Ice in room temperature water creaks and spurts, also bumps resonantly around in a glass bowl. Recorded in stereo with 2 JRF contact mics duct taped to a medium glass bowl. Subsequently stretched and pitched to create this soundscape.

Frozen Activity - disquiet0523

Part 2 of a 3 part Disquiet Junto collaboration.

I loved the grooving drum track created last week by creaturesOnce. I added a bass line in Ableton, in F minor and B♭ minor, letting the structure of the drum track lead the way. It's ready for someone to play a mid to high range melody or chord jam on top.

More on this 526th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Magic Number (2 of 3) (The Assignment: Record the second third of an asynchronous trio) — at: https://disquiet.com/0526/

Duo Magic

Duo Magic - Disquiet0526

A live electronic sequence created in Pure Data.

More on this 536th weekly Disquiet Junto project – Metaphor Play (The Assignment: Take a favorite figure of speech as a creative prompt) – at: https://disquiet.com/0536/

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-0536-metaphor-play/

Dogs of War (disquiet0536)

My entry to Disquiet Junto project — Penitent Honk. Notes on my entry are at: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0537-penitent-honk/54463/6?u=alanholding

This project was proposed by Rob Walker.

More on this 537th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Penitent Honk (The Assignment: Do sound design for "a missing gesture" of vehicular life) — at: https://disquiet.com/0537/

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-0537-penitent-honk/

disquiet0537 Car Sorry

Back in the Paleolithic Era, Suss Müsik had a day job in a print shop. It was stressful, physically demanding work; the craft of mechanical reproduction requires meticulous attention to detail and firm adherence to bulk scheduling. It was not uncommon for tensions to erupt during the course of a working day: yelling, crying, illness, threats, even the occasional fistfight.

Still, there was also something comforting about the work’s repetitive nature: an almost soothing glow that takes over the mind and body, not unlike the euphoria experienced during vigorous exercise. One felt a sense of camaraderie, of being an essential component of a successful process. We were merely cogs in a machine, yes, but it was our machine and together we cultivated an ability to convert stress into sedation.

Walter Benjamin (author of the seminal essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction) once wrote: “The relationship between life and purposefulness reveals itself, seemingly obvious yet almost beyond the grasp of the intellect, only if the ultimate purpose toward which all single functions tend is sought not in its own sphere but in a higher one.” This piece attempts to explore this process of manifestation.

A sonic facsimile of mechanical process was “played” using a simple melody. The same melody was then replicated using a “breathy” glass harmonium voice, amplified into a rhythmic synth pattern. The effect is calming by nature, its native rigor gently evolving while not disrupting the pattern. The glitched voiceover is a recording of a factory worker, describing how he had been given a warning after arriving at work three minutes late during a snowstorm.

The piece is entitled Jeckel, named in honor of a former coworker who sadly passed away in 2013. This effort is dedicated to the the laughs, frustrations and wisdom we shared during our time together.

More on this 538th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Guided Decompression (The Assignment: Get someone from tense to chill) — at: https://disquiet.com/0538/

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-0538-guided-decompression/

Jeckel [Disquiet0538]

Disquiet Junto Project 0538: Guided Decompression
The Assignment: Get someone from tense to chill.

Step 1: Your goal with this piece is to guide someone from a place of intense stress to something more sedate. Keep that in mind.

Step 2: A lot of meditation-oriented music takes the end point as the start. Consider that it can be jarring to listen to calm music when you are anything but calm.

Step 3: Compose a piece of music that starts in a state of accelerated tension, allows the listener to align their own tension with that of the music, and then slowly proceeds to calm down, until the music is sustainably peaceful.

disquiet0538 Guided Decompression

An electronic composition, sounds created in Pure Data.

More on this 538th weekly Disquiet Junto project – Guided Decompression (The Assignment: Get someone from tense to chill) – at: https://disquiet.com/0538/

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

Subscribe to project announcements here: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/ 1

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0538-guided-decompression/

Stress into Rest (disquiet0538)

[disquiet0538] Pedal

For the Control Breath project, I recorded breaths holding the mics close to give that breathing-into-a-comm-unit-in-an-enclosed-helmet sound.  It always sounds very close and isolated.  Accordingly, I composed sounds around it including woodwind and bellows sounds to keep with the "breath focus".  I had the radio on in the background for added helmet noise which I reversed to remove distracting language information.

Oxygenation(disquiet0539)

More on this 539th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Control Breath (The Assignment: Let your slow breathing guide a piece of music) — at: https://disquiet.com/0539/

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-0539-control-breath/

Breathe Like You Mean It (disquiet0539)

More on this 425th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Cellular Chorale / The Assignment: Make music with the source audio from (and inspired by) a Patricia Wolf project — at:

https://disquiet.com/0426/

Thanks to Patricia Wolf for collaborating on this project.

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/

More on Wolf’s Cellular Chorus at:

https://www.cellularchorus.com/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0426-cellular-chorale/

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

The image associated with this project is a still from a video, provided by Patricia Wolf, of a Cellular Chorus event.

Cellular Chorale - disquiet0426

paul.reiners