Disquiet Junto Project 0615: Introspective Failure

The Assignment: Fall short again, this time on purpose.

/ 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 just under five 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 and interest.

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, October 12, 2023, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, October 16, 2023.

Tracks are added to the SoundCloud playlist for the duration of the project. Additional (non-SoundCloud) tracks appear in the lllllll.co discussion thread.

These following instructions went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto).

Disquiet Junto Project 0615: Introspective Failure
The Assignment: Fall short again, this time on purpose.

Thanks to Junto member XHG (aka Alex) for having proposed this week’s project.

The goal of this project is to purposefully produce an unsatisfactory piece of music in a systematic way, in the hope of potentially learning from the experience. Your approach should be introspective and technical but also lighthearted and humorous.

Step 1: Think about a piece of music you have produced that you were not satisfied with.

Step 2: Try to analyze why this was the case. Is it possible to identify a main reason — like the concept, the process, the instrumentation, or simply the outcome?

Step 3: Take a break and let these thoughts simmer for a while.

Step 4: Try to produce a different unsatisfactory piece of music than you analyzed in Step 2, purposefully replicating the failure. (It might be sensible to keep it short so as to torment yourself not too much.)

Note: Before you start the process, plan something fun and gratifying to do after you finish your piece of music, in case the process lowers your mood.

Eight Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0615” (no spaces or quotation marks) in the name of your tracks.

Step 2: If your audio-hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to also include the project tag “disquiet0615” (no spaces or quotation marks). If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to subsequent location of tracks for the creation of a project playlist.

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

Step 4: Post your track in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0615-introspective-failure/

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

Step 6: If posting on social media, please consider using the hashtag #DisquietJunto so fellow participants are more likely to locate your communication.

Step 7: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Step 8: Also join in the discussion on the Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to [email protected] for Slack inclusion.

Note: Please post one track for this weekly Junto project. If you choose to post more than one, and do so on SoundCloud, please let me know which you’d like added to the playlist. Thanks.

Additional Details:

Length: The length is up to you. 

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, October 12, 2023, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, October 16, 2023.

Upload: When participating in this project, 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 always best to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution, allowing for derivatives).

For context, when posting the track online, please be sure to include this following information:

Thanks to Junto member XHG (aka Alex) for having proposed this week’s project.

More on this 615th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Introspective Failure (The Assignment: Fall short again, this time on purpose), at: https://disquiet.com/0615/

About the Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0615-introspective-failure/

Death Hags’ 2nd Junto x Bern Podcast

A new set of tracks collected on her listen.camp show, Big Grey Sun 2.0

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

For the October 7, 2023, episode on her listen.camp show, Big Grey Sun 2.0, the L.A. musician/producer Lola G. (aka Death Hags) played tracks from the second of three Disquiet Junto projects that participants did this year in collaboration with Musikfestival Bern, as well as some of her own music. The theme of this project, number 0595, Filter Progression, was: Make music by processing a static sound.

This is the playlist from “Big Grey Sun 2.0 / 07th October 2023,” which is hosted at Death Hags’ mixcloud.com account:

  • Death Hags — “Photons in the Sky”
  • Noodle Twister — “Tiniest Cloud”
  • the bell mechanical — “a shiny curtain”
  • colmkil — “Minimal Blend, Coffee Sips”
  • halF unusuaL — “halF miiniimaaliisT [10 minute version]”
  • Death Hags — “Airlift V”
  • Ossimuratore — “Prone to Logic Mind”
  • he_nu_ri — “Entrenched and Incised Meanders”
  • RabMusicLab — “Les rencontres entre éléments”
  • caustic_gates — “drone blend”
  • Sonic Search — “Ruminations”
  • Death Hags — “Photons in the Sky (Alt)”

My KMRU Review at Pitchfork

First release on his own new label, OFNOT

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

My latest album review for Pitchfork was published earlier this week. I wrote about the latest from the Kenyan musician KMRU, Dissolution Grip. First two paragraphs below. Read in full at pitchfork.com.

KMRU is not the call sign of a radio station, though it could very well be. The calendar of this imaginary broadcaster would vary in format and genre. Shows would change frequently: evolve, morph, disappear. To tune into KMRU would mean being surprised. Some shows would feature lengthy abstract drones, others would venture into the territory of techno, or focus on cerebral minimalism, and some would feature guest instrumentalists and vocalists. Yet for all that unpredictability, to pull up KMRU on your radio dial would invariably entail hearing field recordings—sometimes in their raw, undigested form, but far more frequently augmented by all manner of digital techniques and aesthetic practices.

But of course KMRU isn’t a radio station; KMRU is a lone individual (if an impressively prolific one). That taut quartet of letters is a compression of his family name: Kamaru. First name Joseph, born in Nairobi, Kenya, and relocated to Berlin, Germany, he has over the past few years become a widely referenced figure in contemporary electronic music, excelling in all the sounds mentioned above. Throughout it all, field recordings have been central to his work—quarried for their textural qualities, or sliced and diced into corrosive soundscapes, or laid bare to serve as vicarious sonic travel aids.

Read in full at pitchfork.com. And check out the album at kmru.bandcamp.com.

Disquiet Junto Project 0614: Alternate Route

The Assignment: Do something you often do, but differently.

/ 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 just under five 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 and interest.

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, October 9, 2023, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, October 5, 2023.

Tracks are added to the SoundCloud playlist for the duration of the project. Additional (non-SoundCloud) tracks appear in the lllllll.co discussion thread.

These following instructions went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto).

Disquiet Junto Project 0614: Alternate Route
The Assignment: Do something you often do, but differently.

This is a slightly different take on last week’s project.

Step 1: Think of something related to making music that you do a lot.

Step 2: Think of an alternate way to do it that challenges your habits.

Step 3: Make a piece of music using the approach you thought of in Step 2. 

Eight Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0614” (no spaces or quotation marks) in the name of your tracks.

Step 2: If your audio-hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to also include the project tag “disquiet0614” (no spaces or quotation marks). If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to subsequent location of tracks for the creation of a project playlist.

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

Step 4: Post your track in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0614-alternate-route/

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

Step 6: If posting on social media, please consider using the hashtag #DisquietJunto so fellow participants are more likely to locate your communication.

Step 7: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Step 8: Also join in the discussion on the Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to [email protected] for Slack inclusion.

Note: Please post one track for this weekly Junto project. If you choose to post more than one, and do so on SoundCloud, please let me know which you’d like added to the playlist. Thanks.

Additional Details:

Length: The length is up to you. 

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, October 9, 2023, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, October 5, 2023.

Upload: When participating in this project, 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 always best to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution, allowing for derivatives).

For context, when posting the track online, please be sure to include this following information:

More on this 614th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Alternate Route (The Assignment: Do something you often do, but differently), at: https://disquiet.com/0614/

About the Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0614-alternate-route/

On Repeat: KMRU, Tasselmyer, Demo, Incense

Home/office playlist

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

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.

▰ More on this release shortly, likely in the coming week, but I am really enjoying Kenyan musician KMRU’s new album, Dissolution Grip, which somehow does away with his trademark field recordings without losing their influence. The key — or legend, in this case — is the notion of a graphic score. Check out the liner notes for an explaination.

https://kmru.bandcamp.com/album/dissolution-grip

▰ Andrew Tasselmyer (from Baltimore, based in Philadelphia) plays with time in delectable ways. Listen (and watch) as he samples, slices, fractures, and delicately reconfigures piano recordings.

▰ More music technology could use examples, like this one, that you go back to listen to simply because the sounds are so pleasing. This half-hour survey of slowly emerging melodic and rhythmic elements is a demo of a “conceptual sequencer” — called Seqsual — for the iPad. It’s from Helsinki, Finland.

▰ There is atmospheric music, and there is kosmiche (or space) music, and somewhere in between is music that seems to float in the realm of satellites, the ionosphere. This is the realm of Simon James French’s recent album, Meditations: ionospheric music, all euphoric-yet-sedate sonic explorations. Apparently there’s a line of Japanese incense created to complement it. French splits his time between Japan and the U.K.

https://sjfmusic.bandcamp.com/album/meditations