Disquiet Junto Project 0463: Making the Gradient

The Assignment: Make a piece of music inspired by the concept of a gradient.

/ 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, November 16, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, November 12, 2020.

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

Disquiet Junto Project 0463: Making the Gradient

The Assignment: Make a piece of music inspired by the concept of a gradient.

Step 1: Think about how a gradient functions, as one thing transitions into another.

Step 2: Make a short piece of music that aims to explore the idea of a gradient in sound.

Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0463” (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 “disquiet0463” (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-0463-making-the-gradient/

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, November 16, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, November 12, 2020.

Length: The length is up to you. Transitions can take time.

Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0463” 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 463rd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Making the Gradient (The Assignment: Make a piece of music inspired by the concept of a gradient), at:

https://disquiet.com/0463/

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-0463-making-the-gradient/

There’s also a Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to [twitter.com/disquiet](https://twitter.com/disquiet) for Slack inclusion.

The Art Gallery in Your Mind’s Ear

Atmospheric hellfire and brimstone from Yvette Janine Jackson

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Toward the end of this coming January, the Fridman Gallery in Manhattan will be releasing *Freedom* by artist Yvette Janine Jackson. The record is up for pre-release right now, with two of its tracks streaming at [fridmangallery.bandcamp.com](https://fridmangallery.bandcamp.com/album/freedom). One cut, available as an excerpt, “Invisible People,” is all hellfire and brimstone, part excoriating exorcism, part calculated recitation of Jonathan Edwards sermonizing (heard here in usefully creepy text-to-speech), all playing out in an atmosphere of dissolute, slow-motion chamber music. Especially engaging is the album’s opening track, “Destination Freedom,” also an excerpt (each around three minutes in length), which is even more atmospheric: piano keys with near-oceanic depth, ghostly string sections, horns buried in the fog. The album is due out January 22, 2021.

More from Jackson at [yvettejackson.com](http://www.yvettejackson.com/).

Caminauta in the Dunes

Live ambient improv by the Atlantic

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Video of Caminauta, shot not far from the Atlantic Ocean, performing electronic music on an Ableton Push, improvising ambient sounds live amid the dunes. Rough percussive textures mix with pulsing, soft notes for a minimalist fantasia, the pace (just under 90 BPM) slow enough to relax to, but allowing for a welcome vibrancy. (I previously mentioned Caminauta here in the context of [a duet with cellist Federico Motta](https://disquiet.com/2020/07/05/current-listens-instrumental-hip-hop-non-performance-samples/) back in early July of this year.)

Video originally posted at [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-PSCwz8_Ak). More from Caminauta at [caminauta.bandcamp.com](https://caminauta.bandcamp.com/). This is the latest video I’ve added to [my ongoing YouTube playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAgCxRbmR1MJxihgJkCPEnehAPvjoF71-) of fine live performance of ambient music.

Music for Reading (and Writing)

Horror, that is

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

If the clattering noises and blood-in-the-ear drones, not to mention the backwards monster voices and plagues-sweep-the-land synth washes, make this intensely quiet music an altogether uncomfortable listen, it’s all on purpose. Finland-based musician Juha-Matti Rautiainen set out, when recording the four tracks that comprise *Dark*, “to create as scary soundscapes as possible.” He recommends the music as accompaniment when reading the work of “psychological horror” novelist Marko Hautala. The album grew out of a conversation the two of them had, leading Rautiainen to compose music to which Hautala might write, and to which his readers, in turn, might read.

Album originally posted the night before Halloween at [juhamattirautiainen.bandcamp.com](https://juhamattirautiainen.bandcamp.com/album/dark). More from Rautiainen at [juhamattirautiainen.com](https://juhamattirautiainen.com/), and check out Hautala’s writing at [markohautala.fi](http://markohautala.fi/home/).

Current Listens: Bisengalieva, Vogelsinger, half light

Heavy rotation, lightly annotated

/ 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.

▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰

NEW: Recent(ish) arrivals and pre-releases

▰ Live violin from the Kazakh-British composer Galya Bisengalieva, soaring like gulls above an accompaniment of strings, voices, and muted percussion.

▰ Hélène Vogelsinger performs (in full (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYxheEGl2oM&t=176s)) a 10-minute live modular piece in an abandoned castle in her native France.

▰ The Dallas/Nashville duo called half light released [*Permafrost*](https://soundcloud.com/halflightcompositions/sets/permafrost), a beautiful box of musical curios. Long tones, cello and violin lines stretched to the horizon, gather beneath the sonic equivalent of textured cloth on one track (“Hiraeth”), while infrastructural moans meet panning drones on another (“Isolation”). A deep, rich recording.

▰ In the interest of conversation, let me know what you’re listening to in the comments below. Just please don’t promote your own work (or that of your label/client). This isn’t the right venue. (Just use email.)