Disquiet Junto Project 0703: That’s How You Got Killed Before

The Assignment: Revisit something that you just couldn’t get to work last time.

Step 1: Think of something difficult you were trying to accomplish, something music-related that you just couldn’t get to work. It may be a piece of software, or a playing technique, or a part of a musical work-in-progress.

Step 2: Block out time and dedicate that time solely to putting a lot of effort into doing what you previously couldn’t. Even if you don’t solve the problem this time around, you will likely make some form of progress.

Step 3: Record something that reflects, expresses, or otherwise involves the effort you expended in Step 2 above.

Deadline: Monday, June 23, 2025, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) wherever you are.

Details: at https://disquiet.com/0702/

Disquiet Junto Project 0703: That’s How You Got Killed Before

A little piece with sounds from Yamaha YC45D, Eminent 310U and ELKA 707. Second part is a simple variation of Stomu Yamashta´s Solitude.
Effects used: Boss RE20 Space Echo and TC Electronic Nova reverb

YC310ELKA

view_finder_disquiet0700

Disquiet Junto Project 0703: That’s How You Got Killed Before

This one’s been sitting on my hard drive for 16 months. It came from a session with my friend and collaborator Bobby Rangell — we had recorded some flutes for a job, then took advantage of being in the studio to jam a bit: bass and flute, sometimes with a drum machine click.
It was a super productive day. I later revisited and shared many of those flute-based tracks… but this one?
Like the others, it was just two tracks: mono flute and stereo bass, with a 2-bar drum machine loop. But I made a patching mistake that day — the bass came out super thin and low, and mixed weirdly with Bobby’s long reverb. So I just… deleted my bass track. Why? No idea.
Months later, I went back to it — and found only Bobby’s flute and a 3-note Roland 707 kick pattern. No idea what I originally played. Worse: Bobby’s blowing was super abstract. I couldn’t even figure out the key. Still can’t.
Then I got Marc’s email this morning and thought, why not try something different?
Instead of trying to remember what we did, I improvised on top of Bobby and the 707 kick playing electric bass, just following my own ideas and added some drum loops that weren’t there when we played, then I played a Fender Rhodes and some synth textures following my new bass, trying to structure what was probably and abstract free impro.
instead of trying to figure out what key were we playing in (I recall in all our impros we just kept one steady key) I introduced chord changes, played around with modulations, and laid down harmonies that don’t necessarily match what Bobby was playing. So now you hear his flute moving freely over harmonies that were never there in the original — sometimes clashing, sometimes strangely aligning. I liked the tension it created.
I spent a full day in the studio doing this. Honestly, I don’t think it’s done, but I’m leaving it here for now.
Side note: if anyone asks “what’s the point of the Junto challenges?” — this is it.
Sure, I could have called Bobby back and spent the same 8 hours creating something much more polished and coherent from scratch. But we never would have ended up with something like this. And without this challenge, I never would’ve bothered digging into a broken, abandoned track like this.


Performed by Daniel DIaz (June 2025) and Bobby Rangell (March 2024)
Photo by DD, Carilo, Argentina. 2025

That’s How You Got Killed Before (disquiet0703)

More on the 703rd weekly Disquiet Junto project, That’s How You Got Killed Before — The Assignment: Revisit something that you just couldn’t get to work last time — at https://disquiet.com/0703/

disquiet0703 - Environmentally-Sustainable Victorian Home

This week's Disquiet Junto prompt challenged us to revisit something musical—a piece of software, an idea, a technique—that we couldn't get to work in the past, and to dedicate time to improving it, capturing the result in music.

I decided to go with my Sequential Prophet-6 analog synth. I had inherited it from an ex who moved out of the country, and for complicated reasons just never really connected with it as an instrument. Intellectually, I knew that it was a fantastic synth, but I didn't know how to make it mine, if that makes sense. I couldn't speak through it. What's worse, the last time I had fired it up, it exhibited a rare but not unknown bug where every sixth note would be extremely loud, rendering it unplayable.

But today I decided to try again, to give it a second chance. I set aside time to just play around with it, experimenting with patches and tweaking parameters. I realized that the volume bug wasn't happening, the synth was being cooperative. Eventually I landed on a set of ideas that I think work well together. Most importantly, I feel like I can hear my voice in this piece, through an instrument that I couldn't do that with before. I'm even playing the lead synth like I do an ebow guitar. 

What a great prompt and a great experience.

--

More on the 703rd weekly Disquiet Junto project, That’s How You Got Killed Before — The Assignment: Revisit something that you just couldn’t get to work last time — at https://disquiet.com/0703/

I Don't Trust This Prophet (disquiet0703)

I always keep a quantity of unfinished, discarded or 'dead' material which I attempt to resurrect from time to time. In this case, after considering and experimenting with various possibilities, I eventually combined two contrasting electronic sequences (drone and random noise), slowed them down by a quarter and added a touch of delay, etc.

More on the 703rd weekly Disquiet Junto project, That’s How You Got Killed Before — The Assignment: Revisit something that you just couldn’t get to work last time — at https://disquiet.com/0703/

Quarter-Speed Resurrection (disquiet0703)

too long between waters - disquiet0703

sound art for disquiet0703

More on the 703rd weekly Disquiet Junto project, That’s How You Got Killed Before — The Assignment: Revisit something that you just couldn’t get to work last time — at https://disquiet.com/0703/

hexcloud (disquiet0703)

Year's ago, soon after I first discovered puredata, I started a project to build a sequencer for my volca sample. I got quite far, but too far in some ways and not far enough in others. I could make a crazy pattern, but I never got around to sorting out a simple save/load system. It had a somewhat elaborate gui before it even had proper functionality. It was an unwieldy mess and I ended up giving up on it. Then recently I started a similar project for some new hardware I'd bought, but an error with uploading some corrupted firmware saw it away for repairs, so I dug this old project out. I started again from scratch and can see that I've made a lot of progress in terms of my understanding of the program and also the principles of design/making things, but the sequencer remains in a rudimentary state. It already has a simple save/load system built in, however, and I'm quite excited still by the prospects of it. This time around I'm producing some more generic components/abstractions, so the work will also help towards building other things. There's no crazy sequencing in this example, just a simple pattern put through a few changes. I had bigger ideas but this is all that worked in the end. It's made from a little song I sang after a day of messing around with frog samples. I think it drove me somewhat crazy, but mostly in a happy way and at least it didn't kill me.

*

More on the 703rd weekly Disquiet Junto project, That’s How You Got Killed Before — The Assignment: Revisit something that you just couldn’t get to work last time — at https://disquiet.com/0703/

to the mellow green fellow [disquiet0703]

WeAreWithYou

The sound on this release has been examined and produced throughout March and April 2019 in Frankfurt am Main during a music-residency initiated and hosted by "Künstlerhaus Mousonturm" and MMODEMM.

Written and Produced by Asuna Arashi

Asuna - Cloud River Seen From The Window

This is a very early example of sound from a "SID-chip" synthesizer I'm developing based on the sound chip used in the Commodore-64 home computer from the 1980's.
The final synth will utilize 8 SID chips, effectively being as capable as 8 Commodore-64s all playing together.  However in this track I'm only using 2 SID chips playing together.

The SID chips are being driven directly by an Arduino Mega at the hardware level. The Arduino is receiving it's note information as MIDI data from a PC running Presonus Studio One which is the DAW that's actually playing the song.

About half-way through the song you'll notice other instruments come in - these are being played by the same PC running Studio One and are just other tracks in the song played using various VSTs.  They're just to illustrate how the SID synth fits into a mix.

GetLucky_SID01(2)

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.

to the mellow green fellow [disquiet0703]

unclewaybaaack

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