**Production Notes**

I had an idea for this Disquiet Junto. It involved shifting the tempo while moving the starting point of samples. This would have been a nice and proper approach for the assignment… but honestly, I wanted to make just music. So I threw it overboard after an hour. 

This is the path I went: 

Extracted some loops from the material (lovely stuff!). Slowed it down a little.

Additional drums came from Analog Rytm, the bass pad(2Slow from #Biologiks soundset) from Analog Keys. 

Recorded some piano lines.

To get more complexity, I added Beat Repeats from Ableton throughout the whole track. Towards the end the track adds feedback and noise from a shortwave radio, which are probably the most complex systems I know in music. 

Layout and mixing was done the next day in 6 hours. Boy, that was fun! 

* * * 


**Disquiet Junto Project 0188: Complex Complex**

Take a provided track and make it more complex.

This project was proposed by Guy Birkin and Jay Bodley (aka Sun Hammer). It extends the thinking that went into their album Complexification, released by the record label Entr’acte. (There’s more background on album below the project description.)

These are the steps for this project:

Step 1: Pick one of the two tracks at the following URL: https://goo.gl/tN4Oit.

Step 2: Modify that one track in any way, using as much or little of it as you like, to make a new piece that sounds “more complex” than the original. You may add other sounds. (Note: You are free to use any definition or measure of “complexity.” You should be sure to describe your process and how it “increases” the complexity of the original track.)

Step 3: Upload your completed track to the Disquiet Junto group on SoundCloud.

Step 4: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Deadline: This assignment was made in the afternoon, California time, on Thursday, August 6, 2015, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, August 10, 2015.

Background: The album Complexification by Guy Birkin and Sun Hammer “explores musical complexity through a collaborative process based on a set of rules.” Those rules involved the two musicians swapping successive copies of a track in order to make it progressively more “complex.” For their purposes, they defined “complexity” as follows: “In this project, complexity is understood in terms of the quantity and variety of musical elements or patterns. The result is two parallel threads of music, each representing a progression of increasing complexity.”

Length: The length of your finished work is up to you.

(…) 

More on this 188th Disquiet Junto project (“Take a provided track and make it more complex”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/08/06/disquiet0188-complexcomplex/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

Image associated with this project from the notes that accompany the album Complexification (Entr’acte), by Guy Birkin and Sun Hammer, and on which project is based.

More on Complexification:

http://entracte.co.uk/projects/guy-birkin–sun-hammer-e187/

Angel [disquiet0188-complexcomplex]

The complexification for this project was based in the collaborative process between @alexrainer and @lethatechnique (aka Las Wolski): sitting down together late Saturday afternoon in the middle of a Central European heat wave, deciding on samples to use, wielding Ableton Live and a Korg nanoKontrol with four hands, meshing processed samples of the distant "Complexification" tracks with local field recordings, deciding on pitch shifting and resonator notes and beat repeats, digressions into discussing the tritone (“the Devil’s interval”) and initial impressions of "Making Music" by Dennis DeSantis, figuring out how to finalize while keeping the track short and varied, and trying to stay hydrated. Break for a walk to Corner Burger in Kazimierz and for Żywiec Białe throughout the evening. The result is a short slice of sinister heat wave dub.

Manipulated beats from the beginning, bell-like synth sounds from the middle, and scattershot percussive sounds from the end of “Complexification0010GB." Added field recordings of a drunk singing down ulica Chodkiewicza, a random streetside whip-slapshot sound, and some revelers toasting at Forum Przestrzenie. Counter-balanced the whip-slapshots with a recording of a big ole China cymbal from the previous week’s drum session at Studio Savant. Threw “Complexification0010SH” into Ableton’s Granulator for another instrument to generate complex textures.

---

More on this 188th Disquiet Junto project (“Take a provided track and make it more complex”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/08/06/disquiet0188-complexcomplex/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

More on Complexification:

http://entracte.co.uk/projects/guy-birkin–sun-hammer-e187/

Ul. Chodkiewicza Summer Rips (disquiet0188-complexcomplex)

For this work, I failed to follow directions and I failed to meet the deadline. However, I had fun. :-) I first took both tracks provided to us (I was to have selected one of them) and combined them into one track with the first track in the left channel, and the second track in the right channel. I then threw every software plugin I’ve ever bought and paid for onto the two sides … I don’t work “in the box” very often, so this is my tiny concept of “complicating” something … over-processing it to the point that it becomes essentially noise. Once I had that process complete, I mixed it down to a mono track. I then decided to treat recording it as a field recording exercise. I played it back on my laptop computer with its tinny speakers, and utilized a contact microphone to even further decimate the audio. I processed this microphone in realtime utilizing my modular synthesizer. I created a simple audio path of the left channel patched through a high pass filter, and multed through a low pass filter (effectively creating a notch filter), and then multing the microphone again to an envelope follower which opened and closed both sides of the filters. While all of this was taking place, I concurrently played back the original recording of “Complexification0010SH” on my desktop computer and tried to focus my listening on it exclusively … all the while hooked up to my Soundmachines BI1brainterface which monitored my brainwaves and converted them into CV messages to distribute throughout my modular. I selected specific waves to manipulate the filters further, and also used them to disrupt the signal flow through my reverb and delay. I manipulated nothing in real-time with my hands other than moving the contact microphone twice; once at about 3:15 to move from recording my heavily processed track playing on the laptop to the speakers on my desktop playing “Complexification0010SH,” and again moving the microphone when that song finished to place it against my chest to record my heartbeat which can be heard closing this track. I did not use headphones or monitor recording during this performance and instead relied 100% on the source material and my brainwaves to move things forward.

More on this 188th Disquiet Junto project (“Take a provided track and make it more complex”) at:

http://disquiet.com/2015/08/06/disquiet0188-complexcomplex/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

(NOTE: I did not utilize this image) 
Image associated with this project from the notes that accompany the album Complexification (Entr’acte), by Guy Birkin and Sun Hammer, and on which project is based.

More on Complexification:

http://entracte.co.uk/projects/guy-birkin–sun-hammer-e187/

Stranger Showcase (disquiet0188-complexcomplex)

Taken from PERILS - S/T (Pathway010)
PERILS is Benoît Pioulard and Kyle Bobby Dunn.

Mutual admirers of each other’s work, Thomas Meluch (Benoît Pioulard) and Kyle Dunn (Kyle Bobby Dunn) endeavored to put together a collaborative recording that ruminates on painful realities, disappointments, and transitioning to new homes, in the hopes of finding a coping mechanism to bring them through to the other side.
PERILS began auspiciously in 2012 at transitional points in these artists’ lives. Kyle was living in a small town called
Belleville, Ontario trying to complete Kyle Bobby Dunn and The Infinite Sadness (Students of Decay) and coming to grips
with the fact that this great endeavor was at its end. Given the enormity of the record and the emotionally and physically
exhausting process of recording the album, Kyle found himself drained with unforeseen questions and confusions. Working only at night, Kyle immersed himself into this newfound nocturnal work, finding a path in the midst of wondering. Thomas, meanwhile, was in a state of literal transition: uprooting from the UK and relocating to Seattle during the recording process of PERILS. In a state of flux, nearly drowning under the anxieties of living on uncertain ground, Thomas channeled these emotions into musical escapades. Thomas recorded in his spare moments, sending sonic puzzle pieces one by one to Kyle, who would in turn explore the musical sentiments Thomas had shared, adding his own billowing sounds to the seething mix.
The ten pieces created for this release are culled from a poutine- and whisky-fueled trudge through the dark corridors of an as-yet undiscovered or possibly imaginary mystic temple. Commencing with the shimmering guitar and tape loops of “Colours Hide My Face,” the album crawls out of the grooves with a slow-churning turmoil, coaxing the listener to embark along its path. The dirge-like guitar clang and vocals of “(Dead in the) Creekbed Blues” could be an 18th century blues standard emitted from a buried radio. On PERILS, Thomas Meluch and Kyle Bobby Dunn lock arms and together chart the upheaval in their lives to bridge the liminal gulf between the once-was and the soon-to-be.

PERILS - Flaw

Prompt: "Please record the sound of an ice cube rattling in a glass, and make something of it."

This is my first Disquiet "ice" project since the first one, and the first time I've done a Junto project two weeks in a row in probably ten years or more. I made a recording of ice in a glass (actually a plastic cup) last March when I was visiting my mom in Florida because I knew this would be coming back around, and aside from one kick drum sample, that's all was used here.

A 128 kbps MP3 of Cold As Ice By Journey, No Metadata [disquiet0731]

Recorded at La Berceuse (Seattle, WA) November 21, 2015 with guitar and magnetic tape.
Photograph taken in Twin Falls, Idaho on April 29, 2015

More things at http://pioulard.bandcamp.com
Original version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goDd02TTxBA

Stone In Focus [Aphex Twin cover]

lyrics by Kadence and Dudley Perkins, production by Georgia Anne Muldrow (Someothaship Connect) (Abolitionist Projects)
B. Mitchell, D. Perkins, G. Muldrow

The Lighthouse

Electric feat. MC Kadence

PGS MIX 002
Dave Marroquin

A mix from our dear friend Dave Marroquin, the founder of Vanity Press Records and resident at Raw Juice. Vanity Press will be taking part in the "Friends of the Ghost" market at El Club on the 5th of August in Detroit MI along with 14 local record labels doing great things in the community.

PGS Mix 002 - Dave Marroquin

What's that gazump?

I decided to try out the combo of Spitfire Audio's Contemporary Drama Toolkit and British Drama Toolkit with a cover version of the Oneohtrix Point Never track "Animals." All sounds come from these two libraries exclusively. I make no claims to ownership of the composition, which was written by Daniel Lopatin and published by Warp Music Publishing.

Animals (OPN Cover)

All music is available for licensing. Inquiries: AskSunHammer@gmail.com See also @jaybodley

A 128 kbps MP3 of Cold As Ice By Journey, No Metadata [disquiet0731]

Sun Hammer

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