downstream – Page 269

Disquiet Junto Project 0244: Euro Mixin

The Assignment: Combine tracks from three different European netlabels (Portugal, Spain, Switzerland) into one sonic union.

September 1, 2016September 8, 2016 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Sun & Rail

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.

Tracks were added to this playlist during the duration of the project:

This project was posted in the morning, California time, on Thursday, September 1, 2016, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, September 5, 2016.

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 0244: Euro Mixin

The Assignment: Combine tracks from three different European netlabels (Portugal, Spain, Switzerland) into one sonic union.

Please pay particular attention to all the instructions below, in light of SoundCloud having closed down its Groups functionality.

Big picture: One thing arising from the end of the Groups functionality is a broad goal, in which an account on SoundCloud is not necessary for Disquiet Junto project participation. We’ll continue to use SoundCloud, but it isn’t required to use SoundCloud. The aspiration is for the Junto to become “platform-agnostic,”which is why using a message forum, such as llllllll.co, as a central place for each project may work well.

And now, on to this week’s project.

Project Steps:

Step 1: This week’s project is a remix. The following three tracks are available for creative reuse thanks to a Creative Commons license. Please download them and extract the specified source segments:

Use the first 20 seconds of “The Station and the Underclass,” performed by the Phonetic Orchestra, released on the Insub. netlabel based in Geneva:

http://insub.org/insub44/

Use the first 20 seconds of “Cloud Scissors” composed by Lo Wei; performed by CristiÃ¡n Alvear, Santiago Astaburuaga, Gudinni Cortina, and Rolando HernÃ¡ndez, released on the Impulsive Habitat netlabel based in Portugal:

http://impulsivehabitat.com/releases/ihabp001.htm

Use the first 20 seconds of “Zraerza,” performed by Geeksha Beka and Berio Molina, released on the Alg-a netlabel based in Galicia:

https://archive.org/details/alg-set05-zraerza/

Step 2: Create an original piece of music based on the source audio from Step 1.

Five More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Per the instructions below, be sure to include the project tag “disquiet0244”(no spaces) in the name of your track. If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to my locating the tracks and creating a playlist of them.

Step 2: Upload your track. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your track.

Step 3: This is a fairly new step, if you’ve done a Junto project previously. In the following discussion thread at llllllll.co post your track:

http://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0244-euro-mixin/4361

Step 4: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.

Step 5: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

This project was posted in the morning, California time, on Thursday, September 1, 2016, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, September 5, 2016.

Length: The length is up to you. Around three minutes seems like a good length.

Title/Tag: When posting your track, please include “disquiet0244”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: Due to the Creative Commons license allowing for this work to be remixed, it is necessary 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 244th weekly Disquiet Junto project — “Combine tracks from three different European netlabels (Portugal, Spain, Switzerland) into one sonic union”— at:

https://disquiet.com/0244/

Patterns and Illusions

From Unstable Range, aka Andrea Peregrini of Austria

August 31, 2016 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Unstable Range’s “Karussell” is two things. The first is a series of short melodic bursts, little single-note streams of playful, buoyant effortlessness. They bring to mind a childlike perspective. They glitch and rupture on occasion, notes held in a near-static space, bouncing like marbles in a small box made of rubber sides. Notes toward the end of their duration fizz upward and outward, like a distant firework or a spray of soda.

The second thing is an underlying layer of echo, of repetition. Each segment of these playful melodies is heard several times, bounding quickly into the sonic distance. There’s an illusion of chords, the notes teaming up in small groups, but it’s just that, an illusion. The repetition isn’t merely a harmonic slight of hand. The patterning suggests, at times, that the piece is moving more quickly, the pacing of the echo matching nearly enough that of the main melody and doubling it, tripling it. Despite which appearances, it’s just a single thread repeated as if in a hall of mirrors. It’s quite splendid.

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/rudzupuke](https://soundcloud.com/rudzupuke/karussell). Unstable Range is Andrea Peregrini of Austria.

The World-Weary Robots of Wouter van Veldhoven

Something akin to a team-up between Pierre Bastien and Nam June Paik

August 30, 2016 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Before hitting play, consider expanding this video to full-screen, and turning off your lights, and wearing headphones, and maybe even dimming the screen a bit. For 10 minutes, immerse yourself in this compound-like studio installation of Wouter van Veldhoven. The performance is titled “automated reed organ, old televisions, radios and other machines,” which is helpful, because otherwise we’d very much be in the dark, quite literally, about what’s going on. Lights swell and recede, giving snapshot glimpses of equipment, notably a wide array of old reel-to-reel tape recorder-players, and cathode-ray TVs tuned to no channel in particular. The pacing and the clack of the momentary illumination suggests a slide projector is in effect. The “automated” aspect of the title gives some sense of what’s going on, that the machines are being triggered in various ways that treats them more like samples in physical form than as musical interfaces, and the line items of equipment explain what’s being triggered. The result is something akin to a team-up between Pierre Bastien (robotic derivations of old-world instrumentation, notably that sad-sack reed organ) and Nam June Paik (Cold War”“era media art). It’s a tremendous piece, bringing to mind steampunk aesthetics, but exploring them without the emphasis on fashion filigree. There’s little here that doesn’t need to be here. There’s no visual artifice added to the tape machines or the TV, for example. They’ve just been jacked into a hand-made system that produces archaic, romantic music. Part of the romance relates to van Veldhoven’s presence. He’s seen coming in and out of view, apparently tweaking the apparatuses, like a custodian from a Hayao Miyazaki movie who is charged with the constant maintenance of some fragile, failing infrastructure.

Video originally posted at the [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgvAktmEyB4) of Wouter van Veldhoven, who is based in Utrecht. More from him at
[twitter.com/WvVeldhoven](https://twitter.com/WvVeldhoven) and [woutervanveldhoven.tumblr.com](http://woutervanveldhoven.tumblr.com/).

It’s the latest piece I’ve added to my ongoing [YouTube playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAgCxRbmR1MJxihgJkCPEnehAPvjoF71-) of fine [“Ambient Performances.”](https://disquiet.com/2016/04/30/a-youtube-playlist-of-ambient-performances/)

Archival Music from Bill Laswell

A 20-plus-year-old drum duet (Hideo Yamaki and Ginger Baker)

August 27, 2016November 9, 2020 / By Marc Weidenbaum

<a href="http://billlaswell.bandcamp.com/track/hoisasa">Hoisasa by Hideo Yamaki & Ginger Baker</a>

This track is archival, but it also serves as a current, potent little reminder of what’s going on at bassist-producer [Bill Laswell’s quickly expanding Bandcamp page](https://billlaswell.bandcamp.com/). The track dates from 1993, recorded the year prior for Japanese drummer Hideo Yamaki’s album *Shadow Run*. It [popped up today](https://billlaswell.bandcamp.com/track/hoisasa) on Laswell’s Bandcamp outpost. Like many Laswell productions, *Shadow Run* appears under an individual’s name, but that name stands in for a wide swath of favorite session players, among them Foday Musa Suso (kora, vocals), Bernie Worrell (organ), Toshinori Kondo (trumpet), and Laswell himself. And, on this track, the great Ginger Baker. The track, “Hoisasa,” is a duo of Baker and Yamaki going at their kits, sometimes in swinging unison, often in swaggering counterpoint. It’s a force of nature collaboration. Two other releases under Yamaki’s name also appear on Laswell’s page, both duos with Laswell himself.

Disquiet Junto Project 0243: Synth Trial

The Assignment: Share the best track from your audition tape for Blade Runner 2.

August 25, 2016August 25, 2016 / By Marc Weidenbaum

voightk

Tracks will be added to this playlist for the duration of the project:

This project was posted in the morning, California time, on Thursday, August 25, 2016, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, August 29, 2016.

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 0243: Synth Trial

The Assignment: Share the best track from your audition tape for *Blade Runner 2*.

Please pay particular attention to all the instructions below, in light of SoundCloud having closed down its Groups functionality.

And now, on to this week’s project.

Project Steps:

Step 1: As you now know, JÃ³hann JÃ³hannsson was selected to score *Blade Runner 2*. The news means, among other things, that you didn’t get the gig. Please reconcile yourself with this.

Step 2: Please share your favorite track from the audition tape you sent to Ridley Scott.

Five More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Per the instructions below, be sure to include the project tag “disquiet0243”(no spaces) in the name of your track. If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to my locating the tracks and creating a playlist of them.

Step 2: Upload your track. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your track.

Step 3: This is a fairly new step, if you’ve done a Junto project previously. In the following discussion thread at llllllll.co post your track:

http://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0243-synth-trial/4288

Step 4: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.

Step 5: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

This project was posted in the morning, California time, on Thursday, August 25, 2016, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, August 29, 2016.

Length: The length is up to you. Three minutes seems like a good maximum.

Title/Tag: When posting your track, please include “disquiet0243”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 243rd weekly Disquiet Junto project — “Share the best track from your audition tape for *Blade Runner 2*”— at:

https://disquiet.com/0243/