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.
▰ Another great performance by Andrew Tasselmyer, using an iPad. I picked up the app he employs here to glitchy effect (one with the great name LO-FI-AF). I love how the beat emerges from the opening ambient drone.
▰ Another solid Aphex Twin transcription from Simon Farintosh. This one is “Raglan Holon” off Drukqs, reworked for solo eight-string classical guitar.
▰ Lorenz Weber has a new album, Zeiten, due out in mid-August. Half of it is online for preview currently. It’s elegant, quiet music — one track, “return,” a held tone like an angelic chorus heard through a dense fog; another, “spring,” like an ever so slowly played piano while open windows let in birdsong.
▰ There’s utter chaos, and then there’s chaos that keeps stumbling but never quite collapses. C. Reider (aka Vuzhmusic) commits the latter expertly with “071923.”
The Assignment: Record a piece of music that suggests something floating in air
/ 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 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 and interest.
Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, July 24, 2023, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, June 20, 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.
Disquiet Junto Project 0603: Animated Suspension The Assignment: Record a piece of music that suggests something floating in air.
Step 1: Consider various music techniques you might employ to suggest (or imitate, or insinuate) that something is floating in air.
Step 2: Select one of the techniques you considered in Step 1 and experiment with it a bit.
Step 3: Record a piece of music built around the technique you focused on in Step 2.
Eight Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: Include “disquiet0603” (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 “disquiet0603” (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:
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. How long can something stay aloft?
Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, July 24, 2023, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, June 20, 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 603rd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Animated Suspension (The Assignment: Record a piece of music that suggests something floating in air), at: https://disquiet.com/0603/
Been a while since I did one of these. Brief mentions (optimally each Sunday) of some of my favorite listening from the week prior:
▰ The Polish keyboardist Hania Rani performs live with a large ensemble (Ziemowit Klimek, Wojciech Warmijak, Adam Jełowick, Kacper Krupa, Jarosław Kawałek) in the sunlit courtyard of a nearly 350-year-old building in Paris. She’s a consummate performer, with her own blend of pop-informed minimalism and muted neo-classical.
▰ Davide Bernardi sets drones in luscious, gleaming motion with a small set of devices.
▰ The Christoph Möckel Trio is named for its founding saxophonist, and also features Oliver Lutz, on six-string bass, and Moritz Baumgärtner, drums. This would be great modern, composed chamber jazz unplugged, but what pushes it over the edge is how both Möckel and Lutz employ a battery of guitar pedals to treat their instruments. The set is barely 18 minutes long. Take the whole thing in.
▰ Another great Aphex Twin transcription performed by classical guitarist Simon Farintosh: “Rhubarb” off Selected Ambient Works Volume II. When a cover really works, especially one purposefully trailing in the wake of the original, I wonder how much I’m mentally “hearing” the original while listening to the new take. It’s like a very good version doubly benefits by echoing the source material in the mind’s ear.
▰ There’s white noise, brown noise, and pink noise, among many other noises. My current favorite is molten red noise. (I checked in with the videographer, after discussing the video with my friend Mahlen Morris, and confirmed that in fact the audio was added after the fact. Still, it’s quite evocative.)
The Assignment: Make a piece of music that strives to express a specific word.
/ 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 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 and interest.
Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, July 17, 2023, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, June 13, 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.
Disquiet Junto Project 0602: Choice Words The Assignment: Make a piece of music that strives to express a specific word.
Step 1: Choose a word — either a favorite word, or one at random from a dictionary, a book your reading, or any such source.
Step 2: Compose a short piece of music that expresses that word as best you can. Perhaps it communicates an underlying concept, or follows the shape of the word when spoken, or utilizes it as an extremely short lyric. Come up with your own approach, which might be determined by the word, rather than imposed on the word.
Eight Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: Include “disquiet0602” (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 “disquiet0602” (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:
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. Some words speak volumes
Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, July 17, 2023, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, June 13, 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 602nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Choice Words (The Assignment: Make a piece of music that strives to express a specific word), at: https://disquiet.com/0602/
Don’t mistake a piece of gear appearing prominently in a YouTube video as a sign that it’s a “gear” video. Think of it, instead, as a potential étude, a study of a particular approach in the form of a piece of music. In this case, it’s Andrew Tasselmyer reworking cello samples in a popular “performance sampler” — that is, a device, here the Octatrack, that can sample audio and that was designed to act on those samples during a live performance, such as this one. There’s always discussion about the “dehumanization” of music due to electronic instruments, processing, software, etc. This concern can be especially an issue in live settings, where the player inscrutably touches a few buttons and might as well, from the point of view of the audience, be doing their taxes. The beauty of a YouTube video is it flips the scenario. The player’s hands are shown close-up, even larger than life, allowing a clear alignment of action and effect, of gesture and sound. The resulting track is a magnificent exploration of held chords, of long tones layered, intertwined, and modulated. You can watch along — or just close your eyes and drift off. (Originally from Baltimore, Maryland, Tasselmyer currently lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is a member of Hotel Neon, Gray Acres, and Mordançage.)
