I couldn't do this at my house for a number of reasons - the biggest being that the number of active katydid in our neighborhood have decreased in the past couple of weeks and I really wanted to do this with katydids in the mix.

So not long after I got the email for the Junto, about 8:30pm, I got in the car (cars have windows), and I ended up a mile and a half east of my house on a road near the high school called Glendale.  Driving around at night, most people would probably describe it as a "nice, quiet neighborhood" due to the complete lack of traffic, pedestrians, and street lights.  It was perfect.

Rolling down the front windows of my car, I plugged my headphones into an audio recorder and placed it on the dashboard.  Between me and the steering wheel was my iPad Air running Samplr, using the Air's speaker.  Some variations were recorded.  I used the final one for this.  I did a little tweaking of the volume in post-production, but other than fades on the ends that's it.  Everything was recorded live to one audio recorder.

The katydids and crickets mixed with the drones are so hypnotic here.  I'm very happy with it.

More on this 143rd Disquiet Junto project — “Play a live duet with the world outside your window″ — at:  http://disquiet.com/2014/09/25/disquiet0143-tuningthehood/

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

Join the Disquiet Junto at:  http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:  http://disquiet.com/forums/

Photo associated with this project by Takashi M and used thanks to a Creative Commons license:  https://flic.kr/p/fgQjCP

Glendale (disquiet0143-tuningthehood)

The original piece was an early sketch called 140621-space2:  https://soundcloud.com/markrushtoncom/140621-space2 - it was only saved as a project file and was never rendered into a recording.

140621-space2 later morphed into the completed track "Sightseeing in Space":  https://markrushton.bandcamp.com/track/sightseeing-in-space

For the purposes of this Junto, I recorded out 140621-space2 as a reference point.  It's definitely unfinished to my ears.

I saved off a copy of the project so I could make "A Small Box of Chocolate Bunnies".  Out of the five samples in the project file, two were completely quieted.  I might have made a slight volume adjustment in one of the remaining live samples, but not much.  After recording, I made some adjustments in overall volume and faded the ends.

With the headphones on, this does sound rather like something that might be in the background of a Lynch movie.  It's quite textural and dark.

More on this 144th Disquiet Junto project — “Remove parts from an unfinished composition to create a finished composition″ — at:  http://disquiet.com/2014/10/02/disquiet0144-eraserhead/

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

Join the Disquiet Junto at:  http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:  http://disquiet.com/forums/

A Small Box of Chocolate Bunnies (disquiet0144-eraserhead)

Wear good headphones.

Crafted from a very small section of an old loop I loaded into Samplr for iPad, my white noise features undulating bass in the left channel and a digital hiccup slightly after halfway through.

More on this 147th Disquiet Junto project — “Record 8 seconds of white noise in your own personal style″ — at:  http://disquiet.com/2014/10/23/disquiet0147-slightnoise/

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

Join the Disquiet Junto at:  http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:  http://disquiet.com/forums/

Danger (disquiet0147-slightnoise)

I got lucky with this recording.

I had to go down to the Iowa City Public Library to pick up Kindertotenwald, a book of prose poems by Franz Wright, which is the basis for David Sylvian's long form composition "there is a light that enters houses with no other house in sight", which is a collaboration between Wright and Sylvian, and also had contributions from Christian Fennesz and John Tilbury.  The library was kind enough to purchase a copy at my request.

In addition to this, I had a book to return, which I did at the outdoor drop, and that's where I started the recording.  I've picked up reserved books many times at the ICPL and you don't need a librarian to fetch it (it's self-serve), so it's almost always a breeze.  I figured I could go from the outdoor drop, get my reserved book, and come back out to the outdoor drop in 3 minutes, and I was right.

The library's always busy as it's located in downtown Iowa City right by the Pedestrian Mall, a closed road walkway near the University of Iowa campus.  

Once I scoped the self-checkout area, I saw a family from Africa with several children trying to finish and I chose a station right by them, hoping to pick up their voices - which were not speaking English.  The youngest one became upset and the parents finished quickly and scurried him away, and I knew I had audio gold.

After that, it's a nice comedown with the wind, the automatic doors, occasional voices, and leaves that I walked through.

I did very little processing.  Just a touch of reverb and some delay.  I liked the way the beeps at 1:08 and 1:13 turned out, and that was that.

I've done this sort of thing before with field recordings made in downtown Iowa City.  An example would be the track "On The Town" from my album Hide Yourself In Plain Sight:  https://markrushton.bandcamp.com/track/on-the-town

More on this 149th Disquiet Junto project — “Take a walk around the block and make something from it″ — at:  http://disquiet.com/2014/11/06/disquiet0149-processingthepresent/
 
More on the Disquiet Junto at: http://disquiet.com/junto

Join the Disquiet Junto at:  http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:  http://disquiet.com/forums/

Photo associated with this project by Jerolek and used thanks to a Creative Commons license:  https://flic.kr/p/9piCmd

Getting Kindertotenwald (disquiet0149-processingthepresent)

It's a very recent piece I made from Samplr.  Lots of movement, texture, and drift.  It could be 45 seconds, it could be an hour.  In this edit, it's only 3 minutes.  Immediate familiarity but with a sense of complexity, and without being overpowering.

More on this 150th Disquiet Junto project — “Record a subtle personal mobile score” — at:  http://disquiet.com/2014/11/13/disquiet0150-sonicperfume/

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

Join the Disquiet Junto at: http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:  http://disquiet.com/forums/

Photo associated with this project by Ben Crowder and used thanks to a Creative Commons license: https://flic.kr/p/B5gLF

Haberdasher (disquiet0150-sonicperfume)

An 8 second piece created using Samplr.

More on this 153rd Disquiet Junto project — “Record a short sound intended to be set on repeat” — at:  http://disquiet.com/2014/12/04/disquiet0153-groovelock/

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

Join the Disquiet Junto at:  http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:  http://disquiet.com/forums/

Image associated with this project by Stuart R Brown:  http://flic.kr/p/mFQC3

Depool (disquiet0153-groovelock)

These are from voicemails I've listened to over the past year.  Each 5 second edit is from a different month, starting with January and ending in December.  The first 11 are one voice, and the last one is a different voice.

I really prefer asynchronous conversation in the digital age where smartphones always lack the sidetone of land lines.  You'll rarely catch me talking on my smartphone for more than 30 seconds unless I'm leaving a voicemail.  That's just my thing.

Voicemails have factored into sound collages I've made since the mid 1980s, particularly in a lot of unpublished material I've been involved with.  It's almost always humor or satire, but sometimes things have veered into areas where if I published it I would get sued because of rights issues so those things are kept as private jokes.

This bunch of clips should all be regarded as humor (e.g. "Amy Fisher" rather than "Anal Fissures").

Anyway, I wanted to do something different than play 5 second snippets of music or whatever.  This stuff made me laugh over the past year, and I hope others get a chuckle out of it.

More on this 156th Disquiet Junto project — “Create a sonic diary of the past year with a dozen five-second segments” — at:  http://disquiet.com/2014/12/25/disquiet0156-audiojournal2014/

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

Join the Disquiet Junto at:  http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:  http://disquiet.com/forums/

Voicemails (disquiet0156-audiojournal2014)

Ice/glass, recording, edit, reverb, down 2 octaves in Acid Pro, render, down 2 more octaves in Acid Pro, render, edit out 20 seconds from rendered track, add to Samplr/iPad, layer & mess with, record out a small portion, edit, take that file and PaulStretch 7.88x BlackmanHarris, edit to 4 minutes.

But then I had to edit this track to one minute in length because of a bug that occurred when I downgraded my Soundcloud account from Pro Unlimited to free.  Seems it reverted to my old "Solo" Soundcloud account (which is no longer being offered) and there were some technical problems which I've been assured by Soundcloud support will be cleared up in the next week or so.  Even on vacation from my job as a software tester it's a Busman's Holiday.

More about my music at http://markrushton.com

My podcast is at http://ambient.libsyn.com

Occasional email list at:  http://mailinglist.markrushton.com/

More on this 157th Disquiet Junto project — “Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something of it.” — at:  http://disquiet.com/2015/01/01/disquiet0157-icemusic2015/

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

Join the Disquiet Junto at:  http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:  http://disquiet.com/forums/

Photo associated with this project by Michael Scott used via Creative Commons license:  https://flic.kr/p/5vyz3G

Tundra (disquiet0157-icemusic2015)

I try to stay away from the news because it's always so negative or boring.  It doesn't help that newspaper web sites are nasty places with pop-outs, modals, auto-play videos, Facebook comments, and god knows what else lurking behind those Flash widgets.

But I liked this "least important story" because whoever wrote the opening paragraph did it with a lot of rhyme.

Around 1986, when I was living in Kansas City, I purchased the LP "Break Through In Grey Room", an album of cut-up recordings by William S. Burroughs (who lived in nearby Lawrence, Kansas) and which proved to be very influential to me.

For this Junto's instructions, instead of going for the literal "noise" I went for "tiny parts heard out of order" - which included a bit of an "almost-homophone", something I repeat in the brief coda as a matter of clarification once you've heard the full original statement.

If you want to hear more music by me, visit http://markrushton.com

I also have a podcast of my music and sometimes more in-depth presentation at http://ambient.libsyn.com

More on this 158th Disquiet Junto project — “Go from noise to signal with words” — at:  http://disquiet.com/2015/01/08/disquiet0158-syllablegumbo/

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

Join the Disquiet Junto at:  http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at: http://disquiet.com/forums/

Pro-Marijuana President (disquiet0158-syllablegumbo)

I missed a lot of Juntos due to moving houses and other issues.  The current house has a big room about 500 sq ft without any furniture other than a dining room table and art.  The ceilings are 12 foot high, wood floors, so there's lots of echo.  Understandably, I want to record stuff live in this space, and that's what I did here.  Output from my old laptop to some computer speakers with a subwoofer.  The recorder was put on a dining room chair maybe 20-25 feet away from the speakers.

Drum machines aren't my thing, but I tried to keep the program semi-interesting when on repeat, and for me that has to include a bit of silence in there.

This track is not available anymore.

Other tracks from Mark Rushton