A sweet little drone performance using, in particular, a module I was previously unfamiliar with, the Grone Wave. It appears to include among its functions a variation on the now classic Clouds module (from Mutable Instruments), or more to the point a firmware offshoot, Parasites, of the original Clouds. All of which means, yes, the music has a light, miasma-like quality to it, amid which tones akin to soft mallets hitting metal intone. It’s a little ritual of mysterious but presumably constructive intent. The performance is by Otsubo Kazuhisa, who’s based in Japan.
Disquiet Junto Project 0714: Remix Yourself
The Assignment: Rework your own music as if someone else had.
Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto music community, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have five days to record and upload a track in response to the project instructions.
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. The Junto is weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when your time and interest align.
Tracks are added to the SoundCloud playlist for the duration of the project. Additional (non-SoundCloud) tracks also generally appear in the lllllll.co discussion thread.
Disquiet Junto Project 0714: Remix Yourself
The Assignment: Rework your own music as if someone else had.
Step 1: Think of a musician whose remix work you appreciate.
Step 2: Select a track of your own.
Step 3: Remix the track in Step 2 as if you were the musician in Step 1.
Tasks Upon Completion:
Label: Include “disquiet0714” (no spaces/quotes) in the name of your track.
Upload: Post your track to a public account (SoundCloud preferred but by no means required). It’s best to focus on one track, but if you post more than one, clarify which is the “main” rendition.
Share: Post your track and a description/explanation at https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0714-remix-yourself/
Discuss: Listen to and comment on the other tracks.
Additional Details:
Length: The length is up to you. Is it an extended remix, or a radio edit?
Deadline: Monday, September 8, 2025, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) wherever you are.
About: https://disquiet.com/junto/
Newsletter: https://juntoletter.disquiet.com/
License: It’s preferred (but not required) to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., an attribution Creative Commons license).
Please Include When Posting Your Track:
More on the 714th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Remix Yourself — The Assignment: Rework your own music as if someone else had — at https://disquiet.com/0714/.
Amstel x Kronos
And x Philip Glass
I previously mentioned the Amstel Quartet, all saxophones, doing “Grandmother and Kimitake” (actually “1934: Grandmother and Kimitake”), a piece from composer Philip Glass’ score to the 1985 Paul Schrader film Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, originally recorded by Kronos Quartet, all strings. This is Amstel doing another piece from the same score, though I’m not entirely clear on the track. On the video channel, it’s listed as “1962: Blood Oath” but there is no such track on the movie soundtrack release. The album does have a “1957: Award Montage,” which is roughly the same length as this, and a “1962: Body Building,” which is not, and two other tracks that actually include the word “blood” in the title: “Kyoko’s House (Stage Blood Is Not Enough)” and “Runaway Horses (Poetry Written with a Splash Of Blood).” Making the situation all the more complicated — though also pretty much confirming my sense that it’s the “1957: Award Montage” piece — is that on the album titled Brooklyn Rider Plays Philip Glass (Brooklyn Rider is a string quartet), there’s a track titled “1957: Blood Oath,” also roughly the same length. Such discographical issues aside, Amstel’s is a great performance, just rich with subtle interplay, and it’s another fine video from ConcertLab, which is staking out an interesting realm of video-specific audio recordings of new music.
When Is Techno Not Techno?
Straight outta Rennes, France
When is techno not techno — or barely techno, or so ambient as to maybe not quite be ambient techno? When with each hint of a beat it declines to push things particularly forward, when it maintains its pace like a heartbeat, which is to say: a steady double thump, so human that you think of it less as a beat and more as a necessary presence, natural despite, here, its machine origins. When additional lonesome sounds appear akin to cloud formations, and other instances of the weather, not tethered to any rhythm, low level as that rhythm may be. When you have difficulty tapping at a pace to gauge the BPM, and find yourself double- and quadruple-timing just to make sense of what is happening. This is “Ballade,” a wonderfully understated track by Nay Seven, who is based in Rennes, France. I’d file this under what I’ve been coming to think of as “sound design techno,” at its more atmospheric extreme. (Track found thanks to a repost by Petrus Major.)
My Vibe
Always has been, always will be
