Disquiet Junto Project 0695: Clean After Each Use

The Assignment: Put a piece of music through the dryer.

Step 1: Think about lint for a moment — all the stuff that’s cast off from your clothes when you send them through the dryer.

Step 2: Now consider what might be cast off from your music if you could send your music through the dryer for a cycle or two.

Step 3: Select a piece of your own music, and send it through the metaphorical dryer. What results?

Tasks Upon Completion:

Label: Include “disquiet0695” (no spaces/quotes) in the name of your track.

Upload: Post your track to a public account (SoundCloud preferred but by no means required). It’s best to focus on one track, but if you post more than one, clarify which is the “main” rendition.

Share: Post your track and a description/explanation at https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0695-clean-after-each-use/

Discuss: Listen to and comment on the other tracks.

Additional Details:

Length: The length is up to you. Keep it light?

Deadline: Monday, April 28, 2024, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) wherever you are.

About: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Newsletter: https://juntoletter.disquiet.com/

License: It’s preferred (but not required) to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., an attribution Creative Commons license).

Please Include When Posting Your Track:

More on the 695th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Disquiet Junto Project 0695: Clean After Each Use — The Assignment: Put a piece of music through the dryer — at https://disquiet.com/0695/

Disquiet Junto Project 0695: Clean After Each Use

Disquiet Junto submissions

Disquiet Junto Project 0695: Clean After Each Use
The Assignment: Put a piece of music through the dryer.

I used "Waking Up in a Strange Room" from "Strange Rooms" https://krakenkraft.bandcamp.com/album/strange-rooms

The original from 2020 was heavy on delay and reverb. I removed all delay and reverb and even added two reverb-removing filters. So I "dryed" the sound. – I additionally made it shorter, because the dryer shrunked it. I changed all but the sequencer lines to strange sounds that are non-melodic, because the dryer changed the colour and totally ruined my clothing. – I like the result very much, because it's somehow an even wilder ride than the original.

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More on the 695th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Disquiet Junto Project 0695: Clean After Each Use — The Assignment: Put a piece of music through the dryer — at https://disquiet.com/0695/

Discussion:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0695-clean-after-each-use/71665

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Some CC0 glitch sounds from:
youtu.be/P8Agc7G9098

Full Album

wake up in a strange room [disquiet0695]

More on the 695th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Disquiet Junto Project 0695: Clean After Each Use — The Assignment: Put a piece of music through the dryer — at https://disquiet.com/0695/

disquiet0695

This one got my head spinning, in a good way. It so happens that this week’s challenge coincided with the arrival of the Ferrous from Landscape FM, which is basically a spinning magnetic disc that can be used to create resonances with iron based materials, such as steel strings. So I took the literal route on that one. Dryers spin. So does the Ferrous. The second step was to imagine what would be cast off and what would be left behind should I send my music through a metaphorical dryer. I decided to focus both on what would be left behind and what would be cast off. First, the heaviest instrument in our household would be left behind, which happens to be a concert grand piano that my partner inherited from her father who used to play jazz standards on it - something that no one else in our household can do, sadly. Also left behind, would be anything that I could fit in my pocket and clutch onto, which happens to be the ferrous. And cast aside — all the other instruments, cables and fluff that clutters most electronic studios. Remaining are only two elements - the grand piano and the Ferrous in my pocket, which together are the sources for what you hear. The sounds were captured with a field record (which I could also cling to), which include fumbling and traffic noises. There is one effect “Fragments”— the only one that I could hang onto. And that’s it. There is something to be said for lint.

Edited, mixed & mastered on 24 Apr 2025 by Jim Lemanowicz at Blissville Electro-Magnetic Laboratories of Massapequa, USA. 

Synth, loops & effects

Incorporates audio from two of my other pieces - 
https://soundcloud.com/blisterpop/i-am-outside-with-my-flag-naviarhaiku587
https://soundcloud.com/blisterpop/downstream-procrastination-naviarhaiku590

Photography/Art - Jim Lemanowicz, 28 Jun 2009, Massapequa, NY, USA on the edge of the woods. 

©2025 Jim Lemanowicz

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This original version of “Self-Cleaning Mausoleum” was submitted as part of Disquiet Junto Project 0695: Clean After Each Use. The Assignment: Put a piece of music through the dryer.

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

More on the 695th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Disquiet Junto Project 
0695: Clean After Each Use — The Assignment: Put a piece of music 
through the dryer — at https://disquiet.com/0695/

Self-Cleaning Mausoleum  (disquiet0695)

quick track for the disquiet junto 0695. all source material is the noise/click/crackle only residue from Izotope RX on a field recording of some birds in the early morning

lint [disquiet0695]

My track notes regarding the creation of this track can be found here: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0695-clean-after-each-use/71665/27

**Disquiet Junto Project 0695: Clean After Each Use**  
The Assignment: Put a piece of music through the dryer.

Step 1: Think about lint for a moment — all the stuff that’s cast off from your clothes when you send them through the dryer.

Step 2: Now consider what might be cast off from your music if you could send your music through the dryer for a cycle or two.

Step 3: Select a piece of your own music, and send it through the metaphorical dryer. What results?

[Disquiet Junto 0695] The Accumulation Solution

Disquiet Junto Project 0394: You & Me

The Assignment: Accompany the music made by a species other than your own.

This is a project for World Listening Day.

Step 1: Think of an animal you would like to accompany. It may be one in your possession, like a household cat, dog, or bird, or perhaps it might be one for which you’ll need to locate a recorded example.

Step 2: Acquire audio of the animal you selected in Step 1, either by making a recording or locating one.

Step 3: Create a new piece of music by playing along with the audio acquired in Step 2. In the final mix, you and the animal you accompany should be heard at equal levels of prominence (of course, you may also trade off).

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Track notes:

This track was created with audio extracted from a video my partner had made of our cat, Neko snoozing in the afternoon. Her snore is supringly musical. I looped the recording in Max with a fzero~ object employed to detect the fundamental frequency of Neko's snore. The fzero~ is then delayed and used to provide the frequency for a triangle wave; in effect, creating a call and response to Neko's snore. In addition to this, each time a fundamental frequency is detected by fzero~, this triggers a snapshop~ with the output control the waveband of a noise filter. A couple of signal buses are also set up with tapout~ feedback set to near-infinity, creating a consistent sonic texture. Panning of the channels is controlled with cycle~ objects, whose respective phase are constantly shifting.

The title of this track is taken from a quote I came across recently by Japanese sound artist, Toshiya Tsunoda: "If you think about it carefully, the activity of an actual space always moves. [...] Place is always moving, like a sleeping cat." [1]

[1] https://www.thewire.co.uk/in-writing/essays/quiet-storms_toshiya-tsunoda

Tristan Louth-Robins, July 2019

[disquiet0394] (place is always moving) like a sleeping cat

Disquiet Junto Project 0395: Acoustic Expanse
The Assignment: Make music with (samples of) the biggest guitar in the southern hemisphere.

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0395-acoustic-expanse/24269

This project was proposed by Jason Richarson. There’s just one step:

Step 1: The biggest guitar in the southern hemisphere is in Narrandera, Australia. Junto member Jason Richardson recorded a wide range of samples of the guitar and made them available under a Creative Commons license. Now it’s time for you to play this guitar. Get the samples at big-guitar.com/download.

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Track notes:

The inspiration for this piece comes from my childhood/teenage observation of my dad's guitars hanging in the living room and how human voices, impulse-like sounds and other musical instruments would - depending on their loudness and/or proximity - ocassionally cause these stationary instruments to resonate sympathetically and sound.

I started by selecting a few nice resonant tones from the Narrandera big guitar. Looping these in Ableton so that they drifted in and out of phase with each other, I removed the attacks from each of the notes to create a continous drone that pulsated periodically. I sent the output from Ableton - via a 20w amp - to a Digitech exciter (i.e. transducer) which I placed on the soundboard 'sweet spot' of one of my dad's old guitars. This guitar has been in my possession for over 20 years - a 1976 Tama acoustic.

The surface of the Tama in effect becomes a resonater for the Narrandera guitar tones as they are 'transplanted' into the acoustic body of the Tama. Throughout the recording I occasionally strum the strings of the Tama - slack tuned and in approximate harmony with the Narrandera guitar tones. I also physically move the transducer from the Tama's sweet spot to other areas of the soundboard surface; which in effect, articulate different resonant qualities of the Narrandera guitar tones, and also makes audible some of the discrete artefacts of the Narrandera recordings.

[disquiet0395] acoustic transplant

I was wracking my head on the drive down to my mum's farm this weekend. I'd made plans to start building a much-talked about aeolian harp on the property using found materials and various bits and pieces I had lying around my home studio. I was (over) thinking aspects of resonance, wire lengths, fundamental tones, harmonics, etc and in between this I was also thinking about this week's challenge.  A couple of days work resulted in the MiddlePhone* (see pic and footnote below) and an outcome for this weeks Junto challenge.

I attached one end of a slinky to the chimney flue on the MiddlePhone, and the other to a tin can. I fixed a contact mic to the interior surface of the chimney flue and pointed a shotgun mic off into the distance. Hitting record, I stretched out the slinky/can and hummed an improvised melody into the can for about a minute.

In the recording you can hear two simultaneous recordings which have been mixed together: the slinky's contact with the flue, and the shotgun mic; which is fixed on my position with the stretched slinky/can. I've mixed the track so that you hear only the shotgun mic recording at first (w/peripheral sounds) and then gradually crossfade into contact mic; the latter revealing the reverberent/harmonic effects of the slinky, as well the articulation of resonances. Which most of the resonances are derived from the flue/slinky combo, I'm fairly certain the network of stretched wires have had some effect too.

The MiddlePhone*

Yesterday afternoon, I deviated dramatically from my original design plan for the aeolian harp; to such an extent that it resembled a completely different instrument - which you can see pictured in the track cover. It comprises of an old tallowwood fencepost jammed between the branch stumps of a Melaleuca tree. The post has thin wires attached to it which are tightened and fixed to the ground, as well as run over an oil drum and also connected to a chimney flue. The wind interplays with it discretely, but is most effective as a ridiculous percussion instrument. However, attaching contact mics to it reveals a variety of resonances and sonic perculiarities. More recordings of the MiddlePhone to feature in the near future!

[disquiet0396] elastic hum

Track notes:

A quick and dirty one this week. I used an iOS 808 emulator, sent it through a stereo amp driving a couple of my corked speakers, using the vibrations to move and rattle objects. I stuck some old guitar strings in the cork of the left speaker to wobble about and strike a tambourine; on the other speaker I layered a tin foil bowl to rattle about. Then I move the objects around and incorporate a bit of tinfoil. I’m quite fond of the outcome; my partner, not so much.

Assignment notes:

Disquiet Junto Project 0397: Numbers Racket
The Assignment: It’s 808 Day. Do it up.

Step 1: It’s 808 Day today, August 8, the start of the latest Junto project. Let’s make it last through Monday.

Step 2: Make music with or about or somehow in the spirit of the Roland TR-808.

[disquiet0397] 808 junklet

For this week's challenge I decided to continue some explorations of the cycle~ object in Max where I've been using it (at very low rates) to control float values which oscillate back and forth; and subsequently transpose this float value to wider ranges to control things like frequency, amplitude and panning.

When thinking about the idea of 'rauschen', a lingering poetic over the past week had been a line from the song 'I Remember Me' by the SilverJews (aka, David Berman):

The tape hiss of the trees

There's always been something so striking and evocative about that line, and for me it does a wonderful thing of bridging the tricky gaps in (the English) language when it comes to accurately describing sounds. Sure, I guess imagining 'tape hiss' is pretty subjective and experiential, but for me it's such a strong (albeit, slightly surreal) poetic expression.

The objective for this week's challenge was for me to evoke the sound of wind through the trees using the hiss of a blank cassette tape. 

I set about building a little Max patch of four noise modules ,with the noise source derived from a hiss of a blank cassette played back on my old Tascam 424 Portastudio. The tape hiss recordings are routed to a bandpass filter, whose frequency range and amplitude are constantly moving. These (along with the panning) are all controlled with cycle~ objects set a different rates. When the four modules play back simultaneously, this creates a pretty dense noise texture which is constantly shifting - evoking the wind shearing through trees at varying intensities and trajectory. 

I've uploaded a breakdown of the Max patch on YouTube if anyone wants to explore the finer details of the process: https://youtu.be/5G59iszqXWw

[disquiet0398] the tape hiss of the trees

Tristan Louth-Robins is a South Australian artist working principally in the medium of sound art and field recording. Ideas of sound and its signification are key elements in Louth-Robins' practice, traversing the space between the visual and aural his work is realised through the mediums of recordings, installation, visual art and performance. He is interested in sound and its associative implications - including its relationship to objects, technology, urban space, memory and the natural world. 


Since 2005, Louth-Robins has presented work in Australia and internationally as a solo artist, whilst also collaborating with artists, writers, researchers, musicians and performers. 

Working across a vast array of activities encompassing composition, sound design, installation art, field recording and workshops, his work has been featured in events such as the Adelaide Festival of Arts (2006), The National Regional Arts Festival (2012), Mildura-Wentworth Arts Festival (2013), Fairfax Festival (2013) and Adelaide Fringe Festival (2014); and selected works exhibited at galleries including The Australian Experimental Art Foundation (2009), SASA Gallery (2012, 2015), Light Square Gallery (2012) and FELT Space (2015). His audio works have been broadcast on radio including Radio National, Classic FM, The BBC (UK), Acoustic Frontiers (USA) and RBB (Germany).