Atelier Mini-Series YouTube Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSKk9TL2TheyuTwqA-aZJTxQD81vCgUks

“This space between French and English is, for me, a perpetual torment…”

Philosopher Alain Badiou reflects on Beckett — and on the strange torment of thinking and speaking across languages.

In this halF unusuaL piece, his voice becomes a sonic poem: shattered, dissolved, and reassembled through GRM Tools Atelier.

A tribute to Musique Concrète, to the friction of thought and sound, and to an uncertain space between sameness and otherness.

— created in GRM Tools Atelier

More experiments in sound, language, and philosophy coming soon.

Watch the whole lecture - Alain Badiou. Theater, Poetry and Philosophy. 2003 - at https://youtu.be/p6SmRlSqFrM?si=V8XQwU_yX5vcxJ2Y

visuals (YouTube)

halF tormenteD

Update: An in-depth patch explanation tutorial video has just been released on YouTube: https://youtu.be/-7Sv6_Epr50 - if you're intrigued how this track was made, check it out 🤗

I wanted to see whether GRM Tools Atelier could do something a little more rhythmic ... It can! 😁 See the YouTube video of the patch (and an upcoming how it works) on the halF unusuaL YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/aY6TNXLZYec

whenever we meet
it’s raining
green walnuts

Tanaka Hiroaki (1959–2004) was a Japanese poet from Osaka. A student of Hatano Sōha, he published many of his works in the journal Ao 青 (“Blue”), of which he became editor in 1979. In 2000, he founded his own journal, Yū ゆう.

Haiku by Tanaka Hiroaki (Italian): https://www.lucacenisi.net/2023/03/24/cinque-haiku-di-tanaka-hiroaki/

To find out more and participate, visit https://www.naviarrecords.com/haiku-music-challenge/

visual (YouTube)

halF meT [naviarhaiku616]

Watch this piece being created: https://youtu.be/Oe3l1F4mfaU
A live performance for the Disquiet Junto #0721, built from the same patch used in the recent Badiou x Beckett sonic torment piece: https://soundcloud.com/half-unusual/half-tormented?si=3390f301411545e0aac521e547afb785&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
This time, Badiou’s voice gives way to a thunderstorm I recorded in 2019 —
the same comb filtering and pitch clusters now sculpting rumble and rain into something more filmic and reflective.
A short meditation on resonance, weather, and thought.

🎧 Performed entirely in GRM Tools Atelier

More on the 721st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Well Weathered — The Assignment: Play along with a storm — at https://disquiet.com/0721/.

halF storM [disquiet0721]

See this generative patch in action on the halF unusuaL YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/yY9Fg9GZVME

Recording a tiny music box and using it inside GRM Tools Atelier ...

halF handleD

See the video for this track: https://youtu.be/plobBpzc4wk

Atelier takes the recent music-box patch and lets the current run wild — randomising at VERY nearly halF (49.1%), with morphs stretching from 14 seconds to the full minute maximum. Now THAT'S what I call a crossfade! 🎚️

What begins as a gentle stream becomes a weir, a weird, and then … weirder still, via liquid transitions. 💦

Check out the seed generative patch: https://soundcloud.com/half-unusual/half-handled?si=0390bf75f15b4a3ba0d17e96c87e464d&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing and associated visuals: https://youtu.be/yY9Fg9GZVME

halF randomisatioN

Watch the accompanying video: https://youtu.be/uavIwPGvL68

GRM Tools Atelier is brilliant for chaos, texture, and deliciously complex sound sculpture — but can it groove?

This unusuaL little experiment explores whether the Atelier slipper fits a more rhythmic footing ... Oh, yes it does! 😜 Still a little strange tho, still halF unusuaL 😉

Built in Ableton Live with:
🎠 raw samples from a hand-cranked music box
🌀 fragments from recent Atelier pieces (all born from that same box)
🧲 one wonderfully unruly bass from BEATSURFING Random

Enjoy! 😁😜

halF cinderellA [oh, no it's not]

Watch the accompanying video: https://youtu.be/qrWdyiw30bk

broken guitar —
in its hollow body
a whisper of C
(from the 2025 British Haiku Society Members’ Anthology)

A haiku, a generative patch, and a robot’s dream of music.
This piece begins with an improvised out-of-tune acoustic guitar recording — the same Atelier structure as the earlier music box patch, reshaped into something moody and oddly atmospheric.

The visuals? A robot trying (and failing beautifully) to play guitar — an AI imagining itself as musician, all bendy fingers and impossible strings. A perfect mirror for what generative sound really is: identity blinking between intention and accident.

🎶 built in GRM Tools Atelier
🎥 visuals generated + reinterpreted
📖 haiku by Darren Bourne (halF unusuaL)

✨ perhaps failure is the most honest play

halF whispereD

Nearly 5 years ago, I uploaded a track called halF nutS ... https://soundcloud.com/half-unusual/half-nuts ... Who'd have thought I'd be going nuts again now! 😁

This is another GRM Tools Atelier noise experiment ... and you can see the accompanying visuals (as well as the original nuts recorded for mangling) on the halF unusuaL YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/At3lfc1nK6M

Oh, and you can see me turn into a sock puppet ... 😜 Weresock transformation around about 1:30 ... 🤫

halF nutS 2

The third GRM Tools Atelier workshop is now available on the halF unusuaL YouTube channel. This is the audio-only final piece, to simply enjoy sonically, with no distraction. 15 whole minutes of audial intrigue ... I would normally edit a track like this down, but it might be good to hear the whole thing as a companion piece for the video.

If you'd like to see the video and hear me explain how it all comes together, then you can watch at xxx

The video explains how halF weT was formed from some samples of my rainy day in Nottingham, the amazing new GRM Tools Atelier and the older suite of plugins from GRM Tools - first released in 1992! - a fusion of old, new and wet! 😁😜 Enjoy! 😊

https://www.ableton.com/en/blog/grm-past-present-and-future-experimental-music/

halF weT

almost black
deepening purple
ripe grapes

Regarded as the father of contemporary haiku, Masaoka Shiki was a poet and literary critic during the Meiji period Japan.

He advocated realistic observation by “sketching” (shasei) poems and going out into nature with notebooks, thus abandoning the traditional subjects of haiku of the time. His advice for an aspiring poet was, “Use both imaginary pictures and real ones, but prefer the real ones.”

Haiku by Masaoka Shiki: https://mypoeticside.com/poets/masaoka-shiki-poems

To find out more and participate, visit https://www.naviarrecords.com/haiku-music-challenge/

more halF unusuaL

halF deepeninG [naviarhaiku619]

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 🙏🥰

(o≧▽≦)o ♪ ♪ ░░▒▓█▒░▒▒░▒▓█

New tracks tagged #grm tools