downstream – Page 179

Synth Learning: “In and Near C”

My first 2020 track for Weekly Beats

January 5, 2020 / By Marc Weidenbaum

It’s a new year, and I’m giving [weeklybeats.com](https://weeklybeats.com/disquiet/) a go again. I only posted a few tracks two years ago when I last joined in. Unlike many other weekly music communities online, Weekly Beats is quite open-ended: “The objective of Weeklybeats is to encourage musicians to be productive, creative, and have fun,” states its FAQ. By contrast, in the SB Beat Battles, everyone works with the same shared samples. In the Naviar Haiku, everyone works from the same short poem as inspiration. And in the Disquiet Junto, everyone follows the same instructions for a different project.

In my brief Weekly Beats writeup, this is how I described what’s going on: “A drone in and near C for the start of the new year. The source note is from my Arturia MicroBrute. It goes through a reverb pedal, the HardWire RV-7, which then goes into my Eurorack modular synthesizer. Several things happen then: three separate bands of the spectrum (via the MakeNoise FXDf module) are individually combined with snippets being frozen in the Clouds module (triggered by a square wave from an oscillator, the Dixie II), and I’m manually saving and playing loops using the Soundmachines UL1 (recording and playing as triggered by two foot pedals via the Monome Walk module). That’s a broad-strokes description.”

Here’s a photo of the patch in my modular synth:

Just a few more notes: Where it says Clouds above, it’s actually Smog, a smaller version of the Clouds module. There’s some low-level LFO activity going on, as well. Waves from my Batumi, squashed into something less wildly fluctuating by my WMD S.P.O., are influencing the volume of one of the FXDf, and the “position” and “texture” of the Smog audio. One thing I was trying to do throughout was ever so slightly alter the tuning of the audio being replayed by the UL1 looper, the idea being to have something close to C that would create moire/beading with the C itself. I was using a lot of the various options within the MicroBrute to make the C as complex as I could, and I slowly turned all of those knobs down at the very end, until the track was silent. That about covers it.

The track is on both [weeklybeats.com](https://weeklybeats.com/disquiet/music/in-and-near-c) and [soundcloud.com](https://soundcloud.com/disquiet/in-and-near-c).

Japanese Eavesdropping

The vérité semblance of Corruption

January 3, 2020 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Now with over 850 tracks, the vibrant, curious SoundCloud account of Japan-based sound explorer Corruption continues to be a mix of seemingly incongruous material — dubby noise, synthy soundtracks, broken electronica — that, with considered listening, reveals a unifying lo-fidelity lens. There’s an eavesdropping aura to the work. For example, due to the rawness of the recordings it can feel like we’re not so much listening to music as we’re listening in as Corruption makes the music. This vérité semblance was exemplified by a Corruption piece I focused on last year ([“170620_004lewe”](https://disquiet.com/2019/02/25/170620_004lewe/)) that combined a variety of elements for an overall voyeuristic outcome. One of the final pieces Corruption posted in 2019 is a simple field recording, not even a minute and a half in length, [“nenmatu-no-yuuu2.”](https://soundcloud.com/corrption/nenmatu-no-yuuu2) There is conversation and street noise and the sound of the microphone itself being subject to some sort of pressure, footsteps lending a metronomic beat. And that’s all there is. Field recordings are, presumably, the most self-evident of sonic documents, and yet, as Corruption persists in showing, they can conversely reveal and revel in texture and abstraction.

Track originally posted to [soundcloud.com/corrption](https://soundcloud.com/corrption/nenmatu-no-yuuu2).

Disquiet Junto Project 0418: Ice-Nine

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

January 2, 2020January 3, 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, January 6, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, January 2, 2020.

Tracks will be added to [the playlist](https://soundcloud.com/disquiet/sets/disquiet-junto-project-0418) for the duration of the project.

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 0418: Ice-Nine**

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

Welcome to a new year (the ninth!) 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. At the start of the ninth year of the Disquiet Junto, it is 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.

Bonus: If you don’t have time to record ice yourself, longtime and frequent Junto member Jason Richardson has provided for your use both an audio file ([mediafire.com](https://www.mediafire.com/file/e8qpnf0i1r2xhw1/bassling_-_pindari_glasses.wav/file)) and a video file ([mediafire.com](https://www.mediafire.com/file/swq09kq409qhecg/bassling_-_pindari_glasses.mov/file)).

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

Step 1: Include “disquiet0418” (no spaces or quotation marks) in the name of your track.

Step 2: If your audio-hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to also include the project tag “disquiet0418” (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 track. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your track.

Step 4: Post your track in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0418-ice-nine/

Step 5: Annotate your track 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, January 6, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, January 2, 2020.

Length: The length is up to you. Shorter is often better.

Title/Tag: When posting your track, please include “disquiet0418” in the title of the track, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.

Upload: When participating in this project, post one finished track with the project tag, and 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: Consider setting 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 418th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Ice-Nine / The Assignment: Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something of it — at:

https://disquiet.com/0418/

A 45-Minute Drone for 2020

From the estate of Lynette Sandholm Evvers

January 1, 2020 / By Marc Weidenbaum

<a href="http://otherforms.bandcamp.com/album/fundamental-colours-ii">Fundamental Colours II by Lynette Sandholm Evvers</a>

This is an album to start the year with. It is a single piece, just under 45 minutes in length, of dense, shuddering wave forms that track at a sedate pace and bring your pulse and your thoughts into alignment. The variations of the tones are so slow in their passing that your mind’s eye sees not only the shape of the waves, but the shape of the modulations within, warpy rivulets that take the overarching drones and apply to them accordion-like patterning, not to mention sheer layers that glide atop each other. The rigor of the extended format brings to mind Éliane Radigue, the floating melodic material Angelo Badalamenti or *SAWII*-era Aphex Twin. The piece is titled “Photism (9),” the album *Fundamental Colours II*. It was released today, the first of the new decade. Volume one came out toward the end of 2017, approximately the same length, but divided into two tracks, both 20 minutes: “Photism (2)” and “Photism (6).”

We’re told that the recording artist, Lynette Sandholm Evvers, accumulated an archive of personal recordings that her estate has made available for commercial release. The suggestion is that Evvers is deceased. The Scotland-based label Other Forms of Consecrated Life handles the duties. I know nothing of Evvers beyond what I’ve gleaned from the [mere 19 search returns](https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Lynette%20Sandholm%20Evvers%20%22), as of this writing, for her name on Google, such as that she described the music as “gaseous blue flowers slowly, endlessly burning.” Back when the first Evvers album was released, Frans de Waard wondered in his Vital Weekly publication what we all might: [Did Evvers ever actually exist](http://www.vitalweekly.net/1109.html). Rob Halyer, at [radiofreemidwich.wordpress.com](https://radiofreemidwich.wordpress.com/tag/other-forms-of-consecrated-life/), intriguingly imagined the limited biographical information “as not being *about* the release but rather being *part of* the release.” Either way, *Fundamental Colours II* does exist.

Album available at [otherforms.bandcamp.com](https://otherforms.bandcamp.com/album/fundamental-colours-ii).

Disquiet Junto 0417: Changes Tracker

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

December 26, 2019December 29, 2019 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Deadline: This project’s deadline is Monday, December 30, 2019, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, December 26, 2019.

Tracks will be added to [the playlist](https://soundcloud.com/disquiet/sets/disquiet-junto-0417-changes) for the duration of the project.

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 0417: Changes Tracker**

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 2019 — or you might choose even more elements, choosing an audio element 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, and not drawn from third-party sources.

Step 2: You will then select one segment from each of these (mostly likely) dozen audio elements (if you’re doing a dozen items, one for each month, then five-second segments are recommended).

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 “disquiet0417” (no spaces or quotation marks) in the name of your track.

Step 2: If your audio-hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to also include the project tag “disquiet0417” (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 track. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your track.

Step 4: Post your track in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0417-changes-tracker/

Step 5: Annotate your track 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, December 30, 2019, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, December 26, 2019.

Length: The length is up to you.

Title/Tag: When posting your track, please include “disquiet0417” in the title of the track, 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 417th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Changes Tracker / The Assignment: Create a sonic diary of the past year with a dozen (or more) super-brief segments — at:

https://disquiet.com/0417/