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Live Cassette Loop Jam

From the YouTube account of the British/Italian duo Sonars

December 15, 2020 / By Marc Weidenbaum

This rough-textured live ambient cassette loop jam noted the Sonars account on YouTube hitting the 1,000-follower milestone. It’s lush, with echoes of Gavin Bryars’ work, suggesting a sepia-toned version of a damaged old document, the aural equivalent of a photograph altered by time and the elements, changes both cultural and elemental. While listening, get lost in the nostalgia-tinged atmosphere. Also keep an eye (and ear) out the moment, just after the two-minute point, when the pitch, and attendant pace, are slowed markedly.

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 on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07pBVC_hhnU). Sonars is a self-described electro-psych duo from the United Kingdom and Italy. More from them at [sonars.bandcamp.com](https://sonars.bandcamp.com/releases) and [instagram.com/sonarsmusic](https://www.instagram.com/sonarsmusic/).

Chris Herbert’s Sketches

Compiled from the cloud

December 14, 2020 / By Marc Weidenbaum

<a href="https://chrisherbert.bandcamp.com/album/nuvoloso">Nuvoloso by Chris Herbert</a>

The album *Nuvoloso* is named in Italian for the place where the sounds it contains were once housed. The word means cloudy. The place is SoundCloud. Or was. Chris Herbert, who released *Nuvoloso* late last month, has abandoned the platform, and here collects material he once hosted there, from the fully charged guitar explorations of “Charles Bullen” (seemingly named for the This Heat band member), to the steam-powered industrial music of “Neues Zodiak Free Arts Lab,” to the atmospheric fragments that charactertize the two opening tracks, “Macrolanguage” and “Live Architecture (Submerged/Factured),” as well as the elegant unease of “Untitled Tape Sketch.”

SoundCloud is often at its best for sketches, a way by which musicians can quickly check in with their listeners and collaborators. Herbert summarizes the scenario well in his accompanying note, explaining he used the site “as an audio diary for pieces that contained germinal ideas or material that was below the threshold for release but nevertheless indicated some kind of development: there’s a range and scope that is quite different in nature to my usual output.”

Album originally posted at [chrisherbert.bandcamp.com](https://chrisherbert.bandcamp.com/album/nuvoloso). More from Herbert, who is based in Birmingham, England, at [chrisherbert.net](http://chrisherbert.net/).

Hilary Robinson’s Sonic Advent Calendar

Continuing through the Winter Solstice

December 11, 2020 / By Marc Weidenbaum

London-based composer Hilary Robinson has been unpacking what she describes as “a sonic advent calendar for 2020.” The playlist, titled Sounds for Shrinking Days, is growing a piece at a time, “intended to conclude with the Winter Solstice.” There are 11 tracks thus far, beginning with a slow, purposeful piano piece, one in which the lingering tones seem as important as the carefully impacted notes. The most recent, the 11th in the series, appears to employ a delay that echoes a spritely, genteel piano part, as if ghostly hands were all playing a single piano at the same time. In between are other experiments, including a vocal part that is equally reverberant and celestial (entry 6), and what appears to be a field recording of rain (entry 10). The solstice occurs on December 21, meaning there are 10 days remaining of musical miniatures. “These are short tracks,” writes Robinson, “mostly improvised, all original and created to amuse me in these darkening days.”

The playlist is at [soundcloud.com/hilaryrobinson](https://soundcloud.com/hilaryrobinson/sets/sounds-for-shrinking-days). More at from Robinson at [about.me/hilaryrobinson](https://about.me/hilaryrobinson), [hilaryrobinson.bandcamp.com](https://hilaryrobinson.bandcamp.com/), and [twitter.com/hvrlon](https://twitter.com/hvrlon).

Disquiet Junto Project 0467: Toolbox Show & Tell

The Assignment: Share a tip for making music that you learned during the pandemic.

December 10, 2020 / 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, December 14, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, December 10, 2020.

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

Disquiet Junto Project 0467: Toolbox Show & Tell

The Assignment: Share a tip for making music that you learned during the pandemic.

Step 1: Much if not all of the world has been shut in for various stages throughout the pandemic. Think back to the experience you had making music.

Step 2: Think of one thing of use that you learned in the interim, a tip or technique you could share. It might be something new, or it might be an old habit that proved more valuable than you’d expected. Take the word “toolbox” in the project’s title metaphorically.

Step 3: In sharing the tip selected in Step 2, record a short piece of music that employs it.

Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0467” (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 “disquiet0467” (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-0467-toolbox-show-tell/](https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0467-toolbox-show-tell/)

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, December 14, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, December 10, 2020.

Length: The length is up to you. Maybe you have learned something about time this year.

Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0467” 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 467th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Toolbox Show & Tell (The Assignment: Share a tip for making music that you learned during the pandemic), at:

https://disquiet.com/0467/

Harold Budd Live in 1989

And Laraaji, too

December 9, 2020 / By Marc Weidenbaum

This space isn’t usually used for archival work, and even less often for grey-market recordings, but a YouTube video of a 1989 performance pairing musicians Laraaji and Harold Budd is an opportune way to reflect on the latter, a day after his death at the age 84. The video was posted yesterday, December 8, clearly to note the passing. It was reportedly recorded at the Lazarote Music Festival in volcanic caves by the name of Jameos Del Agua. The festival was organized by Brian Eno, who is closely associated with both Budd and with Laraaji, as a collaborator and for having released their music. The two are heard separately here, Laraaji with his electronically mediated mbira and zither as the centerpiece of the video, and Budd at the opening and close with slow, majestic combination of solo piano and an underlying synthesizer bed of ethereal tones.

Video originally posted to [YouTube](https://youtu.be/Q5H9ouV4Uds). Thanks to Patricia Wolf for having brought it to my attention.