I wrote this last summer when I learned about my father's dementia. I finally recorded the vocal tracks in January this year after I came back from Japan and saw my father for the first time since 2019. 

My father was diagnosed with dementia in July of 2022. My brother was the one who shared the news saying he and his wife had taken our father to a specialist. This had me thinking about memories and consciousness. How do we share memories if we can’t remember? Did we even have the same memories to begin with? Even if we experienced things together? 

I started with the lyrics before anything for this piece. I wrote about the running jokes I had with my father and my brother growing up. Catching crawfish in ponds in Tokyo near our apartment in Kokubunji, my father’s Sunday special natto omelet breakfast, the times we'd go to the beach in Chiba, how we'd play in the water all day and our sunburned skin would hurt in the bath. How my father would go buy kakigori after we'd slipped under the futon, how I insisted I'd get the same flavor as him even though matcha was too bitter for me and I really just wanted the neon red strawberry.

ザリガニ釣り
するめを付けて
家に大切に
連れ帰って

納豆オムレツ
キャッチボール
犬の散歩

毎年行った
岩地の海
波と１日遊んで
こんがり焼けて

並んだお布団に
入ってから
買ってきた　かき氷　
お父さんと一緒がいいと
言ったね
　
でも抹茶は苦かった　　　
本当はイチゴが欲しかった

後でみんなして笑ったよね

お父さんも同じ思い出なの？
無くさないで

Catching crawfish
with dried squid
Taking them home 
like some treasure.

Natto omelet
playing catch
walking the dogs.

Every summer we went
to the sea at Iwachi
Playing with waves all day
our skin acrisp.

Our futons lined up, tuckered away
You went and got us kakigori
I said I wanted the same flavor as Dad.

But matcha was too bitter
I wanted strawberry instead.
We all laughed at the end.

Dad, do you remember?
I hope you don't forget.

More on this 579th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Memory Serves (The Assignment: Rerecord a piece of music), at: Disquiet Junto Project 0579: Memory Serves – Disquiet

More on the Disquiet Junto at: Disquiet Junto F.A.Q. – Disquiet

Subscribe to project announcements here: Disquiet Junto by Marc Weidenbaum (Disquiet.com)

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0579-memory-serves/

Remembrance with vocal (disquiet0579)

Vocal Samples courtesy of:

Tourdille [https://www.looperman.com/acapellas?page=1&mid=Tourdille&dir=d]
Fragile [ also at Looperman but the link seems to be dead now ]

More on this 579th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Memory Serves (The Assignment: Rerecord a piece of music), at: https://disquiet.com/0579/

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-0579-memory-serves/

Memory Serves

The Euclidean Chromaticon | Memory Serves - disquiet0579

A track I originally made in Summer 2020 with North American writer Francisco Cantú.  For the re-recording of this track I kept the lockdown themed Spoken word by Francisco but created a whole new backing music, much more stripped down then the old verion.
Very pleased with how this sounds.  
The original track can be heard on this album. 
https://audioobscura.bandcamp.com/album/love-in-the-time-of-the-anthropocene

--------------------------
Disquiet Junto Project 0579: Memory Serves
The Assignment: Rerecord a piece of music.

Step 1: The goal of this project is to simply perform and record again something you’ve performed and recorded previously. Think about something you’d like to revisit.

Step 2: Now rerecord the piece of music you decided upon in Step 1.

Audio Obscura  - Three Sisters (with Francisco Cantú) [disquiet0579]

Disquiet Junto Project 0579: Memory Serves
The Assignment: Rerecord a piece of music.

Step 1: The goal of this project is to simply perform and record again something you’ve performed and recorded previously. Think about something you’d like to revisit.

Step 2: Now rerecord the piece of music you decided upon in Step 1.

Track notes:

Something a bit different this week and certainly something I couldn't perform in SuperCollider! 

For as long as I've been seriously making music (25-ish years) I've written songs as part of that continuum. Sometimes the songwriting has become my primary activity and other times it's been consigned to the background. My 30s during the 2010's were pretty interesting in that regard. I'd started off not writing lyrics (let along performing) for quite sometime and then mid-decade songwriting and performing became my primary creative activity. That's where and when this song, "Queen Tide" first materialised. 

It's a song that's been hanging around for about 7 to 8 years now and I've never been able to settle on a structure that feels quite right. Initially, it fell square into a strummed acoustic folk idiom and I'd often perform it under my Garden Ruin moniker with my friend Tom accompanying on guitar. I've included a video of a live performance from back in 2017 that gives an indication of what it sounds like and how I've attempted to record it in the past.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO0kNIsKyro

For whatever reason - and about 12 versions later - it just hasn't happened. As this year began, I realised I hadn't worked on songs in quite some time and thought it might be time to revisit some older material and see if it motivated me to work on some newer material. I was up super-early this morning and upon seeing the Junto prompt this morning my thoughts drifted towards revisiting "Queen Tide" and approaching it a bit differently.

Turning my thoughts to a song like "Queen Tide" could have also been the byproduct of the bizarre climactic interlude that has interrupted an otherwise straightforward summer here in Adelaide, South Australia. For the past couple of days, wind gusts have been huge, a cold southerly whipping from the Antarctic has dumped rain and the skies have looked volatile and foreboding. It's pure climate change stuff. "Queen Tide" is about climate change as well and is written from the perspective of wandering around my hometown of Normanville on the Fleurieu Peninsula in the aftermath of a climactic catastrophe.

One of the things I've always liked about the song is the use of an Em sus9 (or Em+2) chord in the main verse. My partner Lauren has often referred to this as the 'Twin Peaks' song, since the melody and structure does echo the TP theme a little bit. It's always sounded fine on guitar, but this morning I thought I'd change it up and find a way to replicate it on piano. I've been listening to a lot of John Cale's work lately as well, so I thought I'd drop the key by a few increments and sing it a bit lower.

So that's how it started and I spent a few hours on it with a few overdubs that turned into several. That was what became the 'kitchensink' version, completely with an 'iPad pedal steel' in the bridge and two simultaneous sets of algorithmically programmed drums. I've spared you of the 'kitchensink' version and presented a more sensibly austere version with a bit of additional keyboard accompaniment, restrained guitar and backing vocals.

[Disquiet_Junto_0579] Queen Tide (redux)

An electronic sequence created with Samplebrain. Although using the same input elements as 'Birdbrain Bash' (my track for disquiet0561), it has turned out very different.

More on this 579th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Memory Serves (The Assignment: Rerecord a piece of music), at: Disquiet Junto Project 0579: Memory Serves – Disquiet

More on the Disquiet Junto at: Disquiet Junto F.A.Q. – Disquiet

Subscribe to project announcements here: Disquiet Junto by Marc Weidenbaum (Disquiet.com)

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0579-memory-serves/

Birds of Change (disquiet0579)

A guitar improvisation through the one of the Triad patches I made for Disquiet 576.

When I first read the prompt, I was tempted to improve a piece I like but that was poorly mixed. But then the fact that my flute is at the repair shop this week for maintenance gave me a different idea. What if I revisited a flute piece but with an instrument I'm not as into these days, the guitar?

Disquiet Junto Project 0579: Memory Serves The Assignment: Rerecord a piece of music.

Step 1: The goal of this project is to simply perform and record again something you’ve performed and recorded previously. Think about something you’d like to revisit.

Step 2: Now rerecord the piece of music you decided upon in Step 1.

More on this 579th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Memory Serves (The Assignment: Rerecord a piece of music), at: Disquiet Junto Project 0579: Memory Serves – Disquiet

More on the Disquiet Junto at: Disquiet Junto F.A.Q. – Disquiet

Subscribe to project announcements here: Disquiet Junto by Marc Weidenbaum (Disquiet.com)

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-pr…0579-memory-serves/

Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

disquiet0579 Intention Again

This is two versions of 'New Cross'. The song I originally wrote in 1989 after my first year at university, and a version I've just recorded.

New Cross - revisited (disquiet0579)

More on this 579th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Memory Serves (The Assignment: Rerecord a piece of music), at: https://disquiet.com/0579/

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-0579-memory-serves/

There Was A Girl (disquiet0579)

This track is a new version of the track https://soundcloud.com/rabmusiclab/hoffnung-erfreut-den-traurigen-sinn. The intention is to create a new composition that retains the important elements but gives a new listening experience by shifting the focus.

The guitar-part of @Fnubi was replaced by guitar-loops provided by @roeland11 on looperman. The other instruments were adapted to the new harmonics. Some instruments were exchanged, new instruments were added (acoustic guitar, cello, an additional violin).

I owe my thanks to Roeland for providing the following loops used in this track:
https://www.looperman.com/loops/detail/231296/sad-grunge-guitar-chords-120bpm-grunge-acoustic-guitar-loop
https://www.looperman.com/loops/detail/231297/sad-grunge-guitar-melody-120bpm-grunge-acoustic-guitar-loop
https://www.looperman.com/loops/detail/231298/sad-grunge-guitar-strum-120bpm-rock-acoustic-guitar-loop

This track was inspired by the Disquiet Junto Project:
More on this 579th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Memory Serves (The Assignment: Rerecord a piece of music), at: Disquiet Junto Project 0579: Memory Serves – Disquiet

More on the Disquiet Junto at: Disquiet Junto F.A.Q. – Disquiet

Subscribe to project announcements here: Disquiet Junto by Marc Weidenbaum (Disquiet.com)

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0579-memory-serves/

Hoffnung ernähret die liebenden Hertzen (Disquiet0579)

Lost

reside

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).