Disquiet

From light hum with a sonar blip, across a brief plateau of fuzzy-circuit texture, into a brief swell of bug-zapper droning, and on through a series of pitched undulations, sound-element fade-ins, and tonal fragments. That is one unhelpfully parsimonious description of a recently uploaded track by C. Cu titled “As a child it dreamt in fear of coventrate, as an adult she learnt to love to bomb.” It’s brief, the track, arguably more brief than its title. It’s a study in small sounds that accrue meaning through narrative and contrast. Contrast provides incremental narrative, how one thing resonates in the ear and the imagination versus the things that precede, follow, or overlap it. Narrative allows for associations not just in a linear process, but how later sounds reflect earlier ones, and how earlier ones prepare the ear for later ones. The first heavy swell of C. Cu’s track would be relatively quiet, were it not foretold by something barely discernible from a room tone. The track at its opening tells the ear to pay attention, and then it proceeds to reward that attention with carefully posited instances.

Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/ccu. More on C. Cu, based in Belfast, Ireland, at springtimeinnepal.tumblr.com and twitter.com/limnul.

Thomas Park, who records as Mystified, is a frequent participant in the weekly Disquiet Junto projects (at soundcloud.com), and a prolific member of the international array of musicians who contribute to netlabels. When posting some recent rewordings of an old 78rpm recording of “The Star Spangled Banner,” he mentioned, generously, that a recent Junto project was part of his inspiration. In making something new from the old recording of the national anthem, he emphasizes the gleaming — the four versions he has posted move from rousing, octave-leaping exuberance to something spectral and spacious. The third version in particular is simultaneously vaporous and introspective in ways one might not associate with the source material (MP3).

The U.S. national anthem is an interesting subject of interpretation because of how it stands as a sort of sonic parallel to the flag. It seems like a year doesn’t pass when someone isn’t criticized for singing it too slowly, or fumbling a performance, or dressing inappropriately. Park opens himself to criticism by so thoroughly reworking the material, far beyond recognizability. Yet in the end, what he has produced is so stately, it seems to deflect criticism deftly by suggesting itself as being deeply inspired. Then again, Park isn’t so sure what people will say, which is why he adds at the end of the brief liner note accompanying the tracks: “Any interpretations of these pieces are left to the listeners– Mystified viewed this project as an aesthetic one, not a political one.”

Full set available for free download at archive.org. More on Mystified at mystifiedmusic.com.

Update 2012.04.06: After posting this, I was informed by Park/Mystified that John Tocher was the person who introduced him to the source audio, not the person who recorded it. The source recording is, in fact, anonymous. This article has been corrected to reflect this information.