Disquiet Junto Project 0670: Right of Way

The Assignment: Music for turn signals.

Step 1: Record the sound of a car’s turn signal (or, alternately, use a prerecorded one, for example at freesound.org).

Step 2: Improvise on top of the recording of the turn signal with as many or few layers of additional sound as you like, emphasizing rhythm (versus melody or harmony), and retain the original turn signal sound, so it is still audible for most if not all of your finished track

Background: This project is something of a callback to the 11th Disquiet Junto project, way back at the end of March 2012.

Deadline: Monday, November 4, 2024, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) wherever you are.

Details: https://disquiet.com/0670/

Disquiet Junto Project 0670: Right of Way

Disquiet Junto #0670 directed us to compose something rhythmic around the sound of a turn signal. I went one better and added windshield wipers. 

Polyrhythms, frequencies that are askew, and a tempo that seems to lurch like a figure in the fog. Maddeningly, nothing stays in sync for long.

Features physical modeling synth, samplers, and field recordings.

Enjoy “Three Lefts” on a long, nighttime drive with the windows down and the volume up. Recorded at NO SIGNAL Multimedia Lab in the Shambles, Chicago.

More about this week's Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/0670

Three Lefts (disquiet0670)

Using the sound of the Ford KA right indicator to create a piece in BespokeSynth. See the accompanying video and download the patch to play with yourself from YouTube at https://youtu.be/70JQ0UMMtXs

More on the 670th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Right of Way — The Assignment: Music for turn signals — at https://disquiet.com/0670/

visuals & patch

halF indicatioN [disquiet0670]

This track was created from a short recording of a car turn signal with numerous repetitions, layers and effects, no other sounds added.
More on the 670th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Right of Way — The Assignment: Music for turn signals — at https://disquiet.com/0670/

Turn of Events (disquiet0670)

More on the 670th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Right of Way — The Assignment: Music for turn signals — at https://disquiet.com/0670/

Right of Way

Disquiet Junto | Right Of Way - disquiet0670

As per the instructions, the track starts and ends with the sound of a turn signal, which is then processed, cut up and re-arranged and then over ruled by a funky beat. Except the beat is interrupted by the occasional failed connection, to remind me of the dodgy sound systems I had in my car when I was young. And then the beat stops, the turn signal returns, first in bits and then steady and strong. I turn into my driveway, and I am home.

disquiet270

**Disquiet Junto Project 0670: Right of Way**  
The Assignment: Music for turn signals.

Step 1: Record the sound of a car’s turn signal (or, alternately, use a prerecorded one, for example at [freesound.org 4](http://freesound.org/)).

Step 2: Improvise on top of the recording of the turn signal with as many or few layers of additional sound as you like, emphasizing rhythm (versus melody or harmony), and retain the original turn signal sound, so it is still audible for most if not all of your finished track

Background: This project is something of a callback to the 11th Disquiet Junto project, way back at the end of March 2012.

Track notes can be found here: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0670-right-of-way/69232/9

[Disquiet_Junto_0670] Exterior Cabin

More on the 691st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Un-Ravel — The Assignment: Make a recording of a string quartet fall apart — at https://disquiet.com/0691/

Un-Ravel

Disquiet Junto| Un-Ravel - disquiet0691

I selected the 4th movement of the quartet, chopped it up and remixed it to a stereo track. Then, by means of many adjustments and various effects, I converted it to a modern atonal/microtonal composition.

More on the 691st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Un-Ravel — The Assignment: Make a recording of a string quartet fall apart — at https://disquiet.com/0691/

Ravel Revamped (disquiet0691)

Ravel from the 1920s, timestretched in ableton, then converted to midi and combined, fx etc

More on the 691st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Un-Ravel — The Assignment: Make a recording of a string quartet fall apart — at https://disquiet.com/0691/

un-ravel +3 mix [disquiet0691]

Following this week's Disquiet Junto project this track was created using a historic recording of the Ravel string quartet from 1928.
This is the sound of a dream, dissolved beyond recognition, but still present as the conscious cause of this unconscious music.

The audio was transformed using spectral synthesizers and effect chains to create this dreamlike rendition. No other sounds or instruments were employed.

More on the 691st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Un-Ravel — The Assignment: Make a recording of a string quartet fall apart — at https://disquiet.com/0691/

rêver  (Disquiet0691)

Edited, mixed & mastered on 28 Mar 2025 by Jim Lemanowicz at Blissville Electro-Magnetic Laboratories of Massapequa, USA. 

This piece uses a 1928 recording by the Capet String Quartet of Ravel’s string quartet (Col. D 15057-60).

The original source is the Internet Archive: 

https://archive.org/details/3-capet-sq-col-d-15057-60-ravel-1928-mov-3/

Photography - Jim Lemanowicz, 24 Apr 2009, Massapequa & NYC, NY, USA

©2025 Jim Lemanowicz

---

This original version of “Chowder Spray” was submitted as part of Disquiet Junto Project 0691: Un-Ravel. The Assignment: Make a recording of a string quartet fall apart.

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

More on the 691st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Un-Ravel — The 
Assignment: Make a recording of a string quartet fall apart — at https://disquiet.com/0691/

Chowder Spray (disquiet0691)

“Unraveling a revealing Ravel” takes the final twelve seconds of Ravel’s Capet string quartet in F Major (1903) as the material to apply the idea proposed in Disquiet Junto 0691: “it should make the Ravel sound like it is falling apart — that is, like it is unraveling, or un-Ravel-ing”. 
The tripartite microstructure of those final measures has been mapped into the three sections of the track: the first one starts with the clean original audio and quickly derives into a vivacious sequence of micro-editions, gating and spectral smearing; the second section transitions from energico to adagio until the chords seem to be suspended for a while, just to be submitted to different kinds of decimation, downsampling, aliasing, vacuum tube distortion, vinylic noisification, and bitcrushing; the piece closes with an exagerated ritardando, and wild filtering and cutting of excerpts that maybe expose some microfeatures of the final chord before leaving it totally unravelled. 
More on the 691st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Un-Ravel — The Assignment: Make a recording of a string quartet fall apart — at https://disquiet.com/0691/

This piece uses a 1928 recording by the Capet String Quartet of Ravel’s string quartet (Col. D 15057-60).
The original audio source can be found here:
https://archive.org/details/3-capet-sq-col-d-15057-60-ravel-1928-mov-3/

Unraveling a revealing Ravel [disquiet0691]

I was a bit lazy with this one and also pressed for time. I basically ran the original file through a number of granular plug ins, fading and mixing them against each other and towards the end rendering the mix into an ambient wash. Hints of Ravel remain, moving in and out, here and there....

disquiet0691

Disquiet Junto Project 0691: Un-Ravel
The Assignment: Make a recording of a string quartet fall apart.

Step 1: Download the first movement of the Ravel string quartet at this URL: https://bit.ly/un-ravel

The original source is the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/3-capet-sq-col-d-15057-60-ravel-1928-mov-3/

Step 2: Listen to the track closely.

Step 3: Create a new piece of music by employing the provided recording as source material. The goal for your piece is that it should make the Ravel sound like it is falling apart — that is, like it is unraveling, or un-Ravel-ing.

More on the 691st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Un-Ravel — The Assignment: Make a recording of a string quartet fall apart — at https://disquiet.com/0691/

unravelling [disquiet0691]

Un-Ravel [disquiet0691]

the end result is not so much a string quartet falling apart as it is a resonator-granular garble, but that's how it is sometimes

--

More on the 691st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Un-Ravel — The Assignment: Make a recording of a string quartet fall apart — at https://disquiet.com/0691/



disquiet0691 - gravel

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).

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.

[Disquiet_Junto_0670] Exterior Cabin

Tristan Louth-Robins

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