Disquiet Junto Project 0563: Digital Magical Realism
The Assignment: What does this imaginary genre sound like?

Step 1: Think about what a genre means, where it begins, where it ends, what makes a genre a genre.

Step 2: Familiarize yourself with the concept of magical realism, most often associated with the fiction of such authors as Gabriel García Márquez, Isabel Allende, Jorge Luis Borges, Alice Hoffman, and Haruki Murakami, among others.

Step 3: Imagine what “digital magical realism” would sound like, were it the name of a genre.

Step 4: Record a piece of music that sounds like what you think “digital magical realism” sounds like.

Track notes:

Along with the writers mentioned under the broad umbrella of magical realism, I would also count two of my favourite writers (Italo Calvino, Umberto Eco) as falling - if not squarely into - frequently against the margins of the genre.

Immediately works by Calvino came to mind. After all, I named my home studio after one of the cities from Invisible Cities(Maurilia), so parts of my creative world takes a fair chunk of inspiration from his wonderful mind.

Aside from Invisible Cities, I was reminded of my favourite book of his, the meta-novel, If On A Winter's Night.. (1979) where the reader and the story itself progressively becomes a slippery boundary, before both worlds collapse into each other. With this is mind and this week's prompt I thought about sound collages, musique concrete and field recordings, with material sourced from digital technologies.

I pulled up a personal archive of field recordings made with several different technologies, ranging from lo-fi to hi-fi sources (old phones, digital cameras, minidisc players, handheld digital recorders, nice mic rig.) 

I selected recordings which evoked aspects of If On A Winter's Night.., mostly restricted to ambiences and sounds which possess double-meanings or are general indistinct as to their source. There's also literal references to some of the objects/events/phenomena that feature throughout the book, such as: the sound of trains, streetscapes, the ocean, wind, etc. In some instances the sounds have been manipulated a rendered in more tonal/sonorous forms along with discrete synth textures.

I wanted to create a dense collage of these sounds, much like a hectic dream, where time is compressed and where one skips, zooms and pulls in and out of several environments, seemingly in quick succession. Some transitions appear to blend together, whilst others are more abrupt.

I took the title of this piece from one of the chapters of this book, the beautiful and very poetically named "Without fear of wind or vertigo".

[Disquiet_Junto_0563] Without fear of wind or vertigo

An electronic journey through the sonata form of a computer scientist with a strong weakness for pianoforte

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).

Welcome tσ th!s εvσlving space … inspired by thε playful sp!rit of hai (meaning “fun” or unμsuΔl, like in haiku) …

I dig around thε edges t0 uneΔrth non-mμ§ic musics — sliding into nσ!§ε, glitch, chΔnce, Δ$MR, and σther soundwσrlds that feel oddly familiar in their oddity …

✨👂 L!§†εn cΔrεfu!l¥ … 👀 εxplσrε dεεpl¥ … 🎵💫

And for the full hΔlF unμ§uaL trεΔ†ment for your eyes Δs well as your εars, check σut the Yσutubε channel… ░▒▓█ ᵒ(≧▽≦)ᵒ ░▒▓█▒░

Thanks f0r joining thε journey! Your support kεeps this all afloat — HUGΣLY Δpprec!Δted 🙏🥰

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multi-instrumentalist & composer.
Genre fluid music for images / instrumental / contemporary post-fusion / experimental jazz / electro acoustic ambient / melodic noise / neoclassical / naive hard core / cosmopolitan world music.

bio here:
http://dedeland.com/daniel-diaz-bio/


In some words:
Composer, arranger, producer, multi-instrumentalist. Born in Argentina,
I studied music in Buenos Aires, New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Paris.

For 20 years, I developed an important career as a session and backing musician in Argentina and Europe, playing, among other instruments, the bass, touring and recording with many jazz, rock, fusion, world, Latin and tango bands.

At the same time, I worked as an arranger, producer and musical director with many projects and artists in the USA, Argentina and Europe.

From 1992 to 1997, I performed my compositions live with my own band in Buenos Aires and began a solo recording career with the worldwide release of my first album "The Years Alone" on the North American label Green Linnet/Xenophile. On this album I arranged and performed 11 of my songs written between 1986 and 1993. I played most of the instruments, but included guest appearances by some great South American players.

My recording career continued with "Segundo Ciclo" (1997), released worldwide by Timeless Records, and 12 more albums released between 2000 and 2016.

Currently, I work as an on-demand film/TV composer while continuing to play live and produce.

My 33 1/3 series book about the Aphex Twin album <i>Selected Ambient Works Volume II</i> was published in 2014. The book was one of the top 5 bestselling titles for the calendar year, and in 2015 was ranked by Pitchfork as one of the "33 best" of the 100-plus books in the 33 1/3 series. It has subsequently been translated into Japanese (2019) and Spanish (2018)

Since 2012 I have moderated the Disquiet Junto group, which began on SoundCloud. More at disquiet.com/junto. 

I've written for Nature, Pitchfork, The Wire, Down Beat, Boing Boing, NewMusicBox, Red Bull Music Academy, Art Practical, the website of The Atlantic, and many other publications. 

I've exhibited sound art at galleries in Los Angeles (Crewest), Manhattan (apex art), and Dubai (DUTAC), and I had a audio-visual installation at the San Jose Museum of Art as part of its 45th anniversary.

And since 1996 I've run the website Disquiet.com about the intersection of sound, art, and technology.

During the early 1990s I studied Mathematics and Computer Science. The world wide web was still largely text-based and mostly empty. Today things are obviously different, though I still thoroughly enjoy art, design, cinema and music in all its forms. I have traveled all over the world for nearly two decades, visiting just over 140 countries. Japan is my favorite. All of this I attempt to incorporate into my music and art.

Here will be posting sketches and less worked over output of patches. Below is my other page:

Ambient electronica, Berlin School, Chillout & Kosmische Space Musik from Munich, Germany. ► Soundcloud is my musical diary - expect lightfooted drafts, soundchecks, playthings & misfits here. ► Go Bandcamp for finished pieces & more serious musical works.

M. Ackerman (formerly modus pony) is an instrumental composer and multi-instrumentalist. He likes toast with peanut butter and a little honey.