Scratch Pad: “Practical” Instruments, Blue Angels

From the past week

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

I do this manually at the end of each week: collating (and sometimes lightly editing) most of the recent little comments I’ve made on social media, which I think of as my public scratch pad. I mostly hang out on Mastodon (at post.lurk.org/@disquiet), and I’m also trying out a few others. And I take weekends off social media. 

▰ I was talking with someone about Loraine James’ excellent new album, Gentle Confrontation. They asked if James uses any “practical” instruments, borrowing the distinction from visual effects in the film and television industry — that is, between what isn’t and is the result of computer generation. I love this use of the word.

▰ I’ve only used the AudioMoth field recorder so far in the backyard. I set it out last night to capture street noises. Time to see (that is, hear) what it captured. First I need to run analysis to see (here the correct term) what in its myriad little files might be of interest.

▰ I know there’s new music out, but pretty much all I’ve been listening to is archival releases from John Zorn’s Tzadik label, now that its back catalog is on streaming services. If you have any favorites, let me know. I own a lot of Tzadik, but there’s a lot more I haven’t heard.

▰ Nothing like a neighborhood three-alarm fire in the morning to get the sonic juices flowing. Yowza. (Looks like everyone’s OK.)

▰ I briefly experienced what I’d call “digital dementia.” I depend on Pastebot for its clipboard memory. It initially didn’t work after I upgraded to macOS Sonoma, which was really debilitating. The app works now. I knew I liked Pastebot but I had no idea how much I depended on it.

▰ The initial Fleet Week flyover made me instinctively wonder if the clothes dryer had suddenly entered a Spin Cycle of Death phase. That’s only 7 / 10 on the “Why Is This Noise a Good Idea?” scale. Judging by the barking, the neighborhood dogs rate it a 9. Car alarms on cue, too.

▰ Fleet Week’s freakish airstrike cosplay coincides with the hottest days of the year, so you can’t even keep your windows closed

▰ Just singing those Blue Angels blues

▰ Current status: blocking out the Blue Angels with Slayer, Celtic Frost, and Public Enemy

▰ A trailer is out for Monster, which I think has Ryuichi Sakamoto’s final score. From director Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters; Like Father, Like Son), whose The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House is one of my favorite recent TV shows. (And no relation to the Naoki Urasawa manga.)

▰ Two hours until the Blue Angels. Talk about “enjoy the silence.”

▰ The backyard is so quiet. The birds are like, “I’m native San Francisco. I didn’t sign up for this 85º $#!+.”

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/

‘Devil’ in the Details

The sonic ones, that is

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

I’m enjoying John Darnielle’s novel Devil House. Makes sense such a talented musician would have a narrator with a good ear:

“Neither of them announce themselves when they enter: they aren’t seasoned thieves, but they know that a doorknob turned gently enough makes hardly any sound at all if there’s ambient noise to mask it: a stove fan, a countertop radio. Everyone was a child once; everyone’s moved stealthily sometimes, either at play or from sheer animal need.”

The Blog of Disquiet

It adds up

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

I didn’t even have pictures on Disquiet.com, which I founded in 1996, until the mid-2000s. Only recently did I start using the first person when writing here. Ironically, it was many years after naming the website for Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet that I finally came to recognize — not just to see, but to get — the parallel: fragmented writing that adds up to something. That, in a word, is a blog. And in a little over two months, it will have been 27 years.