downstream – Page 129

Telecom Substation Jam

Tulpa | Dusha synchronizes archaic equipment into industrial techno

January 8, 2021 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Tulpa | Dusha (aka Anna Martinova) has released a surreptitiously low-key industrial techno EP on her Bandcamp account, [tudu.bandcamp.com](https://tudu.bandcamp.com/album/fall). Titled *Fall*, it’s two long tracks, each seven minutes, of slight variations in small percussive sounds, as if ratchets and gears, small pistons and wood blocks had been gathered for some sort of Lilliputian rave.

<a href="https://tudu.bandcamp.com/album/fall">FALL by Tulpa | Dusha</a>

It’s like if a telecom substation’s internal equipment suddenly all clicked into lockstep for an after-hours jam. What it really is, though, is Martinova working with vintage electronics that have been accumulated by Hans Kulk. As she explains: “these machines were originally intended for industrial and technical applications but they also inspired some of the earliest experiments in electronic music.”

More from Tulpa | Dusha / Anna Martiova, who is based in Amsterdam, at [tulpadusha.org](https://www.tulpadusha.org/) and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpOcvxASZZ7_tjYBFj1S8NQ). She is also the founder of the Modular Moon modular synthesis school ([modularmoon.com](https://www.modularmoon.com/
)).

Disquiet Junto Project 0471: Phase Transition

The Assignment: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something with it.

January 7, 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, January 11, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, January 7, 2020.

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

Disquiet Junto Project 0471: Phase Transition

The Assignment: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something with it.

Welcome to a new year of Disquiet Junto communal music projects. This week’s project is as follows. It’s the same project we’ve begun each year with since the very first Junto project, way back in January 2012. The project is, per tradition, just this one step:

Step 1: Please record the sound of an ice cube rattling in a glass, and make something of it.

Background: Longtime participants in, and observers of, the Disquiet Junto series will recognize this single-sentence assignment — “Please record the sound of an ice cube rattling in a glass, and make something of it” — as the very first Disquiet Junto project, the same one that launched the series back on the first Thursday of January 2012. Revisiting it at the start of each year since has provided a fitting way to begin the new year. By now, it qualifies as a tradition. A weekly project series can come to overemphasize novelty, and it’s helpful to revisit old projects as much as it is to engage with new ones. Also, by its very nature, the Disquiet Junto suggests itself as a fast pace: a four-day production window, a regular if not weekly habit. It can be beneficial to step back and see things from a longer perspective.

Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0471” (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 “disquiet0471” (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-0471-phase-transition/](https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0471-phase-transition/)

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, January 11, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, January 7, 2020.

Length: The length is up to you. Did your ice melt quickly, or slowly?

Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0471” 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 471st weekly Disquiet Junto project — Phase Transition / The Assignment: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something with it — at:

https://disquiet.com/0471/

Disintegrating Piano Loops

Live performance by London-based musician Ambalek

January 6, 2021May 17, 2021 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Another beautiful Ambalek piece, this one a live video of a synthesizer performance, all slow chord progressions, bits of piano looped and processed until the source audio is transformed into another instrument entirely. The development is lovely, opening with a softness true to the title, “Dew on a Feather,” then introducing a more prominent, if still quite subdued, piano part, and then that piano part getting more diffuse as it frays and loops into a misty close.

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 at [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4oqgoqy25M&t=20s). More from Ambalek, who is based in London, at [soundcloud.com/ambalek](https://soundcloud.com/ambalek/) and [instagram.com/_ambalek](https://instagram.com/_ambalek/).

“010221B” at the Start of the Year

A track from Richmond, Virginia-based Sinamsis

January 5, 2021 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Sinamsis will do things to your speakers, and then your ears, and then your room, and then quite likely your mind, or perhaps your mind first of all. That is, Sinamsis’ track “010221B” will do this. Thick waves take the stereo spectrum and warp it to their own intensions, molasses-heavy sounds moving at a pace seemingly in contrast with their considerable heft. They warble and waver, dance and drone. And then do so much more, most notably taking an extended sojourn into impulse-response sound design. Presumably from the title, this was recorded on January 2 of this still very new year. Here’s to future such digits. (And for what it’s worth, I recommend going with year/month/day, as it benefits sorting, but that’s just me.)

More from Sinamsis at [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCM1pWH0oPWfSWRwAsqUcItw). Sinamsis is Dimitrios Sismanis of Richmond, Virginia.

Claire M Singer at the Organ

A live December 12, 2020, performance

January 4, 2021 / By Marc Weidenbaum

The Touch label has posted this gorgeous, nine-minute footage of Claire M Singer performing an incredibly slow, and incredibly moving, performance on an organ at Union Chapel, London. It was recorded December 12, 2020. The organ dates from 1877. The piece’s overtones are so rich, you might think you hear Singer herself singing along. It starts quiet as can be, and builds from there, from a devotional whisper to a heavenly scream.

Video originally posted at Touch’s [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWvz6jyKnvo&feature=youtu.be). More from Singer at [clairemsinger.com](https://www.clairemsinger.com/).