More on the 696th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Chain of Layers — The Assignment: Make music change by altering its layers — at https://disquiet.com/0696/

11 samples created from looping short sections taken from a pre-existing piece entitled 'Narrative' [ https://soundcloud.com/xiiixxi/narrative ]. The volume of each continuously sounding loop is auto-faded in and out using a pair of linked oscillators in addition to being shaped to bring each to the front once at least once throughout the duration of the piece.

Disquiet Junto | Chain of Layers - disquiet0696

More on the 696th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Chain of Layers — The Assignment: Make music change by altering its layers — at https://disquiet.com/0696/

portales de andros [disquiet0696]

Edited, mixed & mastered on 01 May 2025 by Jim Lemanowicz at Blissville Electro-Magnetic Laboratories of Massapequa, USA. 

Layered guitar synth

This piece evolved through three distinct passes with the last having three of its own:

1 - Almost every day, I record something. On April 13, I recorded about 20 minutes of guitar synth with a voice sound using a cheap SX guitar as the controller. I recorded with DAW effects but for this piece, I used the raw recording without effects. The synth has some built-in though.

2 - On May 1, I spread this recording across 15 tracks, stretching some to fit the same duration and adding leftover bits throughout. I panned them across the sound field. Though I created a wall of sound and did a rough mix, I felt this arrangement wasn't working for me.

3 - Inspired by fabric patterns and metal chains, I drew a subtractive volume automation on one track, moving down and diagonally, bouncing off the side and back until reaching the 15th track. I then drew another pattern at the beginning of the last track, moving up diagonally. As the piece took shape, I added a third pattern in untouched spots where it felt right. These patterns began precise but became organic—like a handmade garment rather than a machine-made one. The final run evoked an old painting shirt, and that's when I knew it was complete.

Photography/Art - Jim Lemanowicz, Aug 2019, Massapequa, NY, USA - at the time, an in-progress painting I called “Injury Or Suffocation.” 

©2019, 2025 Jim Lemanowicz

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This original version of “Stepmother In Chains” was submitted as part of Disquiet Junto Project 0696: Chain of Layers. The Assignment: Make music change by altering its layers.

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

More on the 696th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Chain of Layers — The Assignment: Make music change by altering its layers — at https://disquiet.com/0696

Stepmother In Chains (disquiet0696)

Disquiet Junto 0696's assignment was to record 10 to 15 layers of continuous sound and create a piece of music only by altering their relative presence over time.

I immediately thought of the story of how the iconic 1975 10cc song "I'm Not In Love" was created. The backing vocals are lush and rich and unearthly. (If you don't know the song, just listen to the first 30 seconds or so to get the gist). The story is that the band recorded themselves each singing a long, sustained note until they had 48 notes on individual 12' tape loops. For the final recording, the tape loops were played simultaneously and mixed into harmonies live on the console, essentially turning the mixer into a musical instrument. 

With this technique as inspiration, I recorded 7 tracks of ebow guitar, each playing a different note in the A harmonic minor scale. Ebow can make dynamics difficult but I managed some good textures I think. I hand-mixed each of the tracks to come in and out in sequence, creating a rising step pattern.

Then I bounced the seven guitar tracks to a single track. This track was duplicated and pitch shifted to create 4 tracks spanning 4 octaves. This essentially multiplied my original 7 tracks by 4 to give me 28 guitars. I applied volume automation to create a primitive Shepard scale out of the result.

Aside from a couple of acousmatic accents and a low-fi kick drum, every sound is from the guitar.

More on the 696th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Chain of Layers — The Assignment: Make music change by altering its layers — at https://disquiet.com/0696/

What Became of Grandfather? (disquiet0696)

Different layers of sounds created from synths, strings, birds, choirs, slowly transforming, evolving into a sunset drone by varying the mix between the layers.

A drone to immerse yourself into the sunset. 

This track was inspired by this week's Disquiet Junto project:

More on the 696th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Chain of Layers — The Assignment: Make music change by altering its layers — at https://disquiet.com/0696/

Sunset Duvet (Disquiet0696)

disquiet0696

This was my contribution for Disquiet Junto Project 0696: Chain of Layer. The first of three that are being done by the Disquiet Junto in collaboration with the 2025 Musikfestival Bern.  The Assignment: Make music change by altering its layers.

Here’s a copy of my post on the Disquiet Junto 0696 discussion thread on Lines:

Recorded 11 tracks from my modular synth using Make Noise Telharmonic and Verbos HO modules for the voices. Layered them in Ableton Live in the sequence in which they were recorded – fading one into the next. Also inserted 4 samples from field recordings I had and interspersed them between the synth tracks, and also at the end. So this has a total of 15 layers. Some reverb using Valhalla Room and a bit of auto panning using built in devices were the only effects added. Image by Ruido-98 via Unsplash. It's been altered slightly in Photoshop.

More on the 696th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Chain of Layers — The Assignment: Make music change by altering its layers — at https://disquiet.com/0696/

Fifteen Waveforms [disquiet0696]

Chain of Layers [Disquiet0696]

[disquiet0696] cake

#4236 (93.39% 300 left): Jul. 20, 2025: For one that was like woman made  (again, William Butler Yeats from May 22, 2025) 

*** NEW SELECTION ALBUM 30th JUST RELEASESD ***

Today's pure primal piano music here. Happy if this music makes you feel peaceful.. : )

Looking for absolute natural beauty every day for Piano Ten Thousand Leaves. Target number is 4536:
This piece may might have good 1/f fluctuation characteristic although I stopped investigating it each piece.

######## Latest Album: 30th SELECTION ALBUM JUST RELEASED ########

"wind of mysteriousness" - the 30th selection album of piano ten thousand leaves

youtube: FULL VIDEO with 20 full songs in very high quality sounds
https://youtu.be/tkqms1ZjAEg?si=RlWgQZBbe9z523f_

spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/intl-ja/album/7CiAmnJmm5Wnm3CVfmC234?si=tImTyWj5TT6dUBRhMRXVYg

apple Music:
https://music.apple.com/jp/album/wind-of-mysteriousness/1817351475

amazon music:
https://www.amazon.co.jp/s?k=chair+house+%E4%B8%8D%E6%80%9D%E8%AD%B0%E3%81%AE%E9%A2%A8&i=digital-music&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

all music streaming services:
https://linkco.re/PQ45u0dG?lang=en


for one that was like woman made - #4236 (93R39 percent 300 left) by chair house 250720

liminal space

All here, in reality, are works in progress and are therefore apt to change at any time. All those except XIII Sisters and RAW which, as many of you may have done, I literally gave away in return for their placement in a library. Something I won't be doing again any time soon. If you have a use for something you hear here please just ask.

 .ooO -------------------------------------- Ooo.

ChatGTP said of AI Music...
'Creative AI tools can be seen as sophisticated plagiarism software, as they do not produce genuinely original content but rather emulate and modify existing works by artists subtly enough to circumvent copyright laws'

Sometimes it takes a dispassionate, independent view to actually see the truth of it ...

 .ooO -------------------------------------- Ooo.

There are links to XiiixxiQ below. Your mileage may vary as to whether it decides to work on your system or not. It only runs on a Mac because I really don't have time to do all the necessary work to make it compatible with anything other than my 2015 MacBook Pro :-(. It is still being developed (for my own use) and improved, and I may yet get round to doing another release if I can find the time to tidy it all up.

Disquiet Junto | Chain of Layers - disquiet0696

x i i i x x i