Genius and Torpid Scorpion https://soundcloud.com/torpidscorpion/second-third-disquiet0698-fake

Disquiet Junto Project 0699: Third Third
The Assignment: Record the final third of a trio.

There are two versions of the instructions for this week’s project — one very short, the other very long.

Very short version (roughly 25 words): Select a track from last week’s duet project (disquiet.com/0698) and add a third part dead center between the left and right stereo channels to complete a trio.

More on the 699th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Third Third — The Assignment: Record the final third of a trio — at disquiet.com/0699/

third third [disquiet0699] with Fake Genius and Torpid Scorpion

Disquiet Junto Project 0700: View Frame
The Assignment: Share the view and some sounds inspired by the view.

Step 1: Take a photo out your window, with a little bit of the frame in view. Show people a glimpse of your world.

Step 2: Record a short, simple piece of music inspired (or otherwise informed) by what you see.

More on the 700th weekly Disquiet Junto project, View Frame — The Assignment: Share the view and some sounds inspired by the view — at https://disquiet.com/0700/

arthur street [disquiet0700]

whirl

insect tremolo
soberingly cools the heat
of farmland roads

Kogetsu Eguchi (1825-1867) was a Japanese poet active in the late Edo period. Together with Kazan Watanabe, he authored the haiku book Tōke shunchō.

Haiku by Kogetsu Eguchi

insect tremelo [naviarhaiku603]

Disquiet Junto Project 0711: Show & Tell &
The Assignment: Share some recent music; get and give feedback

Step 1: Choose a track/composition you’re working on. Share the recording on the Lines forum on the llllllll.co discussion thread at:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0711-show-tell
Step 2: When posting the track, mention that you’re looking for feedback, describe what you’ve been up to on the track, and if applicable specify some aspects of the recording you might want input on.

More on the 711th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Show & Tell & — The Assignment: Share some recent music; get and give feedback — at https://disquiet.com/0711/.



time and motion [disquiet0711]

The Assignment: That’s your band’s name; now record something.

There is just one step this week. You’re now recording music under the name Dense Fog Advisory. Record a new track, appropriate to your name.

dense fog advisory [disquiet0716]

The Assignment: Layer two eras of recordings, one of them imaginary.

Step 1: Imagine some long ago ancestor of yours, one who also made music. This doesn’t have to be a real person.

Step 2: Record a rough track that is supposedly by your ancestor from Step 1. It should be evident in the sound that this recording is quite old (e.g., warble, surface noise, degradation).

Step 3: Record something on top of the ancestor track from Step 2, so the result is a combination of your contemporary sounds and your (perhaps fictional) ancestor’s antiquated sounds.

More on the 717th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Generation Gambit — The Assignment: Layer two eras of recordings, one of them imaginary — at https://disquiet.com/0717/.

descend [disquiet0717]

The Assignment: Record the sound of an advanced alien civilization.

The year is 2126, and your spaceship is on a routine science expedition of the outer reaches of previously unexplored parts of the universe. Your crew has encountered, for the first known time in human history, a planet that is home to sentient life that has developed an advanced civilization not unlike our own. After settling into geosynchronous orbit, you send down a stealth drone to explore. The drone captures audio and video. Please share the audio of your drone’s reconnaissance mission.

More on the 718th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Planet Jam It — The Assignment: Record the sound of an advanced alien civilization — at https://disquiet.com/0718/.



2126 [disquiet0718]

Star above the peak -
a silk worm-breeding village
silently asleep
 

Mizuhara Shuoshi was a 20th century Japanese poet. Shuoshi rebelled against the principles of emotional detachment in haiku, which he thought limited his ability to emotionally express himself through poetry: he started a magazine called Staggerbush which focused on a more romantic, lyrical type of haiku.

haiku by Mizuhara Shuoshi

silently asleep [naviarhaiku613]

The Assignment: Play along with a storm

Step 1: On freesound.org, find a recording of a bad storm. Or use one of your own.

Step 2: Listen to the recording from Step 1.

Step 3: Select a section of the recording from Step 1, perhaps 3 to 5 minutes in length.

Step 4: Listen several times in a row to the section selected in Step 3. Get to know its sounds, and the overall shape of the recording.

Step 5: Record a track in which you play along with the storm.

More on the 721st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Well Weathered — The Assignment: Play along with a storm — at https://disquiet.com/0721/.

Field recording by mirko111 https://freesound.org/people/mirko111/sounds/475533/ cc4.0

storm warning [disquiet0721]

The Assignment: Make music for a haunted spy film.

Step 1: It’s intriguing that the word “spook” regularly means “haunt” (verb) but also can mean “spy” (noun). Consider this.

Step 2: This project coincides with Halloween 2025, so imagine a spooky spy film, and write some music for it.

More on the 722nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Spook Street — The Assignment: The Assignment: Make music for a haunted spy film — at https://disquiet.com/0722/.

eye spy [disquiet0722]

The Assignment: Make music that falls apart repeatedly.

Step 1: Part of what makes “Happy Birthday to You” an interesting song to listen to occurs when it is sung in a public place, meaning that people sing along who actually don’t know the name of the person whose birthday is being celebrated. The song gets to the moment when the person’s name is inserted, and then the sense of ensemble entirely falls apart. People mumble, or wait, or actually know the name and sing it, but no matter — because subsets of singers proceed to sing the final “happy birthday to you” starting at different points.

Step 2: Consider the way “Happy Birthday to You” has a tendency to fall apart, as described in Step 1.

Step 3: Write a piece of music informed by your thoughts that resulted from Step 2 — a piece of music that is designed to fall apart somehow. And consider repeating the motif a few times, so it falls apart repeatedly.

More on the 723rd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Do the Collapse — The Assignment: Make music that falls apart repeatedly — at https://disquiet.com/0723/.

broken down [disquiet0723]

The Assignment: The year’s almost over. Do that thing you’ve been meaning to do.

This week’s project is timely and open-ended. The year’s almost over. Do that thing you’ve been meaning to do.

More on the 724th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Work It — The Assignment: The year’s almost over. Do that thing you’ve been meaning to do — at https://disquiet.com/0724/.

Lazenbee Industries

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