downstream – Page 130

Current Favorites: From Rhode Island, Oregon, and the Netherlands

Heavy rotation, lightly annotated

January 3, 2021 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Last Sunday, on the verge of the new year, I listed [my favorite recordings of 2020](https://disquiet.com/2020/12/27/best-ambient-albums-2020/). This week it’s back to regularly scheduled programming, 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.)

▰ Tomorrow, January 4, is a lot of people’s first day back at work (remote or essential) of 2021, and “Ethereal Pathway” is the sort of music to help guide the return to salary mode. The glacial chords ease back and forth, drifting into and out of sync with each other, which is almost a metaphor. For some reason I can’t embed it here, but it’s at [soundcloud.com/roofhare](https://soundcloud.com/roofhare/ethereal-pathway). The track is by the Rhode Island-based musician Roofhare, aka Kees de Groot.

▰ [*Slow Sketch, Vol. 2: Reflections of the Ambient Community*](https://elmuellerecords.bandcamp.com/album/slow-sketch-vol-2-reflections-of-the-ambient-community) is a 36-track compilation from the Madrid-based EL Muelle Records label, with contributions from Taylor Deupree, r beny, Patricia Wolf, the duo of Stephen Vitiello and Ted Laderas, Corey Fuller, Yann Novak, Benoît Pioulard, and other favorites, many based in Portland, Oregon. (Proceeds benefit Fundación Aladina, which helps pediatric cancer patients.)

<a href="https://elmuellerecords.bandcamp.com/album/slow-sketch-vol-2-reflections-of-the-ambient-community">Slow Sketch, Vol. 2: Reflections Of The Ambient Community by V/A</a>

▰ Released at the tail end of 2020, [*Oh Ho!*](https://icporchestra.bandcamp.com/album/mary-oliver-rozemarie-heggen-oh-ho-icp-047-2009) is an exploration of alternately spectral beauty and something akin to conversational interplay by Mary Oliver (viola, violin) and Rozemarie Heggen (double bass). (Thanks, Mark Morse of Subterranean Distribution, for the recommendation.) It was put out by ICP Orchestra, based in Amsterdam.

<a href="https://icporchestra.bandcamp.com/album/mary-oliver-rozemarie-heggen-oh-ho-icp-047-2009">Mary Oliver + Rozemarie Heggen: Oh Ho! (ICP 047, 2009) by ICP Orchestra</a>

Hideki Umezawa’s Heightened Reality

A master at work

January 1, 2021January 2, 2021 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Hideki Umezawa’s “Nine Structures,” heard here in what’s listed as an excerpt, is sound design as music, real-world and percussive samples twisted this way and that, pushed against each other, set in opposition and plumbed for their comparative elements. There is clanging and breath, street noise and desperate fragility, all often within a split second. Even when items take time to transpire, in retrospect that time was several seconds at most. Things speed up and slow down with a composer’s sense of considered timing. It’s reality in a heightened state, the care of its craft self-evident throughout, a serious display of mastery.

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/hideki-umezawa](https://soundcloud.com/hideki-umezawa/nine-structures-excerpt). More from Umezawa at [instagram.com/hdkumzw](https://www.instagram.com/hdkumzw/).

Disquiet Junto Project 0470: Calendar View

The Assignment: Create a sonic diary of the past year with a dozen (or more) super-brief segments.

December 31, 2020January 1, 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 4, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, December 31, 2020.

Tracks will be added to [the playlist](https://soundcloud.com/disquiet/sets/disquiet-junto-project-0470) 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 0470: Calendar View

The Assignment: Create a sonic diary of the past year with a dozen (or more) super-brief segments.

As is the tradition at the end of each calendar year, this week’s project is a sound journal, a selective audio history of your past twelve months.

Step 1: You will select a different audio element to represent each of the past 12 months of 2020 — or you might opt for even more elements, choosing a segment for each week, or each day, for example. These audio elements will most likely be of music that you have yourself composed and recorded, but they might also consist of phone messages, field recordings, or other source material. These items should be somehow personal in nature, suitable to the autobiographical intention of the project; they should be of your own making, your own devising, and not drawn from third-party sources.

Step 2: You will then select one segment from each of these (most likely) dozen audio elements. If you’re doing a dozen items, one for each month, then five-second segments are recommended, for a total of one minute. Ultimately, though, the length of the segments and of the overall finished track are up to you.

Step 3: Then you will stitch these segments together in chronological order to form one single track. There should be no overlap or gap between segments; they should simply proceed from one to the next.

Step 4: In the notes field accompanying the track, identify each of the audio segments.

Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0470” (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 “disquiet0470” (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-0470-calendar-view/](https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0470-calendar-view/)

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 4, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, December 31, 2020.

Length: The length is up to you. Did time pass quickly, or slowly?

Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0470” 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 470th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Calendar View / The Assignment: Create a sonic diary of the past year with a dozen (or more) super-brief segments — at:

https://disquiet.com/0470/

First Track from Forthcoming A Winged Victory for the Sullen Album

A production based on an Italo Calvino novel

December 30, 2020 / By Marc Weidenbaum

<a href="https://awvfts.bandcamp.com/album/invisible-cities">Invisible Cities by A Winged Victory for the Sullen</a>

It’s almost exactly two months until *Invisible Cities*, the new album by A Winged Victory for the Sullen, arrives. But the first public track, “Desires Are Already Memories,” is already up on its [Bandcamp page](https://awvfts.bandcamp.com/album/invisible-cities).

The music is the score composed by AWVftS’s Dustin O’Halloran and Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie for a theater production by Leo Warner (see Warner ‘s [59productions.co.uk](https://59productions.co.uk/project/invisible-cities/) for details). The title comes, clearly, from the Italo Calvino novel, of which the Warner production is an adaptation.

“Desires Are Already Memories” is classic Winged Victory, which is to say it’s post-classical: all stirring, minimalist chamber-ensemble undergirding, an angelic choir component, and touches of modernity in the form of artful maudlin-techno pulsing and what sounds like a Jew’s harp emulating rave-era Underworld. More than enough reason to get excited about for what’s to come when the full record is released.

Album originally posted at [awvfts.bandcamp.com](https://awvfts.bandcamp.com/album/invisible-cities).

Ambient Gets More Trombones

Thanks to Benjamin Louis Brody

December 29, 2020 / By Marc Weidenbaum

<a href="https://benbrodymusic.bandcamp.com/track/oscillations">Oscillations by Benjamin Louis Brody</a>

This brooding, speedily hypnotic track combines two trombones, played by Alaina Alster and Max Sholl, with synths performed by the piece’s composer, Benjamin Louis Brody. The title, “Oscillations,” is spot on for the heavily vibrating opening, a volatile drone that slowly recedes (though only partially) as more immediately recognizable horn playing begins to surface. The track was released back in mid-2018, but I first learned of it only last night when Brody replied to a tweet I had made about how “Ambient music needs more trombones.” This is further proof of the truth of that statement.

Track originally posted at [benbrodymusic.bandcamp.com](https://benbrodymusic.bandcamp.com/track/oscillations). More from Brody (raised in New Jersey, based in Brooklyn, New York) at [benbrodymusic.com](https://www.benbrodymusic.com/).