downstream – Page 120

Disquiet Junto Project 0481: Capsule Time

The Assignment: Record a time capsule for yourself in the future.

March 18, 2021March 18, 2021 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto group, 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.

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, March 22, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, March 18, 2021.

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

Disquiet Junto Project 0481: Capsule Time

The Assignment: Record a time capsule for yourself in the future.

Step 1: You’re going to record a time capsule, something for yourself to listen to in the future. The default time is five years. You can, however, set the time for however long (or short) you like.

Step 2: Record that track and post it online.

Step 3: Set a calendar entry to remind yourself to listen to it on the appointed date.

Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0481” (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 “disquiet0481” (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 tracks in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:

[https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0481-capsule-time/](https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0481-capsule-time/)

Step 5: Annotate your tracks 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.

Additional Details:

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, March 22, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, March 18, 2021.

Length: The length is up to you. The length should be shorter than time between the beginning of the track and when you intend yourself to listen to it in the future, or else you may rupture the very fabric of the universe.

Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0481” in the title of the tracks, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.

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 481st weekly Disquiet Junto project — Capsule Time (The Assignment: Record a time capsule for yourself in the future) — at:

https://disquiet.com/0481/

Instagram Favorites

A subset of virtual crate digging

March 17, 2021 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Sundays I usually do a roundup of music I’ve been listening to a lot but haven’t gotten around to writing about. It’s often the case that the music I’ve listened to the most ends up not being the subject of my posts here because it becomes so ubiquitous in my life through repetition that it, conversely, becomes invisible. In that spirit, I want today just to link to a few Instagram accounts that regularly appeal. If hanging out on YouTube can have the sense of discovery of crate digging, then the brevity of Instagram videos (all under a minute, unless you click through to Instagram TV, aka IGTV, which I rarely do) is more like flipping through stacks of singles.

Aaron Larget-Caplan ([instagram.com/alcguitar](https://www.instagram.com/alcguitar/)) is a masterful guitarist, responsible for having produced the first official edition of guitar transcriptions of John Cage compositions. He also has, among other things, a focus on lullabies, and he’s commissioned a wide variety of them.

The artist Zimoun ([instagram.com/studiozimoun](https://www.instagram.com/studiozimoun/)) is a spirited, ingenious, crafty producer of kinetic sculptures that generally employ inexpensive materials in sizable amounts to achieve the sort of patterning and complexity generally associated with living things. While sound isn’t always the focus of these works, it is always a component.

Scanner Darkly ([instagram.com/scanner\_darkly\_](https://www.instagram.com/scanner_darkly_/)) writes remarkable code that powers a range of fascinating synthesizer modules, and this account always has tidbits of works in progress.

Ambalek ([instagram.com/_ambalek](https://www.instagram.com/\_ambalek/)) makes beautiful ambient and ambient-leaning music that combines atmospheric impressionism with the refinement of classic minimalism.

The Soul Science ([instagram.com/thesoulscience](https://www.instagram.com/thesoulscience/)), true to the name, brings a soulful spirit to exploratory, often noisy synthesizer work.

Those are just a few. Others I follow are viewable at [instagram.com/dsqt](https://www.instagram.com/dsqt/).

DJ Krush in the Temple by the Foot of the Mountain

An hour-long live set recorded in February

March 16, 2021 / By Marc Weidenbaum

The widespread isolation of pandemic culture provided the natural incubator for DJ Krush to spin echoes of turntablist gestures alone in a Japanese temple as winter turned to spring.

Please trust me that while I’ve only seen Krush live a handful or so of times, I have listened to countless hours of his recorded concert performances, and this is, I believe, one of his finest. Krush originated as a Japanese hip-hop DJ, and from the beginning emphasized abstraction and atmosphere, as well as utilized regional music and sonic culture as source material and inspiration.

This hour-long set was first streamed in late February as part of the MUSO Cultural Festival, broadcast from the temple Daichuji, located in the Japanese city of Numazu, Shizuoka, by the foot of Mount Ashitaka. A brief accompanying statement explains: “Within the temple, a conceptual live performance was filmed as if to experience the essence of Zen through sound.” The festival takes its name from Muso Soseki, who founded Daichuji in 1313.

The show opens with an exceptionally sparse seven minutes of elegant, cautious play, then ratchets up to something closer to the smokey, noir quality of his early work. From there the pace slowly builds, remaining downtempo throughout, but gaining depth: more sounds, more motion, more contrast. Even as the audio accrues, there remains room for the slightest hand gesture to bring a warble to the surface, for his wrists to syncopate martial drums and drop in quick samples. So much gets folded in: dance music, chanting, birdsong, and rapturous percussion stuttered in his mixer.

The show ends as it began, with choice bits of sound, wooden flutes from some of his most famous music, until the beats drop out. From there on, for the last five minutes or so, the work is Krush at his most ghostly, not mournful so much as reflective, peaceful, finally resolving in a climactic drone before dissipating like a candle blown out.

Video originally posted at [YouTube](https://youtu.be/l4vkouAwuec). More on the festival at [muso-festival.com](https://www.muso-festival.com/).

Loraine James and the Art of the Skeletal Beat

This is simple stuff, true, but not easily achieved.

March 15, 2021March 15, 2021 / By Marc Weidenbaum

<a href="https://lorainejames.bandcamp.com/album/reflection">Reflection by Loraine James</a>

There’s a new Loraine James album, *Reflection*, due out June 4, which fast as 2021 feels is far too far away. Fortunately, one track is already up. “Simple Stuff” is little more than a spartan beat and a mumbled mantra monologue, but that’s more than enough to tide a fan over. The calisthenics of its percussion are a marvel, even by the high standards James has led us to expect on previous releases like her 2019 breakthrough, [*For You and I*](https://disquiet.com/2020/02/17/for-you-and-i-loraine-james/), last year’s *Nothing* EP, and her superb remix of [Lunch Money Life’s “Lincoln.”](https://disquiet.com/2020/10/28/loraine-james-lunch-money-life/)

“Simple Stuff” has the jerky start and stop, the asymmetric yet perfectly balanced form, of an expert breakdancer backlit by the setting sun, of a Calder mobile in a delicate breeze. Even more than usual for James, the metrics are here reduced to their skeletal core, each triggered impulse an isolated action. There are no percussive chords, just a sequence of precisely poised sonic objects, each given room to breathe before the next arrives. This is simple stuff, true, but not easily achieved.

Like “Glitch Bitch,” the lead track off [*For You and I*](https://lorainejames.bandcamp.com/album/for-you-and-i), “Simple Stuff” has essentially just a repeated two-word phrase as its vocal material. There’s a bit more to it here, but less, too, so muffled is it for much of the track, like she’s got her mouth under a jacket collar while navigating a dense sidewalk headed somewhere. That Loraine James is headed somewhere has been clear for some time now. Our next glimpse of where comes June 4, unless she reveals another cut in the interim. Meanwhile, we have “Simple Stuff.” It’s a phenomenal piece of work, and there are 10 additional tracks due when *Reflection* finally arrives.

Album available for prerelease at [lorainejames.bandcamp.com](https://lorainejames.bandcamp.com/album/reflection). More from James, who is based in London, England, at [twitter.com/LoJamMusic](https://twitter.com/LoJamMusic).

Current Favorites: Soil, Tree, “Apache”

Heavy rotation, lightly annotated

March 14, 2021March 14, 2021 / By Marc Weidenbaum

A weekly(ish) answer to the question “What have you been listening to lately?” It’s lightly annotated because I don’t like re-posting material without providing some context. I hope to write more about some of these in the future, but didn’t want to delay sharing them.

▰ [*Garble Blox*](https://tracedobjects.bandcamp.com/album/garble-blox) is Chicago’s J. Soliday on the Portland (Maine) label Traced Objects in sheer joyous noise mode. True to the title this is John Cage by way of Carl Stalling, found sounds and sound effects broken and reconstituted with the hijinks set to 11. Two tracks, 17 minutes each:

<a href="https://tracedobjects.bandcamp.com/album/garble-blox">Garble Blox by J. Soliday</a>

▰ This isn’t literally “The Sound of a Soil Sleeping,” but it sure has the droning, industrious quality of life underground, plick plock activity amid the earthy gravitas. It’s a highlight of [*Five Days in March*](https://c-reider.bandcamp.com/album/five-days-in-march), the Berthoud, Colorado, musician C. Reider’s brand new album. Also particularly recommended: the similarly percolating one with non-fungible tokens in its title:

<a href="https://c-reider.bandcamp.com/album/five-days-in-march">five days in march by C. Reider</a>

▰ Forget the sound of a tree falling in the forest. How about the sound of the wind that might fell a tree, as heard from inside the tree. That’s what Robert Cole Rizzi captures in [this track](https://soundcloud.com/rizzi/trees-recorded-with-schertler-732021):

▰ A friend mentioned this video of [the “Apache” breakbeat on loop for 10 hours](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaY2oSuuO6w&t=34s), and while I didn’t quite make it to 10, I sure got lost in it for extended periods of time. The video is from 2017, the source audio from 1973. Nonetheless: timeless.