Darren Harper’s second most recent track on his SoundCloud account dates back a year, so the one that popped up today may be the first in a long time — or he has deleted some others to make room. Either way, “Generative.01~Spring” is a welcome arrival. The 18-minute piece marks a new direction for Harper, who explains, “I’m embarking on a new project series that will focus on long-form generative eurorack pieces.” Powering his pursuit is a relatively new piece of equipment called Generations, which is a generative MID controller. The creator of Generations, who goes by Innesti, has explained that the device “creates the patterns autonomously once the user has configured the starting conditions.” Harper’s track is a slowly evolving collection of tones, such as hushed piano and picked guitar, as well as orchestral swells and deep drones. There are also gentle processes applied to these sounds, resulting in a lovely and cohesive suite.
You can watch an overview of the Generations tool in the following video. The device, currently sold out, first became available at the start of February 2024.
I’m writing this under the assumption that the “sr” to whom the new Loren Chasse track, “The Sun and the Earth Together,” is dedicated is, in fact, the late musician Steve Roden, as the music is very much in the “lowercase” mode that Roden helped pioneer, and because the years in the accompanying liner note, 1964-2023, align with the span of Roden’s time on the planet, as does the characterization of the final phase of his life (that he was “in a long state of transition before passing on this past fall”). It’s a beautiful tribute to Steve (who was also a friend of mine), the cycling passages of droning tones overlapping and drifting. Nearly 12 minutes long, it takes its time, and asks you to drift along with it.
“The Sun and the Earth Together” was released on the Petit Bardo label (petitbardo.xyz), which has also put out work by Francisco López and Gregory Whitehead, among others. Fitting to the subject at hand, half the label’s earnings from sales go “to end of life care organizations.” The label’s modus operandi is a heavy one: “The artists were asked to create a sound work that can be heard by a person in existential finitude (in a relatively short period of time) or a sound work to be heard while someone dies or a sound work that the artists themselves would like to listen to while they die.”
On Sundays I try to at least quickly note some of my favorite listening from the week prior — things I’ll later regret having not written about in more depth, so better to share here briefly than not at all.
▰ Wodwo is the alias with which Derbyshire novelist Ray Robinson signs his recorded music. Requiem, released earlier this month, is a collection of alternately somber and wistful instrumental works that each seem to emerge from a thick fog.
▰ I’m a sucker for music that sounds like it’s melting, music that supplies an illusion that you’ll never hear it again, that each note is disintegrating in real time, such as in this live piece by the London-based musician who goes by Still Fades. (Of course, it doesn’t disappear. You can replay the video as often as you like.)
▰ Tuonela’s “S&S Drone” has the endlessly sawed strings of a Hollywood score, gaining in intensity as it proceeds, eventually becoming like a threatening swarm of insects. It’s both thrilling and frightening.
▰ “シミ” seems to translate as “stain,” and it’s the title of a new track from the tireless Japanese producer Corruption, who is rapidly reaching the 2,000-recording milestone. It feels like a sampled wooden flute sent through an exteme reverb, but there’s a lot more going on it its brief, half-minute length, what sounds like distant voices and pneumatic street work. As always with Corruption, it is enigmatic to the core.
The Assignment: Record something, slow it down, and then record over it.
/ By Marc Weidenbaum
Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto music community, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have five days to record and upload a track in response to the project instructions.
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. The Junto is weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when your time and interest align.
Disquiet Junto Project 0645: Speed Trap The Assignment: Record something, slow it down, and then record over it.
As always, it helps to read the instructions in full before proceeding, and considering the steps as a whole.
Step 1: Record something to serve as roughly half of a complete track.
Step 2: Slow the result of Step 1 to half its original speed.
Step 3: Record something in addition to the result of Step 2 to complete the track.
Tasks Upon Completion:
Label: Include “disquiet0645” (no spaces/quotes) in the name of your track.
Upload: Post your track to a public account (SoundCloud preferred but by no means required). It’s best to focus on one track, but if you post more than one, clarify which is the “main” rendition.
License: It’s preferred (but not required) to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., an attribution Creative Commons license).
Please Include When Posting Your Track:
More on the 645th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Speed Trap — The Assignment: Record something, slow it down, and then record over it — at https://disquiet.com/0645/
A glistening scintillate largely constitutes the ethereal substance of Chris Hanlon’s “Long While,” which joins a growing amount of recording these days that blurs the line between ambient music and ambient sound. The melty bits of warped tape here, simulated or otherwise, further that instinct by lending a nostalgic quality. But what really makes the piece, what distinguishes it, is a sequence of occasional muffled thuds, something like footsteps, or a cane on a carpeted floor, or even distant bombs going off. These are almost — almost, but not quite — far enough apart to not count as rhythmic, but there is a pace to them, and that’s the point: just enough time for each pair of thuds to frame what comes between, and to make you wait for the next. The element is a welcome addition. Hanlon is based in Belfast, Ireland.
