Current Favorites: Fahey, Hsu, Richter/Vivaldi

Heavy rotation, lightly annotated

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

My weekly(ish) answer to the question “What have you been listening to lately?” It’s lightly annotated because I don’t like re-posting material without providing some context. I hope to write more about some of these in the future, but didn’t want to delay sharing them:

▰ More power to drummer José Medeles for this upcoming tribute to John Fahey, featuring guitarists Matt Ward, Marisa Anderson, and Chris Funk: [*Railroad Cadences & Melancholic Anthems*](https://josemedeles.bandcamp.com/album/railroad-cadences-melancholic-anthems-a-drummers-tribute-to-john-fahey). Three tracks online so far, and each hits the murky, crepuscular, Fahey-ian mark in its own way. Medeles is based in Portland, Oregon.

▰ There’s one track up so far from Yenting Hsu’s forthcoming [*Flash 須臾*](https://ashinternational.bandcamp.com/album/flash). “Unknown 未知” mixes industrial, textural, and droning sounds into a single, focused, contemplative track. Mesmerizing. She’s from Taiwan. The label is the London-based Ash International.

▰ Hard to believe its been a full decade since Max Richter reworked Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons as part of Deutsche Grammophon’s Recomposed series. He’s newly revisiting the music. There are several videos up on [his YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-n5eIZ0AecwjWyXYeSwXkA), including [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJnDEd65omg), featuring violinist Elena Urioste and the musicians of Chineke! Orchestra:

Disquiet Junto Project 0541: 10BPM Techno

The Assignment: Make some snail-paced beats.

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto group, 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.

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, May 16, 2022, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, May 12, 2022.

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

**Disquiet Junto Project 0541: 10BPM Techno**
The Assignment: Make some snail-paced beats.

There are two ways to do this project.

Option 1: Record some 10BPM techno.

Option 2: Record what you imagine it would sound like to attend a club event of 10BPM techno, including crowd noise.

Eight Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0541” (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 “disquiet0541” (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:

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: [https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0541-10bpm-techno/](https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0541-10bpm-techno/)

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:

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, May 16, 2022, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, May 12, 2022.

Length: The length is up to you. Slow doesn’t necessarily mean long.

Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0541” in the title of the tracks, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.

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 541st weekly Disquiet Junto project — 10BPM Techno (The Assignment: Make some snail-paced beats) — at: https://disquiet.com/0541/

More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto/

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

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: [https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0541-10bpm-techno/](https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0541-10bpm-techno/)

Image used thanks to this license: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Grapevinesnail_01.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Grapevinesnail_01.jpg).

Ambient Jam

By Perry Frank

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Music is built on tools, and tools are built on music. Music is made with available tools. Tools are made to produce sounds in a more immediate or more nuanced manner than previous tools might have allowed for. Which is why a small synthesizer and a smaller reverb pedal can, together, sound like an ancient pipe organ performed in an old church where the roof has been torn off and the sounds are straining as they reach for the naked heavens. This is Perry Frank’s ambient jam.

This is the latest video I’ve added year to my [ongoing YouTube playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAgCxRbmR1MJxihgJkCPEnehAPvjoF71-) of fine live ambient performances. Video originally posted at [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_o9bZ7FcOw). Perry Frank is based in Italy.

Reviewed Carl Stone for The Wire

A livestream from last month

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Barely a month ago, on April 2, Carl Stone performed a livestream concert with an interesting organization called MSCTY “a global agency for music + architecture,” per its website). The set consisted of upcycled field recordings of Tokyo, and I reviewed it for the latest issue of The Wire magazine. Below is the opening section of my article. The full piece is in issue #460, the one with Japanese musician Phew on the cover.

And here’s the full concert:

Joel St. Julien’s Dream

Three tracks from the San Francisco–based musician

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Joel St. Julien’s *Dream* shouldn’t get lost in the flurry of Bandcamp Day — what supposedly, but who knows, may be the final Bandcamp Day. It’s a track of chaotic gentleness, the fragmented and lushly frantic “You, my love” placed lovingly between two easier-to-love ambient tracks, the foggy title piece and the beading “Endless,” its sparkling tones undergirded by a subdued percussive pelting. “Dream” in particular is something to get lost in. It’s a generous dollop of fuzzy cloud cover and twinkling pointillism. But I’m pretty sure it’s “You, my love” I’ll be returning to. I hear what I think is granulated guitar, the pizzicato sounds crushed and wrinkled into textural mayhem, as the piece unfolds into something downright stratospheric.

The EP available at [joelstjulien.bandcamp.com](https://joelstjulien.bandcamp.com/album/dream). More on Joel St. Julien, who is based in San Francisco, at [joelstjulien.com](http://www.joelstjulien.com).