Dustmotes Ambient

A palindrome with a light pulse

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Dustmotes is a musician whose new releases always have me expecting slow broken beats, ones where the particulate from which he takes his name is as much a part of the sound as are elements that would be more commonly experienced as music (that is: “music”). He works at the atmospheric reaches of instrumental hip-hop (check out this [live performance](https://soundcloud.com/dustmotes/live-octatrack-digitakt-beat-111217) from a few years back).

This is different. “Ambient 12022021,” the title taking its name from the recent palindrome date, has a beat, certainly, a slim pulse click that slowly surfaces as the midway point of the four-minute track approaches, but mostly the piece is layers and layers of drones, some deep and husky, and others like shimmery echoes. It’s as if he’s skimmed the aura of his more metrically inclined work. Drift off with this one.

Originally posted at [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRGMUmwLLiM). More from Dustmotes (aka London-based Paul Croker) at [twitter.com/dustmotes](https://twitter.com/dustmotes).

Disquiet Junto Project 0476: IAH Forecast

The Assignment: Here's your next single's cover. Now record it.

/ 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, February 15, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, February 11, 2021.

Tracks will be added to [the playlist](https://soundcloud.com/disquiet/sets/disquiet-junto-project-0476) for the duration of the project.

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

Disquiet Junto Project 0476: IAH Forecast

The Assignment: Here’s your next single’s cover. Now record it.

Step 1: This is the cover of your next single:

Step 2: Now record your single.

Note: The photo was shot in Houston, Texas, by Robert Boyd and is used with his permission.

Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0476” (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 “disquiet0476” (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-0476-iah-forecast/](https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0476-iah-forecast/)

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, February 15, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, February 11, 2021.

Length: The length is up to you. However you picture it.

Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0476” 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 476th weekly Disquiet Junto project — IAH Forecast (The Assignment: Here’s your next single’s cover. Now record it.) — at:

https://disquiet.com/0476/

The image that is the source of this project is by Robert Boyd ([www.thegreatgodpanisdead.com](http://www.thegreatgodpanisdead.com/)) and has been used with his permission.

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

[https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0476-iah-forecast/](https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0476-iah-forecast/)

There’s also a Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to [twitter.com/disquiet](https://twitter.com/disquiet) for Slack inclusion.

Solace via Beirut

A live set from Charbel Haber and Fadi Tabbal

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

We live at a moment during which live performance in person is nearly absent. Solace for those who prize such pleasures comes during Zoom concerts and recordings, and sometimes the solace even manages to sound like solace. That is the sense the pervades *Enfin la Nuit*, a beautiful live set performed by Charbel Haber and Fadi Tabbal last September at Ahm, a nightclub in Beirut, Lebanon, the city where both musicians live.

The album’s three tracks, each roughly 11 minutes or so long, are suffused with longing. The opening piece, from which the album takes its title, goes from whisper to loud sigh, layers of what appears to be guitar pushing a collective drone to higher and higher places. “Couvre-Feu” nods at pandemic life, the title being French for curfew, and the music like a sonorous mix of sirens and barbed wire (the latter featuring as the release’s cover image). Like “Enfin la Nuit,” this second track escalates over time, achieving something piercing and fierce. The closing entry, “Chaque Rose Porte en Elle Une Petite Mort,” introduces a woman’s voice, perched on the boarder between full-blooded and ethereal, and benefits from delectable glitchy treatments throughout.

More from Haber at [charbelhaber.bandcamp.com](https://charbelhaber.bandcamp.com/) and from Tabbal at [faditabbal.com](http://www.faditabbal.com/). Last October, I hosted the premiere of Tabbal’s fifth solo album [*Subject to Potential Errors and Distortions*](https://disquiet.com/2020/10/23/tabbal-subject-to-potential-errors/).

An Improvised Atmosphere

From Sydney-based Pat Carroll

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Beautiful five-minute ambient jam by Pat Carroll, student at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Wisps of sound fly this way and that, warped in an improvised atmosphere. Sounds turn back on themselves, tones and noises vying for lack of prominence.

This is the latest video I’ve added to [my ongoing YouTube playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAgCxRbmR1MJxihgJkCPEnehAPvjoF71-) of fine live performance of ambient music. Video originally posted to [YouTube](https://youtu.be/DuFJLybkTq4). More from Carroll at [instagram.com/patcarrollmusic](https://www.instagram.com/patcarrollmusic/).

Current Favorites: Autoharp, Patterns, Ginsberg

Heavy rotation, lightly annotated

/ 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. (This weekly feature was previously titled Current Listens. The name’s been updated for clarity’s sake.)

▰ Kin Sventa playing saxophone and autoharp with [live processing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoIYjocR-XU) (beats, synthesis). When the beat kicks in around 2:00, it gets even better. On loop now. Way bolder than the track of his in my latest podcast, and that is way alright.

▰ Repetitions and echoes define the collection of muted elegies that is [*Aura*](https://triplicaterecords.bandcamp.com/album/aura) by Nashville-based Belly Full of Stars (aka Kim Rueger). Each track is titled “Pattern,” a term true not just to the genteel simplicity on hand, but to the deep sense of permanence the quiet tracks embody.

▰ The shimmering, swelling drone that is [“Blue Moon”](https://soundcloud.com/jeannineschulz/blue-moon) feels welcomingly rougher, considerably more strident, than a lot of recent music by Jeannine Schulz, and all the more compelling for it.

▰ A host of acts, including Gavin Friday (working with Howie B), Yo La Tengo, and Bill Frisell, set [the late Allen Ginsberg’s poetry to new music](https://allenginsberg.bandcamp.com/album/allen-ginsberg-s-the-fall-of-america-a-50th-anniversary-musical-tribute) (“All proceeds from the sale of this album will be donated to HeadCount.org promoting voter registration and participation in democracy”). A major highlight is the opening “Elegy for Neal Cassady” by Scanner.