Disquiet Junto Project 0603: Animated Suspension 

The Assignment: Record a piece of music that suggests something floating in air

Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto music community, 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. (A SoundCloud account is helpful but not required.) There’s no pressure to do every project. It’s weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when you have the time and interest.

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, July 24, 2023, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, June 20, 2023.

Tracks are added to the SoundCloud playlist for the duration of the project. Additional (non-SoundCloud) tracks appear in the lllllll.co discussion thread.

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

Disquiet Junto Project 0603: Animated Suspension 
The Assignment: Record a piece of music that suggests something floating in air.

Step 1: Consider various music techniques you might employ to suggest (or imitate, or insinuate) that something is floating in air.

Step 2: Select one of the techniques you considered in Step 1 and experiment with it a bit.

Step 3: Record a piece of music built around the technique you focused on in Step 2.

Eight Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0603” (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 “disquiet0603” (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-0603-animated-suspension/

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 [email protected] 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 can something stay aloft?

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, July 24, 2023, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, June 20, 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).

For context, when posting the track online, please be sure to include this following information:

More on this 603rd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Animated Suspension (The Assignment: Record a piece of music that suggests something floating in air), at: https://disquiet.com/0603/

About the Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0603-animated-suspension/

Starship Organ

An ongoing series cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt

Went to Saint Mary atop Cathedral Hill here in San Francisco on Sunday for the weekly 4pm Musical Meditations, which meant listening to this starship of an organ fill the enormous interior space for us and maybe 17 other people, not counting the young organist, his teacher, the church’s guard, and some apparent janitorial staff. The sound was massive and consuming, the colors and tones rich and thick, thorough and luxurious.

On Repeat: Live Minimalism, Foley Volcano

Home/office playlist

Been a while since I did one of these. Brief mentions (optimally each Sunday) of some of my favorite listening from the week prior:

▰ The Polish keyboardist Hania Rani performs live with a large ensemble (Ziemowit Klimek, Wojciech Warmijak, Adam Jełowick, Kacper Krupa, Jarosław Kawałek) in the sunlit courtyard of a nearly 350-year-old building in Paris. She’s a consummate performer, with her own blend of pop-informed minimalism and muted neo-classical.

Davide Bernardi sets drones in luscious, gleaming motion with a small set of devices.

▰ The Christoph Möckel Trio is named for its founding saxophonist, and also features Oliver Lutz, on six-string bass, and Moritz Baumgärtner, drums. This would be great modern, composed chamber jazz unplugged, but what pushes it over the edge is how both Möckel and Lutz employ a battery of guitar pedals to treat their instruments. The set is barely 18 minutes long. Take the whole thing in.

▰ Another great Aphex Twin transcription performed by classical guitarist Simon Farintosh: “Rhubarb” off Selected Ambient Works Volume II. When a cover really works, especially one purposefully trailing in the wake of the original, I wonder how much I’m mentally “hearing” the original while listening to the new take. It’s like a very good version doubly benefits by echoing the source material in the mind’s ear.

▰ There’s white noise, brown noise, and pink noise, among many other noises. My current favorite is molten red noise. (I checked in with the videographer, after discussing the video with my friend Mahlen Morris, and confirmed that in fact the audio was added after the fact. Still, it’s quite evocative.)