downstream – Page 160

Current Listens: Violin Minature, SuperCollider Outtakes

Heavy rotation, lightly annotated

June 7, 2020June 7, 2020 / By Marc Weidenbaum

This is my 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.)

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NEW: Recent(ish) arrivals and pre-releases

▰ The Castle of Our Skins ensemble has been running a challenge to black composers to create miniature compositions. The latest is a piece for viola and voice, composed by Yaz Lancaster, and performed by Ashleigh Gordon. It’s less than a minute long, and every second has been taken into consideration. (Thanks again, Tom May, of [memeteria.com](https://memeteria.com/), for having introduced me to Castle of Our Skins.)

▰ This album of various Norah Lorway tracks from the past decade is a powerful collection of music made in the audio-coding language SuperCollider and employing field recordings. *And Then You Win* ranges from light glitchy atmospheres (“Crackly Sky”) to pulsing techno (“Clatter”), nine tracks in all.

<a href="http://xylemrecords.bandcamp.com/album/and-then-you-win-2">AND THEN YOU WIN by Norah Lorway</a>

▰ The Japanese musician Michiru Aoyama, who runs the small Bullflat3.8 record label, uploads an enormous amount of ambient music to his SoundCloud account, often multiple tracks today. “Recording 20200606060100” is a lush, shoegazy trip with a sedate but promiment pulse.

Disquiet Junto Project 0440: Tuning In

The Assignment: Dismantle the institution known as A440.

June 4, 2020June 20, 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 Monday, June 8, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, June 4, 2020.

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

**Disquiet Junto Project 0440: Tuning In**

The Assignment: Dismantle the institution known as A440.

Major thanks to rbxbx and to Łukasz Langa (RPLKTR) for inspiring this project.

There is just one step: Throw off the shackles of A440 and make a piece of music in your favorite alternate tuning.

**Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:**

Step 1: Include “disquiet0440” (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 “disquiet0440” (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-0440-tuning-in/

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 Monday, June 8, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, June 4, 2020.

Length: The length is up to you.

Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0440” 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 440th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Disquiet Junto Project 0440: Tuning In — The Assignment: Dismantle the institution known as A440 — at:

https://disquiet.com/0440/

Lucchi and the &

A remix by Ivan Black (among numerous other musicians)

June 3, 2020June 3, 2020 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Marco Lucchi’s recordings are always welcome, especially when there’s an ampersand involved. Recent favorites include his reworking of [Henrik Meierkord’s cello](https://disquiet.com/2020/03/23/flacholet-meierkord-separasjon-lucchi/), as well as Lucchi’s modular synthesizer duet with [the mellotron of itwasthewires](https://disquiet.com/2020/05/17/current-listens-electroacoustic-mellotron-double-bass/). The latest track on his SoundCloud account, [soundcloud.com/musichevirtuali](https://soundcloud.com/musichevirtuali), flips the scenario: it’s a remix of Lucchi’s music by another musician, Ivan Black. The result, a reworking of “Eine kleine elektronische Meditation,” is a slow-motion, dream-state train ride through thick sonic fog, punctuated by occasional pulse signals, which lend a dubby quality. The original piece is here, for comparison:

There have been numerous remixes of “Eine kleine elektronische Meditation,” with about 50 in the playlist. That’s a lot of &s:

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/musichevirtuali](https://soundcloud.com/musichevirtuali/ivan-black-marco-lucchi-elektronische-meditation). More from Lucchi, who is based in Modena, Italy, at [marcolucchi.bandcamp.com](https://marcolucchi.bandcamp.com/) and [musichevirtuali.org](http://www.musichevirtuali.org/).

Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Lockdown Uploads

A musical statesman rises to the occasion

June 2, 2020 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Moon above the horizon, strange bulbous flickers of light in the foreground. This is what the screen emits while Ryuichi Sakamoto’s latest lockdown upload plays. Sakamoto, not unlike the slightly elder [Robert Fripp](https://disquiet.com/2020/05/03/current-listens-cello-ems-synthi-100-devs/), has experienced a calling during what the former terms “these times when things are not ‘normal.'” Both are sending subtle, quiet music out into the world when the world is veering back and forth from unwelcome solitude to public violence. A musical statesman — a statesman employing music — Sakamoto has been an active, visible presence during mass mutual self-isolation. In the past month, he has shared nearly 30 videos of subdued, exploratory sounds, from moaning [solo guitar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh6ty4Jxkig) to collaborations with the likes of [Christian Fennesz](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brVH4rs1y8o) and [Marcus Fischer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNs5w3EHidw). Those team-ups are being collected under the rubric “incomplete,” the most recent of which, “Stealing Time,” features guest Kung Chi Shing, a Hong Kong-based violinist and activist. The music matches the imagery, which comes courtesy of Zakkubalan. There is an underlying dread, a droning substrate, as well as a surface of brief presences, pizzicato pluckings that come to merge with the background sounds.

Video originally posted on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVPt0vzrOfQ). More from Sakamoto at [sitesakamoto.com](http://www.sitesakamoto.com/).
More from at Kung Chi Shing at [kungmusic.hk](http://www.kungmusic.hk/works/kungchishing/). More from Zakkubalan, the duo Neo Sora and Albert Tholen, based in New York, at [zakkubalan.com](https://www.zakkubalan.com/).

Lauri Wuolio’s Drones and Percussives

Helsinki, Finland

June 1, 2020 / By Marc Weidenbaum

When a track begins so quietly, and at such a length, that you take time to confirm it’s actually playing something, surprise is built in. The ears have perked up. The attention is focused. Slow wafts of drones build and fade, and then from way down deep amid them issues a bubbling, metalloid rhythm, one that dances atop the drone. The ear listens for correlations, how the warp and weft of the underlying current has some parallel in the speed and volume, the vibrance and shape, of the percussives. And then the metalloid presence begins to dim, and the ear traces it as it fades.

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/kumea](https://soundcloud.com/kumea/yo-1-2-x-subharmonicon). Kumea is Lauri Wuolio of Helsinki, Finland. More at [wuolio.fi](http://www.wuolio.fi/).