** NOTE ** For non-Junto participants, please read the brief below. It explains why this track is panned entirely to the left channel.

Disquiet Junto Project 0429: Solitary Ensembles
The Assignment: Record the first third of a trio that others will complete.

Step 1: This week’s Junto project is the first in a sequence intended to invite, encourage, and reward collaboration. You will be recording something with the understanding that it will remain unfinished for the time being.

Step 2: The plan is for you to record a short and original piece of music, on any instrumentation of your choice. Conceive it as something that leaves room for something else — other instruments, other people — to join in.

Step 3: Record a short piece of music, roughly two to three minutes in length, as described in Step 2. When done, if possible, pan the audio so that your piece is solely in the left side of the stereo spectrum.

Step 4: Also, and this is important, be sure, when done, to make your track downloadable, because it will be used by someone else in the next Disquiet Junto project.

Track notes: 

What a week. What a strange, surreal week. Our neighbour described it yesterday as "the slowest week". Things are okay here in South Australia and Adelaide. My thoughts and best wishes are with those in similar, and far graver situations. Furthermore, I'd like to convey love and solidarity to the global arts community in this time of crisis.

Ok, the track itself. I constructed a rhythm pattern using a flexible Eurorack patch I've been experimenting with for the past week. The sequence is driven by an Korg SQ-1 and the CV and gate are routed to a low-tuned oscillator and EG respectively. The noise is shaped by another gate output, but the same EG output is inverted. One of the cool things about the SQ-1 is the way the 'slide' (aka portamento) function behaves at various duty cycles and low CV range. 2-3 sequencer steps have the 'slide' active and this creates the long, slurred pulses, which affect both the oscillator tones and noise. Additionally, the noise has been passed through a filter which is sweeping through the frequency range and is then routed to both inputs of a Dual Looping Delay. Everything has been mixed down to the hard-left channel.

A note on the photo: this is an element of a performance/installation meta-work by Australian artist, Josh Foley. It was a project entitled, "Calculating Infinity" and was staged at the Queen Victoria Art Gallery in Launceston as part of the MONA FOMA program in January 2020.

[disquiet0429] Solitary Ensemble track 1 (stem: "sweeper")

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).