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Disquiet Junto Project 0215: Tiny Rhythms

The Assignment: Make a short track with just pin-prick audio.

February 11, 2016February 11, 2016 / By Marc Weidenbaum

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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 shortly at noon, California time, on Thursday, February 11, 2016, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, February 15, 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 0215: Tiny Rhythms

The Assignment: Make a short track with just pin-prick audio.

Step 1: This project will require you to have five super tiny sounds, the sonic equivalent of a pin dropping. Create, find, or record those five sounds.

Step 2: Create a short, rhythmic piece of music using only those five sounds. Don’t change the sounds at all. Just use them as they are. At the start of the track have each sound play once in succession, so the listener is aware of the sounds individually before the music proceeds.

Step 3: Upload your completed track to the Disquiet Junto group on SoundCloud.

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.

Deadline: This project was posted at noon, California time, on Thursday, February 11, 2016, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, February 15, 2016.

Length: The length is up to you, though between 1 minute and 2 minutes is recommended.

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 “disquiet0215-tinyrhythms.”Also use “disquiet0215-tinyrhythms”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 215th weekly Disquiet Junto project (“The Assignment: Make a short track with just pin-prick audio”) at:

https://disquiet.com/0215

The Experience of the Day

A piece by Iowa City—based the Ambiguity

February 10, 2016 / By Marc Weidenbaum

There is absolutely nothing explicitly natural about “Snow on North Linn,”and yet it feels real in its own way. It has sublimated melodic material that couldn’t be mistaken for the wind, and yet it feels like a breeze passing. It has piercing moments that suggest the sun breaking through a cloud, but that couldn’t be the case since, of course, the sun doesn’t make a peep. Recorded by Charlie Broderick, who goes by the Ambiguity, it is a lush, welcoming, reflective piece that captures not the actual documentary sound of the day, but the emotional experience of the day.

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/the-ambiguity](https://soundcloud.com/the-ambiguity/snow-on-north-linn). Found via a repost by [soundcloud.com/murkok](https://soundcloud.com/murkok). More from Broderick, who is based in Iowa City, Iowa, at [theambiguity.bandcamp.com](https://theambiguity.bandcamp.com/).

A Brief Arc of Narrative-Laced Noise

With Forelight's “In the Eye of the Storm”

February 8, 2016February 8, 2016 / By Marc Weidenbaum

“In the Eye of the Storm”is a brief arc of narrative-laced noise. It transitions through states, through stages, pausing on occasion, each new phase of static and tone surfacing from what preceded it. It originates with a foment of rapidly shifting chaos. A slowly pulsing drone emerges while the short-circuit flare subsides. Henceforth there are many short-term shifts, from slightly more rhythmic material, like a mallet instrument heard in a white-noise rain, to more fractured scenes, in which the ear struggles momentarily for a modicum of foundation. Throughout the randomness is never tantamount to confusion. The piece is grounded with that mallet-like pulse, and even those shifts occur with an orderliness that provides an underlying sense of orientation — comfort in the storm.

Track originally posted for free download at [soundcloud.com/forelight](https://soundcloud.com/forelight/in-the-eye-of-the-storm). More from Forelight at [forelight.bandcamp.com](https://forelight.bandcamp.com/).

A Moment of Reflective Calm Before All Hell Breaks Loose

This is "Melting Square" by Suss MÃ¼sik, with Marc Manning

February 7, 2016 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Suss Müsik refers to his music as “Post-classical ambient minimalism for crepuscular airports,” which seems about right. The track “Melting Square” is a flowing amalgam of overlaid guitar patterning: strumming electric beneath louche waveforms amid spaced-out echoes. It’s like the midpoint music from a Michael Mann film, a moment of reflective calm before all hell breaks loose. The track, which teams Suss Müsik with musician Marc Manning, itself gets calmer as it proceeds, the strumming eventually fading out entirely in favor of the voluminous echo, that echo then fracturing into a quietly intense, psychedelic field of ghostly twinkling.

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/suss-musik](https://soundcloud.com/suss-musik/melting-square). There’s no active external links on his SoundCloud page, but the easily Google-able [sussmusik.com](http://sussmusik.com/) has a promising “Website coming soon / We’re on it” dated February 3 of this year.

An Enticing Sonic Interiority

From Netherlands-based Kopenz

February 6, 2016 / By Marc Weidenbaum

“Modderlaars” is the sort of track that is quiet enough to draw you in and dense enough to then creep up and surround you. By all rights, the minimal materials should seem tattered and light. And yet they accumulate with an unmistakable hardness, like thick musty glass, acknowledging the world but still blocking it out. Throughout is a steady pulsing that has a blood-in-the-ear intensity, especially on headphones. But much as the sounds are thin yet strong, the pulse is pounding yet slow. The result is an enticing sonic interiority. You can luxuriate in it, but you also cannot escape.

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/kozepz](https://soundcloud.com/kozepz/modderlaars). More from Kozepz, of Eindhoven in the Netherlands, at [kozepz.bandcamp.com](http://kozepz.bandcamp.com).