Disquiet – Page 456 – Listening to culture. Playing with audio. Sounding out technology. Composing in code.

Loraine James and the Art of the Skeletal Beat

This is simple stuff, true, but not easily achieved.

March 15, 2021March 15, 2021 / By Marc Weidenbaum

<a href="https://lorainejames.bandcamp.com/album/reflection">Reflection by Loraine James</a>

There’s a new Loraine James album, *Reflection*, due out June 4, which fast as 2021 feels is far too far away. Fortunately, one track is already up. “Simple Stuff” is little more than a spartan beat and a mumbled mantra monologue, but that’s more than enough to tide a fan over. The calisthenics of its percussion are a marvel, even by the high standards James has led us to expect on previous releases like her 2019 breakthrough, [*For You and I*](https://disquiet.com/2020/02/17/for-you-and-i-loraine-james/), last year’s *Nothing* EP, and her superb remix of [Lunch Money Life’s “Lincoln.”](https://disquiet.com/2020/10/28/loraine-james-lunch-money-life/)

“Simple Stuff” has the jerky start and stop, the asymmetric yet perfectly balanced form, of an expert breakdancer backlit by the setting sun, of a Calder mobile in a delicate breeze. Even more than usual for James, the metrics are here reduced to their skeletal core, each triggered impulse an isolated action. There are no percussive chords, just a sequence of precisely poised sonic objects, each given room to breathe before the next arrives. This is simple stuff, true, but not easily achieved.

Like “Glitch Bitch,” the lead track off [*For You and I*](https://lorainejames.bandcamp.com/album/for-you-and-i), “Simple Stuff” has essentially just a repeated two-word phrase as its vocal material. There’s a bit more to it here, but less, too, so muffled is it for much of the track, like she’s got her mouth under a jacket collar while navigating a dense sidewalk headed somewhere. That Loraine James is headed somewhere has been clear for some time now. Our next glimpse of where comes June 4, unless she reveals another cut in the interim. Meanwhile, we have “Simple Stuff.” It’s a phenomenal piece of work, and there are 10 additional tracks due when *Reflection* finally arrives.

Album available for prerelease at [lorainejames.bandcamp.com](https://lorainejames.bandcamp.com/album/reflection). More from James, who is based in London, England, at [twitter.com/LoJamMusic](https://twitter.com/LoJamMusic).

Current Favorites: Soil, Tree, “Apache”

Heavy rotation, lightly annotated

March 14, 2021March 14, 2021 / By Marc Weidenbaum

A 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.

▰ [*Garble Blox*](https://tracedobjects.bandcamp.com/album/garble-blox) is Chicago’s J. Soliday on the Portland (Maine) label Traced Objects in sheer joyous noise mode. True to the title this is John Cage by way of Carl Stalling, found sounds and sound effects broken and reconstituted with the hijinks set to 11. Two tracks, 17 minutes each:

<a href="https://tracedobjects.bandcamp.com/album/garble-blox">Garble Blox by J. Soliday</a>

▰ This isn’t literally “The Sound of a Soil Sleeping,” but it sure has the droning, industrious quality of life underground, plick plock activity amid the earthy gravitas. It’s a highlight of [*Five Days in March*](https://c-reider.bandcamp.com/album/five-days-in-march), the Berthoud, Colorado, musician C. Reider’s brand new album. Also particularly recommended: the similarly percolating one with non-fungible tokens in its title:

<a href="https://c-reider.bandcamp.com/album/five-days-in-march">five days in march by C. Reider</a>

▰ Forget the sound of a tree falling in the forest. How about the sound of the wind that might fell a tree, as heard from inside the tree. That’s what Robert Cole Rizzi captures in [this track](https://soundcloud.com/rizzi/trees-recorded-with-schertler-732021):

▰ A friend mentioned this video of [the “Apache” breakbeat on loop for 10 hours](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaY2oSuuO6w&t=34s), and while I didn’t quite make it to 10, I sure got lost in it for extended periods of time. The video is from 2017, the source audio from 1973. Nonetheless: timeless.

twitter.com/disquiet: mesostics, bands, tutorials

From the past week

March 13, 2021March 20, 2021 / By Marc Weidenbaum

I do this manually each week, collating the tweets I made at [twitter.com/disquiet](https://twitter.com/disquiet/) (which I think of as my public notebook) that I want to keep track of. For the most part, this means ones I initiated, not ones in which I directly responded to someone. I sometimes tweak them a bit here. Some tweets pop up on Disquiet.com sooner than I get around to collating them, so I leave them out of the weekly round-up. It’s usually personally informative to revisit the previous week of thinking out loud. They’re here pretty much in chronological order. Looking back at the tweets makes the previous week seem both longer and shorter than it was. The cadence is a way to map how time progressed. The subjects are another map of the same territory.

▰ Detail of an index page from a book called The Miracle of Television (1949)

▰ My main post-pandemic prediction (and this is not an original thought by any means) is there’s gonna be a lot of bands. I think everyone’s kinda got the solo act aced at this point.

▰ Fifth robocall of the day and it’s not even 1:30pm. Either Skynet is happening or the FCC is about to crack down and the robots are making as many calls as they can before the party is over. My money is on Skynet.

▰ A mesostic:

     My
    sErvice to computer
     Science
    tOday
   waS
     To teach this word to
the AI that lives in
  my Computer's dictionary

(better in fixed-width font)

▰ Looking forward to episode two of *Debris* tonight. That’s my gauge of a new weekly TV series: do I find myself looking forward to it, or is it something that shows up as having been recorded and I then give the latest episode a go? So far, one episode in, *Debris* is the former.

▰ I freely admit that when I started using Scrivener, I was overwhelmed. Funny thing: I started working in it, and finding the tools I needed, and that’s all it took. Now it’s where I do most of my writing, and even some note-taking. The more I use it, the better I use it. The single tool I use the most is the ability to divide a longer piece into subsections that can be worked on independently, and also quickly and easily regrouped with the other subsections around it.

▰ There’s a seaplane overhead, sounding like a didgeridoo with wings

▰ OK

▰ While working, I’ve been listening to John Luther Adams all afternoon, and now I’m not sure what planet I’m on. In a row today: Become Ocean, Become Desert, Become River, Ilimaq, The Place We Began. Been hours since I hit pause, and I feel like I’m just beginning to come up for air. I especially recommend Become River (symphonic), Ilimaq (augmented percussion), and Place We Began (ambient).

▰ Minecraft news you can use

▰ While working this afternoon, I’ve been listening to Jana Winderen non-stop, and now I’ve convinced myself that the next time I go outside the sound of the world will be overwhelming. I need to first re-acclimate to human-scale listening.

▰ When my love
Stands next to your love
I can’t compare love
When it’s not love

It’s not love
It’s not love
Which is my face
Which is a data center
Which is on fire
On fire

▰ Just re-watched the live video of Prince’s guitar solo on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” for, like, the 650th time, thanks to Ethan Hein’s expert dissection (at [ethanhein.com](http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2021/the-best-guitar-solo-ever-recorded/)) of another Prince solo (“Kiss”), and still the hair went up on my arms.

▰ “Stars — they’re just like us!” (From a New York Times article on how 75 different artists rode out pandemic lockdown thus far)

▰ About half my email inbox inbox is “Sorry I haven’t been in touch. During the pandemic I’ve gotten very little done.” And half is “Here’s my fifth box set I’ve released in the past 12 months. I think I’m really hitting my stride. Hope you enjoy it.” (My outbox is, in essence, I’ve managed to get everything done except my outbox.)

▰ I’m pretty sure I haven’t had [a tweet](https://twitter.com/disquiet/status/1370410062225702914) with 319 likes in less than 8 hours before. That has been weird.

▰ And on that note, have a great weekend. Wear a mask, maybe two. Enjoy YouTube synth tutorials to your heart’s desire. Get fresh air (again, through a mask). Zoom friends. Read something that’s not its own light source. Give yourself and everyone around you a break. See ya Monday.

Weekend Plans

An ongoing series cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt

March 12, 2021March 12, 2021 / By Marc Weidenbaum

“Skin conductivity, what’s your function? Hookin’ up modules like VCAs and gates.” These are the AllFlesh buttons, for use with modular synthesizers and other devices that accept the sort of control voltage that makes Eurorack equipment, such as pictured here, function. Usually one would patch a cable into one of those jacks from another device that would send it directions, but with AllFlesh the human body, specifically the finger, completes the circuit and thus any input jack can, in effect, become a button. (Details at [landscape.fm/allflesh](https://www.landscape.fm/allflesh).)

Disquiet Junto Project 0480: Ongsay Aftcray

The Assignment: Record a piece of music by employing Pig Latin as a technique.

March 11, 2021March 11, 2021 / 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, March 15, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, March 11, 2021.

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

Disquiet Junto Project 0480: Ongsay Aftcray

The Assignment: Record a piece of music by employing Pig Latin as a technique.

Step 1: This project is informed by Pig Latin. From the Oxford English Dictionary: “a secret language formed from English by transferring the initial consonant or consonant cluster of each word to the end of the word and adding a vocalic syllable.” By way of example, “Pig Latin” in Pig Latin becomes “Igpay Atinlay.” “Disquiet Junto” in Pig Latin becomes “Isquietday Untojay.”

Step 2: Consider how you might apply the technique of Pig Latin to a preexisting piece of music, perhaps one of your own, or perhaps someone else’s (a remix of something from the public domain, for example). You might cut up a melodic sequence and append the starts of phrases to their ends. This needn’t by any means involve words or voice. Just use Pig Latin as a guide, one that informs how you take something that exists and then rearrange its constituent parts methodically into something else.

Step 3: Record a piece of music employing the approach you develop as a result of Step 2.

Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0480” (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 “disquiet0480” (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 tracks in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:

[https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0480-ongsay-aftcray/42680](https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0480-ongsay-aftcray/42680)

Step 5: Annotate your tracks 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.

Additional Details:

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, March 15, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, March 11, 2021.

Length: The length is up to you. Ore more to the point: Ethay engthlay isyay upyay otay ouyay.

Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0480” 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 480th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Ongsay Aftcray (The Assignment: Record a piece of music by employing Pig Latin as a technique) — at:

https://disquiet.com/0480/