"There is an abyss of being which man has never fathomed."

I stared. Chalmers had risen to his feet and he was gesticulating helplessly with his arms. "I am passing through unearthly angles; I am approaching—oh, the burning horror of it!"

"Chalmers!" I cried. "Do you wish me to interfere?"

He brought his right hand quickly before his face, as though to shut out a vision unspeakable. "Not yet!" he cried; "I will go on. I will see—what—lies—beyond——"

- The Hounds of Tindalos, Frank Belknap Long

The Edge of Potential


Iarð skal rifna
ok upphiminn

Earth shall be riven
and the over-heaven.

- Skarpåker stone, Sweden

Art credit: Christopher Le Brun

The Breaking of Bifröst

Demo of current setup, prepping for Wire Factory (Lowell, MA) show on June 7. The central devices are the Ciat-Lonbarde Clicker and the Ciat-Lonbarde Peterlin. There is some serious low-frequency content.

Multinoise in-progress demo

A first draft attempt to convert the logistic map bifurcation diagram to sound.  The logistics map is f(x)=4Ax(1-x) where A is a real parameter between 0 and 1.  In this draft, the value of A is associated with time: as time goes forward, A ranges from 0.65 to 1 (in general for the logistics map it is reasonable to consider A from 0 to 1, but the sound is very simple and changes slow for A less than 0.65, so I've left that out).  For each A value, many x values are chosen and many iterations of f(x) are applied; the end result is used to calculate a frequency (linearly determined between 100 and 4100 hz) for a sound event at the time corresponding to the A value.

first draft: sound from logistic map bifurcation diagram

My version of a chaconne, an application of a bit of Henry Cowell's ideas for rhythm (as previously embodied in Leon Theremin's Rhythmicon). Written using a seven-note subset of a microtonal Meta-Slendro scale. This is my first published work to incorporate percussion (albeit synthesized or sampled)

This was recorded in a single take. There is post-processing (mixing and mastering) but no edits or overdubs. Some effects are digital, but all sound sources are analog, as are some of the effects.

Layers:
- a cloud of tones from two Wingie2 resonators, triggered by chaotic/stochastic triggers
- a slow repeating melody rendered on modular synth (XPO + DPO) with multiple layers in unison (including a layer processed by the Cosmodio Glitch Witch pitch-modulated fuzz pedal), using Make Noise 0-Ctrl as sequencer
- a bass line that follows the melody, produced by the EAE Prismatic Wall resonator pedal with the Red Panda Labs Radius ring modulator, also driven by the 0-Coast 
- synthetic percussion, a combination of the Neutral Labs Scrooge (triggered by the Beast-Tek Amoeba and Mystic Circuits IDUM modules) and Disting EX sample playback (also triggered by Amoeba)

Image credit: https://throughlightandtime.com/ldn-122-lrgb-dr-350-29-june-2025-2/

A Furious Calm

IoL 25 tryout

More on the 712th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Zebra Code — The Assignment: What rhythm do you hear in a bar code? — at https://disquiet.com/0712/

abc iodized request - disquiet712

looping snippet of previous track + particle noise + granular + field recording

loop thing 2

Start of Autumn

An electronic composition, original sounds created using Pure Data.

Sadness in the Dark (naviarhaiku609)

End of the Republic uses the words of Abraham Lincoln to produce a dystopian view of the state of the republic.

The music was made using a Soma Enner, a granular synth and two tape decks running at different speeds. It was of course recorded live with the words dubbed afterwards.

Note that a cassette version is available with 2 bonus tracks (https://samanthajanesmith.bandcamp.com/track/end-of-the-republic) and the vinyl version is with 3 bonus tracks (vinyl is here: elasticstage.com/samanthajsmith)

End of the Republic

A math person making and modifying sounds with custom code, Csound, homemade electronics.

first draft: sound from logistic map bifurcation diagram

Matthew M. Conroy