Layers of Voice

From California-based Noise Jockey

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Part of the beauty of using vocal sounds as the source for electronic music is simply just how far you can push the source tones and yet, to the human ear (which is so attuned through evolution to recognize the human voice), that vocal-ness remains self-evident. A case in point is “The Groan Machine” by Noise Jockey. It’s a layering of a dozen mouth utterances, each processed through a range of equipment listed in the accompanying note. The full breadth sounds are somehow both otherworldly (cast sweeps of white noise, thick stacks of elements, wide expanses of texture) and tellingly human.

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/noisejockey](https://soundcloud.com/noisejockey/the-groan-machine). More from Noise Jockey, aka Nathan Moody of the San Francisco Bay Area, at [nathanmoody.bandcamp.com](https://nathanmoody.bandcamp.com/) and [noisejockey.net](http://www.music.noisejockey.net/).

The Moments After Unboxing

Early uses of new equipment distinguish YouTube

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

YouTube may have its own longstanding audience for full-length recordings, and that ever-expanding catalog may align well with owner Google’s Play Music service, but among YouTube’s great distinguishing strengths is, as with SoundCloud, a facility for casual, of-the-moment works.

Forget those fetishistic unboxing videos, in which newly purchased equipment is unwrapped with the chilly fervor of a robot stripper. Where musical equipment is concerned, YouTube is arguably at its best shortly after unboxing, when new tools are first put to use.

Take SineRider’s “Floating:Drifting” (the full title is “Floating:Drifting (4ms Spectral Multiband Resonator)” — in electronic music, as in classical, the titles often resort to the equipment employed. It’s a single-take video that focuses on a single module that is part of a larger, off-screen synthesizer rig. We listen as waves of cloudy loveliness tease at key signatures and overlap to form gossamer moiré patterns.

Occasionally a hand drops into view to turn a knob or adjust a setting. The correlation between action and sound, between cause and effect, is less clear here than in the videos I include in my (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAgCxRbmR1MJxihgJkCPEnehAPvjoF71-), but then again, this is early on in this musician’s employment of the tool in question. The alignment of cause and effect may be just as much an enigma to SineRider as it is to us.

Track originally posted to [SineRider’s YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEfoBfY6kGY). More from SineRider, aka Devin Powers, at [sinerider.bandcamp.com](https://sinerider.bandcamp.com/) and [twitter.com/SineRider](https://twitter.com/SineRider).

Space Remains the Place

One in a series of explorations by Vienna-based Ahornberg, aka Birgit Jauernig

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Birgit Jauernig’s track “NGC 604” has a magnificent glimpse of a massive star system for its accompanying image. The title, like the image, relates to “a vast nebula,” as the website of the Hubble space telescope [refers to it](https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9627c/). NGC 604 lies some 2.7 million light years from our little blue marble. The audio track is the latest in an ongoing series by Jauernig, who goes by Ahornberg on SoundCloud, that take inspiration for celestial bodies. The association is an exploration of space music, which here means a series of slow, undulating swells that move from vast cetacean droning to rich, impossibly detailed chime-like shimmers.

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/ahornberg](https://soundcloud.com/ahornberg/ngc-604). More from Jauernig, who is based in Vienna, Austria, and is part of the Rumourtone Ambient Collective, at [mixcloud.com/Rumourtone_Music](https://www.mixcloud.com/Rumourtone_Music/).

45 More Seconds of Auxels

The 91st track of a daily music-making project

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

If [yesterday](https://disquiet.com/2018/02/09/45-seconds-of-granular-acoustic-bliss/)’s bit of Auxels’ music was [a modest excursion into acoustic guitar and granular processing](https://disquiet.com/2018/02/09/45-seconds-of-granular-acoustic-bliss/), the next is thundering texture. Presumably this is all guitar again. The massive tone suggests a thick, lower-register string on a guitar rumbling up close. On headphones, it feels like it’s been blown up large as a house and is vibrating nearby in the dark. That maximalist presence is balanced by a more trembling, treble-y sound, and the whole thing is ensconced in a dark, deep ambience. This track represents the 91st in a 100-day, ongoing project by Berlin-based Auxels to record a different 45-second track daily. Follow along at [soundcloud.com/auxels](https://soundcloud.com/auxels/).

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/auxels](https://soundcloud.com/auxels/4500-091-underbelly). More from Auxels at [twitter.com/auxels](https://twitter.com/auxels) and [auxels.bandcamp.com](https://auxels.bandcamp.com/).

45 Seconds of Granular Acoustic Bliss

An exercise by Berlin-based Auxels

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

In the note that accompanies the brief sketch “4500/090:Teal Velvet,” the musician who goes by Auxels wonders briefly if the approach is “possibly now tired.” Let’s hope it isn’t, because in Auxels’ hands this approach — a combination of acoustic guitar picking and granular synthesis — is a sedately paced exploration of melody, texture, and the pattenrs that exist within both. It’s the 90th entry in a daily exercise Auxels has been up to, producing a new 45-second piece each day. The diary entry reads: “the past week or so, I’ve been focusing on practicing with the block party rig, and trying to get more adept at the kinds of pieces I can put together by dubbing multiple mixing performances as takes. it slowly feels like things are coming together with it, though the timing and latency still leaves rather a lot to be desired.” Follow along at [soundcloud.com/auxels](https://soundcloud.com/auxels/).

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/auxels](https://soundcloud.com/auxels/4500090teal-velvet). More from Auxels, who is based in Berlin, at [twitter.com/auxels](https://twitter.com/auxels) and [auxels.bandcamp.com](https://auxels.bandcamp.com/).