downstream – Page 286

The Pure Data of Svetlana Maraš

One minute to stream, and software to run for free

April 25, 2016April 15, 2025 / By Marc Weidenbaum

You have to click through to the blog of Svetlana Maraš to hear her recent piece “Nymphae,” but don’t mistake that non-embeddable scenario for the work of someone who’s overly concerned about proprietorship. Maras, who is based in Belgrade, Serbia, has more than one SoundCloud page, and posts audio frequently. For “Nymphae,” not only has she uploaded the entrancing, minute-long sample of fractured glistening to stream, she’s also posted for free download the underlying tools anyone can use to accomplish the same sonic ends. Well, anyone with a copy of Pd (Pure data, a “real-time graphical dataflow programming environment,” itself freely downloadable), and the skills to employ it. The tools come in the form of a patch, which looks like this:

She describes the project as follows:

Nymphaea is one in a set of 7 works made under the title Ethereal Information. These works are Pure data patches, and they are generative sound works functioning by the rules of partially fixed algorithms. Each of the patches leaves the space for user’s input that will influence certain aspects of the work. Patches can be used under the Creative Commons Attribution license, as part of other works, in installations, galleries, public spaces or wherever you find them suitable. These works are highly minimalistic. They praise the simplicity of production and effectiveness of realization. They are to be appreciated for their audible but as well visual content that is in this case the structural element of the work that reveals work’s internal characteristics.

More from Maraš at svetlanamaras.com. I wrote about her work previously in February 2015, regarding sound design she’d been working on for a film that never saw completion. That audio is still online. The image up top is from an interview with Maraš by Theresa Beyer, published in 2014 at norient.com. Pure data is available at puredata.info.

The Intention of Pace

When ambient music sets your heart pacing

April 24, 2016 / By Marc Weidenbaum

The question of whether or not ambient music can include beats obscures an arguably deeper question about effect. That question: Can music that sets one’s heart pacing, even if the sounds themselves are largely beat-less, still be considered ambient? On a track titled “Tourbillon,” Suss Müsik tests those circumscriptions, at least for the first minute or so, which is pure haze, but a sheer haze that is pitched high and given an intense sense of forward motion — a suggested motion that is confirmed soon after, when a pulsing, phasing piano line takes over. It’s blissful as the clouds, certainly, but those clouds pass in quick succession. You’re aloft, true, but will you ever come down? Then again, would you even want to, if this is the experience? The title of the track, which comes from clockmaking, is the French word for whirlwind.

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/suss-musik](https://soundcloud.com/suss-musik/tourbillon/). More from Suss Müsik at [sussmusik.com](http://sussmusik.com/).

The Close Parenthesis of Doom

Drone sludge metal from Traunstein, Germany's .(((DEEP))).

April 22, 2016 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Thanks at least in part to Sunn O))) the close parenthesis has come to typographically symbolize, to visualize, the sound of a deep, rumbling, eschatological drone. Daniel Lechner and Robert Axthammer know this well, which is why their doom drone duo act is called not simply Deep but .(((DEEP))). “Breath,” the third track on the pair’s SoundCloud page, is 15 minutes of intensely quavering doom drones, layered for much of the middle third with the sort of broken-glottal vocalese associated with orc mating rituals and the blackest of black metal. It’s an impressive feat. The orcs return later, but only after a short glimpse of the ethereal, thanks to a more angelic if still deeply subsumed choral part. This is dense stuff. It also has an impressively extended fade, not just the drone volume being pitched down, but amid that toxic denouement new fears arise, crackling and churning. Turn off the lights, play it loud, and let it seep into the carpet and into your skin.

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/deep-doom](https://soundcloud.com/deep-doom/breath). The band .(((DEEP))). is based on Traunstein, Germany. Track found via a repost by the [soundcloud.com/anarchy4bits](https://soundcloud.com/anarchy4bits) account.

Disquiet Junto Project 0225: Serial Composition

Sight read a late-1940s painting by Argentine artist Lidy Prati as a graphically notated score.

April 21, 2016April 22, 2016 / By Marc Weidenbaum

lidyprati

Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto group on [SoundCloud.com](https://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/) and at [disquiet.com/junto](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. 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 will be added to this playlist for the duration of the project:

This project was posted in the afternoon, California time, on Thursday, April 21, 2016, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, April 25, 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 0225: Serial Composition

Sight read a late-1940s painting by Argentine artist Lidy Prati as a graphically notated score.

This week’s project takes as its subject a painting recently posted by art critic Blake Gopnik. Seen here, it dates from around 1948, he writes, and is by the Argentine artist Lidy Prati (1921-2008). In his description, Gopnik references Piet Mondrian, whose music is often associated with musical scores. Both the grid-like structure of Prati’s piece and its title, “Serial Composition,” suggest it as the subject of sonic investigation. Gopnik connects the piece to computers: “[I]t speaks of a system that can generate them. Computers and their algorithms seem on this painting’s mind, at a moment when computers still filled entire rooms with vacuum tubes.” (Note that as I was researching this project I came across work by Marcelo Gutman, who has created colorful score tributes to Prati.)

These are the steps for this week’s project.

Step 1: View the circa-1948 painting “Serial Composition” by Lidy Prati at this URL:

http://blakegopnik.com/post/142806762364

Step 2: Consider it as a musical score. Think about the sort of musical composition that “Serial Composition” might be.

Step 3: Record yourself performing “Serial Composition” as a graphically notated musical score.

Step 4: Upload your completed track to the Disquiet Junto group on SoundCloud.

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.

Deadline: This project was posted in the afternoon, California time, on Thursday, April 21, 2016, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, April 25, 2016.

Length: The length is up to you, though between two and three minutes feels about right.

Upload: Please when posting your track on SoundCloud, only upload one track for this project, 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.

Title/Tag: When adding your track to the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com, please in the title to your track include the term “disquiet0225-serialcomposition.”Also use “disquiet0225-serialcomposition”as a tag for your track.

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, please be sure to include this information:

More on this 225th weekly Disquiet Junto project (“Sight read a late-1940s painting by Argentine artist Lidy Prati as a graphically notated score”) at:

https://disquiet.com/0225/

“Midnight Frames”

This is me learning about iOS apps by reworking audio recorded at midnight

April 20, 2016August 8, 2018 / By Marc Weidenbaum

This is a minute of sound recorded just past midnight and then subsequently reworked digitally:

The audio plays on three separate channels, the source tracks slightly out of sync, each channel being muted at random, with a little live, real-time human interaction on my part to nudge the listenability and sense of overall composition. That is, “human interaction” distinct from the human interaction involved in the process of setting up the whole random-mute system.

It’s an experiment in making something just using the iPad. The mixer is the iOS app AUM and the mute is being triggered in an iPad app called Xynthesizr. There is a bit of effects being implemented on the three channels. One is being lent an echoing depth, thanks to the Dahlia Delay app. One is getting lightly distorted, thanks to the Saffron Saturator app. And one is being lightly tweaked with some filters internal to the AUM app.

I have a lot to learn about all these apps. This began as me trying to get the AUM muting triggered by the Fugue Machine app, but that inter-app functionality evaded me for more than one channel. The Xynthesizr worked fairly smoothly, largely because someone introduced me to the MIDI Wrench app, which let me figure out the note values of what’s being emitted by Xynthesizr, so I could assign them directly to be interpreted as on/off signals by AUM. All of which said, I’m still fumbling about with the tools, finding my way. The image accompanying this track is a screenshot of the AUM app with the three channels in view:

File Apr 20, 9 27 53 AM

This is a reworking of a single minute of audio recorded by Forelight. The original track is titled “Midnight {disquiet0160-oneminutepastmidnight}.” It was part of the 160th weekly Disquiet Junto project. That 160th project was the first in an ongoing series, collectively titled One Minute Past Midnight, that explore nocturnal ambience.

The original source track by Forelight is at [soundcloud.com/forelight](https://soundcloud.com/forelight/midnight-disquiet0160-oneminutepastmidnight).

More on the One Minute Past Midnight series here: [oneminutepastmidnight.com](http://oneminutepastmidnight.com).