Disquiet Junto Project 0442: One Sentence

The Assignment: Make music that explores the shape, tone, cadence, and content of a favorite section of prose or poetry.

/ 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 Monday, June 22, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, June 18, 2020.

Tracks will be added to [the playlist](https://soundcloud.com/disquiet/sets/disquiet-junto-project-0442) for the duration of the project.

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

Disquiet Junto Project 0442: One Sentence

The Assignment: Make music that explores the shape, tone, cadence, and content of a favorite section of prose or poetry.

Step 1: Choose a favorite single sentence. The sentence should be from prose or poetry, but not a song lyric.

Step 2: Say the sentence out loud, slowly, several times in a row. Consider its shape, its tone, its cadence, and its content, and how these connect with each other.

Step 3: In some way that you can understand, map the exploration of the sentence from Step 2.

Step 4: Compose a piece of music that follows the map from Step 3. Note that the finished piece shouldn’t (or better yet: needn’t) include the spoken sentence (that is, it’s best if it’s purely instrumental), and it might last much longer than the sentence would take to say out loud.

Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0442” (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 “disquiet0442” (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-0442-one-sentence/

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 Monday, June 22, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, June 18, 2020.

Length: The length is up to you.

Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0442” 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 442nd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Disquiet Junto Project 0442: One Sentence — The Assignment: Make music that explores the shape, tone, cadence, and content of a favorite section of prose or poetry — at:

https://disquiet.com/0442/

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-0442-one-sentence/

There’s also a Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.

The Search for Intelligent Life

Between the notes

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

All held chords and cinema-ready dramatics, calculated shimmers and barely perceptible shifts, “OUT∃R WΩRLDS” by composer Dolores Catherino represents a search for intelligent life between the notes. The result bridges the gap between 20th-century classical modernism and classic synth space music. Track originally posted art [soundcloud.com/dolores-catherino](https://soundcloud.com/dolores-catherino/outr-wrlds). More on Catherino at [newmusicusa.org](https://nmbx.newmusicusa.org/author/dolomuse/).

Laraaji Goes Home Again

On a new solo piano album (due out July 17)

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Laraaji is a name synonymous with the early days of ambient music. But there were days even earlier than those, as a new album makes clear. The musician has long been associated with Brian Eno’s pioneering creation, curation, and collation of ambient music in the 1970s, thanks to the album *Ambient 3: Day of Radiance.* Since then, Laraaji has been best known for his work with electronically enhanced zither. But on *Sun Piano,* due out a month from tomorrow, on July 17, on the All Saints label, Laraaji sticks with solo piano, reaching back to the musical education that preceded his electronic explorations. Two tracks have been posted so far, the Asia-tinged “Temple of New Light,” and the equal parts soulful and playful “This Too Shall Pass,” with its echoes of Nina Simone’s barroom bravura and Aaron Copland’s Western gravitas. I’ve heard the whole record, and all I can say is his rendition of the folk song “Shenandoah” features a marvel of an arrangement.

Pre-order the album at [laraajimusic.bandcamp.com](https://laraajimusic.bandcamp.com/). I interviewed him back in 2015: [“The Eternal Life Aquatic with Laraaji.”](https://disquiet.com/2015/08/24/laraaji-all-in-one-peace/)

Current Listens: New Hassell, Compiled Underworld

Heavy rotation, lightly annotated

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

This is 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. 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.)

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NEW: Recent(ish) arrivals and pre-releases

▰ Last week digitally enhanced trumpeter Jon Hassell announced a new record, *Seeing Through Sound (Pentimento Volume Two)*, with a single track, “Fearless,” that is everything a longtime fan might hope for, and everything needed to help a novitiate brave the unfamiliar, ever-shifting territory of his glitching, soulful Fourth World. The album is out July 24 on his own label, Ndeya. Pre-order on [Bandcamp](https://jonhassell.bandcamp.com/album/seeing-through-sound-pentimento-volume-two).

▰ There is a propensity for joy on Markus Floats’ *Third Album* that is absolutely intoxicating, notably on the the bubbly “Always.” What makes such moments all the more striking is the mass-like seriousness that comprises the majority of this rich, wide-ranging, deeply rewarding collection.

▰ The [May 10 Current Listens](https://disquiet.com/2020/05/10/current-listens-dub-eno-fripp-soundscape/) entry trumpeted a then forthcoming album, Hélène Vogelsinger’s *Contemplation*, based on the emotional arpeggios of its opening track. The full album came out Friday, and it fulfilled expectations, especially on the vertiginous center track, “Rebirth,” in which rapid-fire pulses pierce a rich, near-ethereal vocal line.

▰ The British duo Underworld released a slew of new material this past year under the title *Drift*, a constantly expanding collection of experiments that they finally collected into a box set. The box has now been both condensed (in size) and expanded, to collect eight CDs, a Blu-ray disc, and a 50-page booklet, all for about $43 (not including shipping), which seems like quite the deal. The highlight among many highlights is a disc’s worth of collaborations (available separately as well) with the Australian out-there jazz group the Necks, some of my favorite music either group has recorded: