Disquiet – Page 673 – Listening to culture. Playing with audio. Sounding out technology. Composing in code.

Sound, After Rauschenberg

Scanner live during his Captiva Island residency

May 16, 2017May 17, 2017 / By Marc Weidenbaum

If you’ve listened to [the second episode of the Disquietude podcast](http://disquiet.com/podcast0002), then you’ve heard a piece by Scanner recorded during his residency at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation on Captiva Island in Florida. This video was also recorded during that residency, and it shows Scanner doing a performance that occurred at the close of the extended visit, when he and the rest of his cohort presented some of what they had been up to. In this case many of the source audio segments in Scanner’s piece were things he’d recorded in Florida during the residency. You can hear surf and birds in the mix, along with a singsong mix of waveforms. The use of found materials seems appropriate, given the Rauschenberg’s artistic legacy. Scanner describes it a bit at his [website](http://scannerdot.com/news/newsarchive/2017/news_may.html):

>Something I found surprising and fascinating about my stay was how it altered my listening habits. Whilst working on my new book I found that much of the music I would ordinarily listen to seemed wrong for the location. With nature in its rawest form all around, with osprey, vultures, dolphins, manatees, racoons, woodpeckers surrounding me, it was a challenge to find other music that might work.

The [first episode of the Disquietude podcast](http://disquiet.com/podcast0001) featured a piece recorded by another artist, Marcus Fischer, at the same residency, albeit a month or so earlier.

This is the latest video I’ve added to [my YouTube playlist of recommended live performances of ambient music](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAgCxRbmR1MJxihgJkCPEnehAPvjoF71-). Video originally posted at [youtube.com](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj6sz0Su68g). More from Scanner, aka Robin Rimbaud, at [scannerdot.com](http://scannerdot.com/).

Patti Kilroy’s Echoes and Premonitions

A track for layered voice

May 15, 2017 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Like a lot of solo musicians working with electronic equipment, Patti Kilroy manages to expand her palette by becoming multitudes. The layers of her voice in “Blahudio” accumulate with consummate subtlty. At times it can sound like just one person, except then instances of her intoning seem to occur with a peculiar sequential nature: you realize that you’re hearing something you expect to hear, the initiation of a riff, after or during that which would normally succeed it. Now, “riff” might be overstating it: these are modulations more than melodies, wisps that shifts up and down a slender scale. There are deep echoes and premonitions in the piece, and a harmonic intensity that produces shivers in the listener.

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/pattikilroy](https://soundcloud.com/pattikilroy/blahudio). More from Kilroy, who is based in New York, New York, and whose primary instrument is violin, at [pattikilroy.com](http://www.pattikilroy.com/).

Gamelan Hypnotism

A "Bell Study" by Dave Seidel

May 14, 2017 / By Marc Weidenbaum

This “Bell Study” by Dave Seidel, aka Mysterybear, uses light echoes of looped gamelan samples to create a quiet, peaceful sonic space that has a rhythmic component even as it suggests itself for reflection and contemplation. In theory, or at least based on the barest of descriptions, the combination of melodic percussive tones and a fairly rapid sequencing should gather the listener’s attention rather than what happens here, which is that it provides a kind of gentle lull. It’s music that you can focus on, but also music that encourages you to not focus. The result is hypnotic. The tones themselves have a similarly self-contradictory beauty, in part richly tonal and at the same time lightly sour, especially when the loops allow for beading and overlays that expose subtle harmonic dissonances.

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/mysterybear](https://soundcloud.com/mysterybear/bell-study-2017-04-17). More from Seidel, who is based in Peterborough, New Hampshire, at [mysterybear.net](http://mysterybear.net/music).

Sound Class: Extra Credit

Create a sound walk

May 11, 2017May 11, 2017 / By Marc Weidenbaum

I just gave an extra-credit assignment to the students in my sound class.

Maybe you wanna do it, too:

For my students the assignment is due by 10am on Wednesday, May 24, 2017, the last day of class.

Disquiet Junto Project 0280: 20170514

Celebrate the 70th birthday of a Junto member.

May 11, 2017May 13, 2017 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Each Thursday in the [Disquiet Junto group](https://disquiet.com/junto/), 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.

Tracks will be added to this playlist for the duration of the project:

This project’s deadline is 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, May 15, 2017. This project was posted in the early afternoon, California time, on Thursday, May 11, 2017.

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

Disquiet Junto Project 0280: 20170514

Celebrate the 70th birthday of a Junto member.

This week we celebrate the May 14, 2017, birthday of Junto member ferrie = differentieel, of the Netherlands.

Step 1: Junto member ferrie = differentieel, of the Netherlands, turns 70 years of age on May 14, 2017. In correspondence leading up to this project, ferrie shared an observation that the composer Frederic Rzewski had previously shared with him in a letter: “Using pre-existing material for building new things is a very old practice.”

Step 2: In ferrie’s honor, please do something that takes the opposite approach of Rzewski’s letter. In other words, please use new musical things to recreate some old musical thing.

Five More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: If you hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to include the project tag “disquiet0280” (no spaces) in the name of your track. If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to my locating the tracks and creating a playlist of them.

Step 2: Upload your track. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your track.

Step 3: In the following discussion thread at llllllll.co please consider posting your track:

http://llllllll.co/t/celebrate-a-junto-members-70th-birthday-disquiet-junto-project-0280/

Step 4: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.

Step 5: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Deadline: This project’s deadline is 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, May 15, 2017. This project was posted in the early afternoon, California time, on Thursday, May 11, 2017.

Length: The length is entirely up to the participant.

Title/Tag: When posting your track, please include “disquiet0280” in the title of the track, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.

Upload: When participating in this project, post one finished track with the project tag, and 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 preferable that your track is set as downloadable, and that it allows for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution).

Linking: When posting the track online, please be sure to include this information:

More on this 280th weekly Disquiet Junto project — “20170514: Celebrate the 70th birthday of a Junto member” — at:

https://disquiet.com/0280/