Brief mentions each Sunday of my favorite listening from the week prior:
▰ This is my favorite of some of the recent pieces that guitarist Simon Farintosh has posted, maybe because it feels especially close to the original in tone, like the pace of the source material and the size of the room in which it was captured. Farintosh is best known for his transcriptions for classical guitar of Aphex Twin’s music (about which I’ve interviewed him). Here he does “The Frail” from Nine Inch Nails.
▰ Gorgeous trio, featuring frequent Disquiet Junto participant De Vis with bassist Roy Mastega and a horn player I’ve yet to identify. It’s somewhere between a slowed down “Love Supreme” and an especially stripped down Jon Hassell.
▰ And I’ve been spending a lot of time with some other albums I’ve mentioned recently, notably Years of Ambiguity from keyboardist Kjetil Husebø, supported by Eivind Aarset and Arve Henriksen, and Travel from the Necks.
The Assignment: Fast forward an old track to make a new one.
/ 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, March 20, 2023, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, March 16, 2023.
These following instructions went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto).
Disquiet Junto Project 0585: F9
The Assignment: Fast forward an old track to make a new one.
Step 1: Many media playback apps for laptops (among other devices) include the option to fast forward through a track manually. Some apps have settings that allow you to adjust the length of the gap that will be jumped. Find a tool that can do this. VLC (videolan.org/vlc) is recommended. In VLC you can jump forward in set lengths of time by repeatedly pressing (not holding, but repeatedly pressing) the right arrow on your keyboard.
Step 2: Try this process with a few of your own recordings: hitting the right arrow at a steady pace (as quickly as every split second, as slowly as every two or three seconds).
Step 3: Locate a track of your own where doing what is described in Step 2 yields a result you find pleasing.
Step 4: Record what the result of Step 3 sounds like for one of your pre-existing tracks. (This may be old hat, if you have used Loopback or similar software. You could also just record the output from your laptop’s speaker.)
Step 5: Use the result of Step 4 as the foundation for a new piece of music. You can add as little or as much as you would like to it.
Notes: (1) You may find you can simulate this effect. (2) You can loop the result of Step 4 if what it yields is too short.
Eight Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: Include “disquiet0585” (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 “disquiet0585” (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. Just because it’s fast forwarded doesn’t mean it needs to be short.
Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, March 20, 2023, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, March 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:
More on this 585th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Generations (The Assignment: Fast forward an old track to make a new one), at: https://disquiet.com/0585/
Brief mentions each Sunday of my favorite listening from the week prior:
▰ Technically I’m in San Francisco, but otherwise I’ve spent much of the past week lost in the deep guitar drones of Jessica Ackerley’s late 2022 album Wave: Volume I.
▰ Enjoying “A Thought,” which is the vocal-free (or “voiceless”) edit of “Who Gives a Thought,” off Brian Eno’s 2022 album Foreverandevernomore. Hip-hop and r&b singles do this all the time: releasing the tracks without the vocals. More acts from other musical realms should, as well.
▰ I don’t watch a lot of “Shorts” on YouTube. The format just feels like a typical tech product FOMO replica of something from other apps, but I wasn’t going to miss this live bit of Julian Lage recording with Bill Frisell, both on acoustic guitars (there’s a bit of a League of Crafty Guitartists vibe to it at times, especially the arpeggiated moments). The song is “This World,” from a forthcoming album, The Layers (due out March 17). The album features the same lineup as the excellent View with a Room from last year: Lage’s trio of bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Dave King, with Frisell joining in.
The Assignment: Bridge a gap in your musical taste.
/ 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, March 13, 2023, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, March 9, 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 0584: Generations
The Assignment: Bridge a gap in your musical taste.
Step 1: Think of a sort of music you enjoy now that a much younger you might not have.
Step 2: Think of a sort of music that younger you enjoyed that you no longer are as fond of.
Step 3: Compose a piece of music that bridges the gap or otherwise finds common ground between the two types of music from Step 1 and Step 2.
Eight Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: Include “disquiet0584” (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 “disquiet0584” (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.
Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, March 13, 2023, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, March 9, 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 584th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Generations (The Assignment: Bridge a gap in your musical taste), at: https://disquiet.com/0584/
Brief mentions each Sunday of my favorite listening from the week prior:
▰ Years of Ambiguity from keyboardist Kjetil Husebø teams the musician with electronically enhanced guitarist Eivind Aarset and equally post-human trumpeter Arve Henriksen. Seven tracks deep in the territory first homesteaded by Miles Davis and Jon Hassell.
▰ It’s sort of amazing when one of your favorite bands puts out a new album and it becomes of your favorites. Such is the gift that is the Necks‘ ambient jazz set Travel, which manages to be blissful and funky, soulful and ethereal, often all at the same time.
▰ I’ve been really digging Cheat Codes, the team-up of Danger Mouse and Black Thought, especially “Strangers,” the full version of which adds rappers A&AP Rocky and the duo Run the Jewels to the mix — and which, in its locked-groove minimalism, is also the source of one of the most intense instrumental tracks from the album.
