File under “not clear on the concept.” The “organize yourself” title is icing on the communal cake.
Tome Raider
"Organize yourself," indeed
Disquiet Junto Project 0711: Show & Tell &
The Assignment: Share some recent music; get and give feedback
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 0711: Show & Tell &
The Assignment: Share some recent music; get and give feedback
Step 1: Choose a track/composition you’re working on. Share the recording on the Lines forum on the llllllll.co discussion thread at:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0711-show-tell
Step 2: When posting the track, mention that you’re looking for feedback, describe what you’ve been up to on the track, and if applicable specify some aspects of the recording you might want input on.
Tasks Upon Completion:
Label: Include “disquiet0711” (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-0711-show-tell/
Discuss: Listen to and comment on the other tracks.
Additional Details:
Length: The length is up to you.
Deadline: Monday, August 18, 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 711th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Show & Tell & — The Assignment: Share some recent music; get and give feedback — at https://disquiet.com/0711/.
Manga Tape Deck
Gazing at Masakazu Ishiguro
I’ve been on something of a manga bender lately, and so I share this one panel from Masakazu Ishiguro’s very enjoyable series Heavenly Delusion. There a light echo of Akira Toriyama’s work in Ishiguro’s, a gentle roundness to some of the technology, as in this depiction of a portable tape recorder.
M8 Headless Cheat Sheet
Keys to the tracker kingdom
The above image is borrowed from the manual for the M8 Operation Manual. This shows the layout for the physical M8 Tracker device. The text in gray on the eight buttons on the bottom half of the device is what I’ve added to the provided image. Here is a more useful detail:
Those eight keys are, I believe, the default settings for using a computer keyboard as replacements for the physical buttons on the official M8 Tracker. From my experience with the M8 Tracker, you cradle it with both hands and control the buttons with your thumbs, though I imagine some people may rest the device on a table, or lap, and employ additional fingers.
This is a picture of the first version of the M8, which is the one I have. There’s a more recent version, but the buttons are in the same place.
I’m trying to port some of my experience with the official device to running the software on a Teensy 4.1, connected to my laptop with a USB cable, as I’ve mentioned here recently. The transposition gets a little confusing, in part because I’m inclined to use more than just my thumbs on my laptop, and also because the arrow keys are on the lower right side of my laptop keyboard but on the upper left side of the M8 Tracker. Much M8 use is muscle memory.
I’ll continue to track, so to speak, as I explore the M8 Tracker further.
Kronos in the Red (Hot)
Covering Dylan on the anniversary of the Trinity Test
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Kronos Quartet has released an EP to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the Trinity Test, the first nuclear detonation, back in July 1945. The EP, available on Bandcamp, has three tracks. The first is an extended version of Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall,” its vocal a composite of sections sung by numerous musicians, including Allison Russell, Iggy Pop, Stephin Merritt, Gustavo Santaolalla, Laurie Anderson, and Willie Nelson. There’s also an expanded ensemble, including Santaolalla on ronroco and Chris Geddes on Hammond organ, plus many other players, and a sizable chorus.
The second and third track take the concept further, and further still. A “drone” version eschews familiar instrumentation in favor of an extended sonic bed, above which spoken lyrics are more layered (even cut-up) than in the first take, spoken by Ocean Vuong, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Ringo Star, and many others. (I’d love if Kronos also put out the isolated instrumental of this one.)
Finally, there’s a spirited raga inspired by Kronos’ efforts, performed by Terry Riley with Sara Miyamoto, who teamed with Kronos previously on a re-imagining of Sun Ra’s music. The Riley/Miyamoto piece, “Komal Reshab Asavari,” came out the month prior to coincide with Riley’s 90th birthday, and then was included in this release.
All these were collaborations with Red Hot Org. Kronos now has just one of its founding members, violinist David Harrington, plus cellist Paul Wiancko, who joined two years ago, and violinist Gabriela Díaz and violist Ayane Kosaza, who joined last year.