The halos range from what could be compared to old-school Wurlitzer organ to something more along the lines of pixelated wind. In Park’s telling the shifts are as much about spacial experimentation as about harmonic development. Or, perhaps more to the point, they are about harmonic development as spatial development. This is from a brief note that accompanies the track on its SoundCloud page:

“The computer part is algorithmically generated so that the timing and the dynamics of the accompanying part varies from one performance to another. The harmonica sound gradually moves to a larger room as the piece progresses.”

There’s also a video on YouTube of the harmonica performance, which allows the processing gap, the space between what is physically played and what is heard, to be more apparent:

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In an interview at thekey.xpn.org, Park talked about what “computer music” means to him:

“I think of it as trying to do something that’s unique with the computer, rather than imitating human performance. I try to make music that a computer can do better than a human, or that is too bothersome for a human to make. And I’m interested in creating a duo between the computer and me. A lot of times, I don’t know what the computer will spit out. When I make music on the stage, there is no pre-recorded sound. What I play goes straight to the computer, and the computer processes and changes what I play. The process the computer goes through is intentionally made so that the outcome is different every time.”

Track originally posted for free download at soundcloud.com/joowon. Thanks to Jane Shin for recommending that I check out Park’s work. More from Joo Won Park at joowonpark.net.

As in yesterday’s featured track here, a Heathered Pearls remix of an slow industrial rock song by Dirty Beaches, a Pearls reworking of electronic pop likewise emphasizes the lush spaciousness that in the original is merely one element among many. The original in this case is “Lines” by Solar Year. It is slow-motion electronica with echoes of Erasure and Depeche Mode. Gone in the Pearls edit is the robot shuffle and the aching angelic vocal, and in their place is pure sound bed, a shifting cumulus of soft tones.

For comparison, there’s a video of the original version, off the album Waverly, due out in late June, here:

Track originally posted for free download at soundcloud.com/ceremony. Heathered Pearls is Jakub Alexander. Solar Year is David Ertel (that’s his voice) and Ben Borden. More on Solar Year at onesolaryear.com and the releasing record label, ceremonyrecordings.com.

Here is the original “Casino Lisboa,” in the form of its mesmerizing video:

Remix originally posted for free download at soundcloud.com/heathered-pearls. Heathered Pearls is Jakub Alexander. Dirty Beaches is Alex Zhang Hungtai. More from Hungtai/Beaches at dirtybeaches.blogspot.com.

Track originally posted for free download at soundcloud.com/babel_ensemble. Babel Ensemble is a project of Jakob Rehlinger, who is based in Toronto, Canada. Thanks to the excellent listener who goes by Roamin (roamin.ca for having drawn my attention to this track by reposting it on Soundcloud.

Track originally posted for free download at soundcloud.com/handhewn. More from Handhewn at twitter.com/handhewn.

Track originally posted for free download at soundcloud.com/thrilljockey. More on the album at thrilljockey.com. More from the crew at enemyhogs.com, the rare band website is beautiful enough to make you bypass your RSS reader once in awhile.

Each Thursday at the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have just over four days to upload a track in response to the assignment. Membership in the Junto is open: just join and participate.

This assignment was made in the afternoon, California time, on Thursday, May 16, 2013, with 11:59pm on the following Monday, May 20, as the deadline.

These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):

Disquiet Junto Project 0072: Domestic Score

This week’s project is based on field recordings of wherever it is that you live. The goal is to produce a relaxing score to your domestic life by employing noises that intrude on that life.

Step 1: Make a recording of your doorbell, or whatever noise it is that someone would make when announcing their arrival at your residence. If you don’t have a functioning doorbell, then, for example, record the sound of a knock on your door.

Step 2: Record between one and three additional sounds that intrude on your life: your phone’s ring, perhaps, or the alarm on your microwave oven.

Step 3: You will now have between one and four sounds recorded. Using those sounds as source material, compose a new, original piece of music that could easily be described as gentle or meditative. You can transform them as much as you choose, but each should in some way still be evident and recognizable in the mix. You cannot add any other sounds to the project.

Deadline: Monday, May 20, 2013, at 11:59pm wherever you are.

Length: Your track should have a duration of between two and six minutes.

Information: Please when posting your track on SoundCloud, 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.

Title/Tag: Include the term “disquiet0072-domesticscore” in the title of your track, and as a tag for your track.

Download: Please consider employing a license that allows for attributed, commerce-free remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution).

Linking: When posting the track, be sure to include this information:

More on this 72nd Disquiet Junto project, which involves making a domestic score from sounds recorded in your own home, at:

http://disquiet.com/2013/05/16/disquiet0072-domesticscore/

More details on the Disquiet Junto at:

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

Image found via wikimedia.org.

The 95th Touch Radio entry is by Tony Myatt, and it is another in the series’ enticingly detailed field recordings. This one was made in Placenia Bay, in Belize. The entries in the Touch series tend to fall into one of two camps: pure field recording and sound in which field recordings serve as source material (though there are, increasingly, also documents of humans that we call live concert recordings). Myatt’s presents itself as a subset of the pure field recording approach, in that it appears not to be a single event but a sequence of sonic shapshots collected into one MP3.

Writes Myatt at the opening of his journal of the recording event:

After a long day of finicky experimentation in the sun, I returned to the bay to wash salt water from the equipment and to hose down. From 16°30’37″N, 88°22’1″W I looked out on a tranquil evening scene and decided to attempt one last recording.

I had recorded throughout the day in shallow coral seas off the coast of Belize. I’d attempted to capture a spatial impression of the clouds of clicks and pops produced by crustacea and who-knows-what; a sound present at almost every ocean location on Earth.

Track originally posted for free download at touchradio.org.uk.

Track originally posted for free download at soundcloud.com/nobutosuda1101. More from Suda at nobutosuda.org. Thanks to the excellent listener who goes by Roamin (roamin.ca) for having drawn my attention to this track by reposting it on Soundcloud.