downstream – Page 141

Disquiet Junto Project 0459: From a Distance

The Assignment: Make music intended to be heard from afar.

October 15, 2020October 16, 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, October 19, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, October 15, 2020.

Tracks will be added to [the playlist](https://soundcloud.com/disquiet/sets/disquiet-junto-project-0459) 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 0459: From a Distance

The Assignment: Make music intended to be heard from afar.

Step 1: Music sounds different from across the room, in the next room, from outside, from down the block. Consider how distance changes how we experience sound.

Step 2: Record a piece of music intended to be listened to from afar. When posting the track, mention the circumstances in which you imagine it might best be experienced (terrain, distance, volume, etc.).

Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0459” (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 “disquiet0459” (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-0459-from-a-distance/

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, October 19, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, October 15, 2020.

Length: The length is up to you.

Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0459” 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 459th weekly Disquiet Junto project, From a Distance (The Assignment: Make music intended to be heard from afar), at:

https://disquiet.com/0459/

Musique Concrète Monday

The latest from Jimmy Kipple's patzr radio

October 12, 2020 / By Marc Weidenbaum

The excellent patzr radio art-sound podcast persists with reworked field recordings, episodes 202a and 202b each consisting of 140 seconds of birdsong and rain, squelched conversation and sirens, wind and unidentifiable noises, the source audio all reduced to snippets that are then moved constantly between speakers, flipped this way and that. It’s musique concrète in its truest form: small chamber works hewn from nothing but the everyday noise, easily ignored sounds turned into something inherently memorable. The series is the long-running work of Jimmy Kipple.

Tracks originally posted at [soundcloud.com/patzr-radio](https://soundcloud.com/patzr-radio/).

Current Listens: Jóhannsson Tribute, Cole’s Synths

Heavy rotation, lightly annotated

October 11, 2020 / 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. In the interest of conversation, let me know what you’re listening to in the comments below. Just please don’t promote your own work (or that of your label/client). This isn’t the right venue. (Just use email.)

▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰

NEW: Recent(ish) arrivals and pre-releases

▰ Paul Hillier in this three-minute video talks about the work he and his fellow musicians in Theatre of Voices did with the late composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, notably on the film *Arrival*:

▰ When Lloyd Cole refers to his “day job” in the liner notes to his latest album, what he means by it is writing songs. Better known for the well-crafted British rock and pop filed in record stores under Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, he’s also a deeply engaged employer of synthesizers. For [this album](https://lloydcole.bandcamp.com/album/dunst), recorded in June, he focused his efforts on a single module, the Dunst from Ieaskul F. Mobenthey, which emits chaotic yet nuanced noise (other modules were utilized as well, of course).

<a href="https://lloydcole.bandcamp.com/album/dunst">DUNST by Lloyd Cole</a>

▰ The company ModBap has released a new synthesizer module, [Per4mer](https://modbap.com/), intended to appeal to hip-hop musicians. Among the demos is this psychedelic beat from Ali the Architect. (Found via [Synthtopia](http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2020/10/10/modbap-modular-per4mer-effects-processor-a-bridge-between-hip-hop-eurorack/).)

▰ Three [field recordings](https://soundcloud.com/linda-buckley/sets/field-recordings) from Dublin, Ireland-based composer [Linda Buckley](http://www.lindabuckley.org/music/), including birdsong after the rain, and a prayer echoing in public (presumably in Astoria, Queens, based on the track’s title).

▰ Also, covered with a bit more depth: harp player Mary Lattimore’s classical/ambient [*Silver Ladders*](https://disquiet.com/2020/10/09/mary-lattimore-silver-ladders/), produced by Neal Halstead of Slowdive, and the dense drones of [Havdis, aka O.A. Jensen](https://disquiet.com/2020/10/06/o-a-jensen-of-nordland-norway/)

Friday Ambient Harp Drop

From Mary Lattimore, produced by Neil Halstead

October 9, 2020 / By Marc Weidenbaum

<a href="https://marylattimoreharpist.bandcamp.com/album/silver-ladders">Silver Ladders by Mary Lattimore</a>

Right in time for another pandemic weekend, the great harp player Mary Lattimore has released a Friday drop, a full album of music that is at once lush and austere, fragile and full-bodied. Such are the wondrous contradictions in her hypermodern (improvisational and digitally enhanced) employment of an instrument generally associated with dusty antiquity. The seven tracks are quite varied. Some, like “Silver Ladders,” sound like gentle machine augmentation of the familiar harp sound, while others layer in pronounced additional instrumentation (notably the heavily delayed guitar on “Til a Mermaid Drags You Under”), or suggest the sort of complexity only a much larger ensemble could accomplish (“Sometimes He’s in My Dreams”). That guitar part comes courtesy of Neil Halstead, best known as a member of the band Slowdive. Halstead hosted Lattimore at his Newquay, Cornwall, studio for over a week and produced the resulting album, which is titled *Silver Ladders*.

Get the record at [marylattimoreharpist.bandcamp.com](https://marylattimoreharpist.bandcamp.com/album/silver-ladders). More from Lattimore, who is based in Los Angeles, at [marylattimore.net](http://www.marylattimore.net/).

Disquiet Junto Project 0458: Phrase Shift

The Assignment: Make music in a sequence of parts with shared elements.

October 8, 2020October 8, 2020 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, October 12, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, October 8, 2020.

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

Disquiet Junto Project 0458: Phrase Shift

The Assignment: Make music in a sequence of parts with shared elements.

Step 1: You’re going to create a piece of music that goes through a series of unique but related phrases. Beginning with the second phrase, each phrase will repeat one element from the previous phrase. It’s best to read through the following steps before beginning work on the project.

Step 2: Compose and record a brief initial phrase, of between roughly four and ten seconds in length, that has three separate and distinct simultaneous components. These might be three tones, or a tone and two beats, or a tone and a beat and a texture, or three field recordings, and so on, whatever three components you choose. (Silence can count as a potential component, certainly.)

Step 3: Compose and record another brief phrase, again of between roughly four and ten seconds in length, that has three separate simultaneous components. One of these components should be retained from the previous phrase. The other two components should be entirely different from the previous phrase.

Step 4: Repeat Step 3 as many times as you like, preferably for a combined length of at least one minute. Longer is fine.

Step 5: When you have recorded as many phrases as you determined in Step 4, collect them all into one long single track. That is the completed composition. Some overlap between phrases is fine.

Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0458” (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 “disquiet0458” (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-0458-phrase-shift/

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, October 12, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, October 8, 2020.

Length: The length is up to you.

Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0458” in the title of the tracks, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.

For context, when posting the track online, please be sure to include this following information:

More on this 458th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Phrase Shift (The Assignment: Make music in a sequence of parts with shared element), at:

https://disquiet.com/0458/