downstream – Page 220

New Sounds from the Fourth World

A glimpse at new music, and a new label, from 81-year-old ambient godfather Jon Hassell

April 10, 2018April 11, 2018 / By Marc Weidenbaum

<a href="http://jonhassell.bandcamp.com/album/listening-to-pictures-pentimento-volume-one">Listening To Pictures (Pentimento Volume One) by Jon Hassell</a>

Jon Hassell was the original ambassador to the Fourth World, an aesthetic zone of his own imagination, a placeless place where new technology is put to old uses. It is music that recognizes a tribal instinct that is neither solely ancient nor solely contemporary, but simply inherently human. In pursuit of that commonality, Fourth World music cuts across cultures — north and south, east and west — by combining techniques and instrumentation, tunings and idioms. However, unlike much fusion, Hassell’s music always displays evidence of the effort required. His Fourth World is perpetually glitchy, frayed, bearing the watermarks — digital and otherwise — of the tools that made it possible.

The term gained prominence in the title to Hassell’s 1980 album on the E.G. label, *Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics*, co-produced with Brian Eno, and has been his genre home ever since. Hassell just last week, shortly after turning 81 years of age the month prior, announced a new album, due out on June 8. *Listening to Pictures (Pentimento Volume One)* is to be his first album on his new label, Ndeya, which he describes as being a place for “new work as well as … selected archival releases, including re-presses of classic sides and some astonishing unreleased music.”

The astonishment begins early, with a pre-release glimpse of *Listening to Pictures (Pentimento Volume One)* in the form of its first track, “Dreaming.” This is Hassell in fine form, playing Offworld bossa nova, post-Singularity jazz. It surges against itself in slow motion. You can hear his horn buried amid piano and cymbals and vinyl surface noise, rising out of the mass, and then settling back in. The uneasy beat — less a beat, really, than a pulse — has a rough-hewn quality to it, pushing at the other elements like it’s trying to find its place at the table. Perhaps the standout element is what sounds like a vocal ensemble, who halfway through the piece emerge in a deep hush out of nowhere. Such a rupture is key to Hassell’s approach, an art of grafts that purposefully never fully take.

More from Hassell at [jonhassell.com](http://jonhassell.com). Track originally posted at [jonhassell.bandcamp.com](https://jonhassell.bandcamp.com/album/listening-to-pictures-pentimento-volume-one).

Ghost Accounts in the Streaming Machine

And the fogging of the database

April 9, 2018April 10, 2018 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Doctor M’Hhhhhhhble was apparently a side moniker for an unspecified SoundCloud regular. Eventually [the doctor’s account](soundcloud.com/doctor-mhhhhhhhble) came to a natural end, the individual behind it having decided that managing multiple sonic avatars wasn’t worth the effort. This track, titled “Smoke filled room,” like the rest of the M’Hhhhhhhble account, dates back half a decade. It surfaced recently via a repost by [Tuonela](https://soundcloud.com/tuonela-1), the prolific musician based in Katoomba, Australia. Perhaps Tuonela and M’Hhhhhhhble are one and the same. Perhaps not.

The M’Hhhhhhhble track is the sound design of a wind-rattled tunnel, a mix of airflow and noise, action and echo. It is haunting and peculiarly comforting, the warm embrace of white noise. The central echo is all the more enigmatic because the listener must take into account not only the imagined physical space posited by the audio, but the passage of time since the track was first posted. As online cloud accounts of audio services age, the number of orphaned and untrackable ones increases as well, fogging the database, muddling the archives. The embarrassment of riches that is the universal jukebox becomes all the more unchartable as time proceeds.

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/doctor-mhhhhhhhble](https://soundcloud.com/doctor-mhhhhhhhble/smoke-filled-room).

Disquiet Junto Project 0327: Time Zoned

Create a piece of music that is simultaneously in 3/4, 2/4, and 7/4 time.

April 5, 2018April 5, 2018 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Each Thursday in the [Disquiet Junto group](https://disquiet.com/junto/), 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 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are on Monday, April 9, 2018. This project was posted in the morning, California time, on Thursday, April 5, 2018.

Tracks will be added to [the playlist]() for the duration of the project.

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

**Disquiet Junto Project 0327: Time Zoned**

Create a piece of music that is simultaneously in 3/4, 2/4, and 7/4 time.

Step 1: This week’s Disquiet Junto project, the 327th consecutive weekly Junto project, running since January 2012, will engage with the number 327. Compose a piece of music with three separate and distinct through-lines. Think of each of the three lines as an individual voice. The important thing is that the three through-lines occur in your composition simultaneously. One voice should be in 3/4 time. One should be in 2/4 time. And one should be in 7/4 time.

Major thanks to Ethan Hein and Nate Trier for helping develop the project.

Six More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0327” (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 “disquiet0327” (no spaces or quotation marks). If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to subsequent location of tracks for the creation a project playlist.

Step 3: Upload your track. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your track.

Step 4: Please consider posting your track in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0327-time-zoned/

Step 5: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.

Step 6: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Other Details:

Length: The length is up to you. Making it 3:27 would be perfect.

Title/Tag: When posting your track, please include “disquiet0327” 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: It is preferable that your track is set as downloadable, and that it allows for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution).

Linking: When posting the track online, please be sure to include this information:

More on this 327th weekly Disquiet Junto project (Time Zoned: Create a piece of music that is simultaneously in 3/4, 2/4, and 7/4 time) at:

https://disquiet.com/0327/

Major thanks to Ethan Hein and Nate Trier for helping develop the project.

Stained-Glass Butterflies

A guitar-based track from Japan-based Michiru Aoyama

April 2, 2018 / By Marc Weidenbaum

A guitar can be heard deep in the heart of “Coco” by Michiru Aoyama. It’s a slow strum that alternates back and forth between a pair of chords, neither of them left to fade out entirely before the next one encroaches on its rippling sonic afterimage. The chords are muffled, as if played with wool gloves, as if filtered through a thick canvas scrim. They are overwhelmed, as well, by an entirely other frame of reference, a dense, slow-moving cyclone of brighter sounds, fluttering like stained-glass butterflies sent suddenly aloft, twinkling with the light and each other’s dim reflection. There is no self-evident development to what Aoyama is up to here, except to the extent that the ear might focus on the two patterns and how if at all they might chance to correlate or diverge. If there is change, it is a matter of nuance. It’s an instrumental chant, a singular statement, an environment set to loop.

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/michiru-aoyama](https://soundcloud.com/michiru-aoyama/coco). Aoyama is based in Kamakura, Japan. More at [michiruaoyama.jimdo.com](https://michiruaoyama.jimdo.com/) and [michiruaoyama.bandcamp.com](https://michiruaoyama.bandcamp.com/).

Disquiet Junto Project 0326: Wave Turntable

In collaboration with composer Danny Clay, make music for his exhibit with artist Jon Fischer using only sine waves and turntable surface noise.

March 29, 2018March 30, 2018 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Deadline: This project’s deadline is 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are on Monday, April 2, 2018. This project was posted in the afternoon, California time, on Thursday, March 29, 2018.

Tracks will be added to [the playlist](https://soundcloud.com/disquiet/sets/disquiet-junto-project-0326) for the project’s duration.

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

**Disquiet Junto Project 0326: Wave Turntable**

In collaboration with composer Danny Clay, make music for his exhibit with artist Jon Fischer using only sine waves and turntable surface noise.

Step 1: Tracks in this project will be played as part of a free event in San Francisco at the McEvoy Foundation for the Arts (mcevoyarts.org) on Saturday, April 7, 2018, for an exhibit by composer Danny Clay (dclaymusic.com) and artist Jon Fischer (feather2pixels.com). The project was developed in collaboration with Clay. Before proceeding, consider the sort of music that might be conducive as partially-heard, partially-background music for an art event.

Step 2: Compose a short piece of music using only sine waves and the surface sounds of vinyl played on a turntable. Those two sources are inspirations for the Clay/Fischer exhibit. (The cover image to this project shows some of Fischer’s turntable art.)

Six More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0326” (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 “disquiet0326” (no spaces or quotation marks). If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to subsequent location of tracks for the creation a project playlist.

Step 3: Upload your track. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your track.

Step 4: Please consider posting your track in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0326-wave-turntable/

Step 5: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.

Step 6: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Other Details:

Length: The length is up to you. Roughly two to four minutes sounds about right.

Title/Tag: When posting your track, please include “disquiet0326” in the title of the track, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.

Download: It is preferable that your track is set as downloadable, and that it allows for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution).

Linking: When posting the track online, please be sure to include this information:

More on this 326th weekly Disquiet Junto project (Wave Turntable: In collaboration with composer Danny Clay, make music for his exhibit with artist Jon Fischer using only sine waves and turntable surface noise) at:

https://disquiet.com/0326/