Disquiet Junto Project 0581: Helsinki Downspout

The Assignment: Use a rhythmic field recording as the foundation for a new track.

Step 1: This is a shared sample project, one in which all the participants will utilize the same provided recording, about a minute and a half long, as the rhythmic element for their own music. Access the track, originally recorded by Scott Fletcher and used with his permission, here:

https://soundcloud.com/disquiet/helsinki-downspout 30

Step 2: Listen to the provided track several times. Think about ways to map its content, perhaps making notations about when certain unique, momentary aspects surface.

Step 3: Record an original piece of music for which the provided music is the underlying rhythm. You might take this quite literally, using the source as it is, resulting in a track that is precisely 1:35 long. Alternately, you might elect to sample and rework the source material. If you go the latter route, make certain that the original sound is, at least at some point in the finished track, recognizable.

Step 4: Because this is a Creative Commons resource, be sure to identify Scott Fletcher as the original recorder of the source material, and include a link to the source track. Identify the license as: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0).

Eight Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0581” (no spaces or quotation marks) in the name of your tracks.

Step 2: If your audio-hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to also include the project tag “disquiet0581” (no spaces or quotation marks). If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to subsequent location of tracks for the creation of a project playlist.

Step 3: Upload your tracks. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your tracks.

Step 4: Post your track in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0581-helsinki-downspout/

Step 5: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.

Step 6: If posting on social media, please consider using the hashtag #DisquietJunto so fellow participants are more likely to locate your communication.

Step 7: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Step 8: Also join in the discussion on the Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to marc@disquiet.com for Slack inclusion.

Note: Please post one track for this weekly Junto project. If you choose to post more than one, and do so on SoundCloud, please let me know which you’d like added to the playlist. Thanks.

Additional Details:

Length: The length is up to you. How long did the rain last?

Deadline: Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, February 20, 2023, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, February 16, 2023.

Upload: When participating in this project, be sure to include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto. Photos, video, and lists of equipment are always appreciated.

Download: It is always best to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution, allowing for derivatives).


Thanks to Scott Fletcher for having provided the original material. It is used thanks to a Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0). Original track at: https://soundcloud.com/disquiet/helsinki-downspout/ 30

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-0581-helsinki-downspout/

Like a butterfly caught inside - disquiet0581

Ανω ΚΑΤΩ (pronounced “ah-no KAH-to”) is a form of techno music that combines native Pontic Greek instrumentation with electronic dance rhythms. The name, often shortened into the more global term KATO, loosely translates into English as “messed up.”

KATO is believed to have formed sometime in the 1990’s, when a group of Macedonian sheep herders picked up the throbbing bass of a dance club located in the nearby valley’s urban center. Legend is that the herders attempted to play along with the beat on daouli drum, fife, and kemenche, forcing the musicians to actually play slower than the tempos to which they were accustomed. This adjustment resulted in new phrasing techniques that today comprise the subgenre’s sonic attributes.

The typical KATO techno track sits between 125 and 140 BPM and features arpeggiated notes performed on a kemenche, also known as the “instrument of the Black Sea.” The strings are bowed with a doksar made from an olive branch, double-bound to withstand the repetitive velocity needed to accompany loudly amplified beats. Glitch effects feature prominent in KATO techno, perhaps a carryover from the sketchy radio transmissions commonly heard on rural Macedonian mountaintops during KATO’s advent.

Suss Müsik owns a few KATO releases, all on compact disc and bought from the same record shop that unearthed this nugget.* Probably the best-known KATO artist is Matia14, whose track “Θα φας ξύλο” (“You Will Eat Wood”) was famously remixed by DJ Penmanship in 1999. The untitled track featured here is by a Thessaloniki group named αργό λάχανο, known as Slow Cabbage in English.

*https://sussmusik.com/2017/07/17/junto-project-0289-ancient-artifacts-repost/

More on this 582nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, X Techno (The Assignment: Make a new subgenre), at: https://disquiet.com/0582/

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-0582-x-techno/

Αργό Λάχανο [Disquiet0582]

Sometimes techno is all about the anticipation of the beat. So you have the evocative samples, the drone before the kick drum, the sampled female voices just prior to the high hat and so on. In this contribution to the week's Junto challenge I have created a track that is all about the anticipation before the beat. And when the beat finally comes, it is disappointing, disjointed and interrupted. Enough to clear the dance floor. Head to the bar. Or head for the door.

disquiet0582

Song from an imaginary subgenre of techno made on an airplane inspired by the clouds outside the windows and the droning wall of noise inside the plane.

Disquiet Junto Project 0582: X Techno
The Assignment: Make a new subgenre.

Step 1: You’re going to make a new subgenre of techno. Think for a moment about what makes techno techno.

Step 2: Choose a word and put it before “techno.” Those two words in combination are your new subgenre.

Step 3: Record a piece of music in the style of the subgenre you came up with in Step 2.

More on this 582nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, X Techno (The Assignment: Make a new subgenre), at: https://disquiet.com/0582/

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-0582-x-techno/

Photo by USGS on Unsplash

disquiet0582 Airborne Toxic Techno

Disquiet Junto Project 0582: X Techno
The Assignment: Make a new subgenre.

Step 1: You’re going to make a new subgenre of techno. Think for a moment about what makes techno techno.

Step 2: Choose a word and put it before “techno.” Those two words in combination are your new subgenre.

Step 3: Record a piece of music in the style of the subgenre you came up with in Step More on this 582nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, X Techno (The Assignment: Make a new subgenre), at: https://disquiet.com/0582/

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-0582-x-techno/

For this challenge I hybridised my last Disquiet offering, I resampled some of the ‘aquatic’ atmospherics and then recombined with a mutant faltering techno-ish rhythm and glitched siren calls. I hereby give you ‘subaquatic techno’. 🧜‍♀️ 
I did this latest doodle on my iPad again.

Image credit https://www.flickr.com/photos/rafipics/7914334878

Subaquatic Hybrid Disquiet0582

Disquiet Junto Project 0582: X Techno
The Assignment: Make a new subgenre.

Kraken Techno has to be plain 120bpm and 16th sequenced suction cups, but these have to drift apart in the course of the piece - like the tentacles do.  

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Flyer design based on Foto by Diego Sanchez
https://unsplash.com/de/fotos/NGucyc4mOdk

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More on this 582nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, X Techno (The Assignment: Make a new subgenre), at: https://disquiet.com/0582/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0582-x-techno/

Kraken Techno [disquiet0582]

This was my contribution for the Disquiet Junto Project 0582: X Techno

Here’s a copy of my post on the Disquiet Junto 0582 discussion thread:

Decided on eroded techno for my subgenre. I used an unfinished minimal techno track from a couple years ago, completed it, then copied it onto an old cassette tape with a Marantz PMD-201 mono recorder. I then routed the audio through a Walrus Audio Melee distortion+reverb guitar pedal into Ableton Live. From there, I further tried to mangle the track using Arturia Efx Fragments, MS-20, and UA LO-FI-AF filters. 

At first, the piece was a wall of noisy distortion, so I dialed everything back a bit to have a more recognizable techno beat. The booms at the beginning and end are from the effects pedal picking up the mechanical sound of switching the tape deck on and off. 

More on this 582nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, X Techno (The Assignment: Make a new subgenre), at: https://disquiet.com/0582/
More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto/ 1
Subscribe to project announcements here: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0582-x-techno/

Eroded Techno [disquiet0582]

Vocals by Alexa ...

More on this 582nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, X Techno (The Assignment: Make a new subgenre), at: https://disquiet.com/0582/

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-0582-x-techno/

visuals (YouTube)

halF technO [disquiet0582]

This week's #disquietjunto prompt was to create a new subgenre of techno! I knew I wanted to do "symmetrical techno" pretty much right away. 

I was inspired by the Threechords' Hammerhead Rhythm Station software, which I would mess around with back in the oughts. Not only was it hours of fun, but it was also pretty easy to get a little weird: in particular, reversing the drum samples: I always enjoyed reversing a kick sample against a regular kick sample and and hearing the reversed version "whoosh" into the traditional kick sound.

I took this as the basic principle of "symmetrical techno" and tried to expand it into a framework for a whole track (or genre!). All of the rhythms and pitches flip at some point, but each instrument has its own point(s) of symmetry, usually within each section of the song.

Sometimes I created symmetry by literally reversing a recording, sometimes I made a series of pitches appear in reverse order (aka retrograde).

Also, the overall form is symmetrical: ABCDCBA

Writing under the framework of "whatever you create will then be followed by a flipped version" was a really interesting way to write! Some interesting rhythms emerged, like a snare pattern that isn't quite what you would expect. And the hi-hat pattern is a series of 5 8th notes that interlock with the rest of the drum kit in interesting ways.


* * * * *
More on this 582nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, X Techno (The Assignment: Make a new subgenre), at: https://disquiet.com/0582/

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-0582-x-techno/

technoonhcet (disquiet0582)

The Assignment: Record the second third of an asynchronous trio.

For this assignment I recorded https://soundcloud.com/sonic-search/eden into tracks 1 & 2 of a 4-track recorder (a Tascam Porta02), and then recorded a sequence that I programmed on the OP-Z into tracks 3 & 4, while playing with it live. I loved the organic feel of "Eden", and the rigidity of the OP-Z is a nice addition to it, IMHO.

Better Than One (disquiet0592) with Sonic Search

Warehouse Memory Trigger

Composer and producer who puts together noise and pretty sounds. Hear my releases on Bandcamp: https://natetrier.bandcamp.com/

technoonhcet (disquiet0582)

Nate Trier

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