Disquiet Junto Project 0713: Airwave Workout

The Assignment: Record exercise music for an imaginary broadcast.

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

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 0713: Airwave Workout
The Assignment: Record exercise music for an imaginary broadcast.

Many thanks to Junto member Atom Raiff for having proposed this very fun project.

Step 1: Radio exercises are a century-old type of broadcast programming. The concept is self-explanatory, but do read up if it’s unfamiliar. In Japan, they’re known as Radio Taisō.

Step 2: Record a piece of music with the intent of other people performing radio calisthenics to it. While there are various potential paces to radio exercise programs, keep your recording to 70 bpm.

Tasks Upon Completion:

Label: Include “disquiet0713” (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-0713-airwave-workout/

Discuss: Listen to and comment on the other tracks.

Additional Details:

Length: The length is up to you. How do you rate your stamina?

Deadline: Monday, September 1, 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 713th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Airwave Workout — The Assignment: Record exercise music for an imaginary broadcast — at https://disquiet.com/0713/.

When Is a Trio a Quintet?

Lubbe, Chisholm, and Szambelan on ConcertLab

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

When is a trio a quintet? When the violist doubles as a vocalist and the saxophonist keeps one hand at the ready to adjust the Indian bellows instrument called the shruti box. Those would be, respectively, Gareth Lubbe and Hayden Chisholm, complemented by cellist Susanne Szambelan for a slow, considered piece titled “Spectral Awakening.” This live performance is a production of the Netherlands-based ConcertLab, which specializes in audio-visual studio recordings of musicians. This mission is no small thing. The way the camera moves through the trio is part of the performance. What begins with Chisholm alone for well over a minute expands as Szambelan’s elbow and cello scroll come into view, just as her playing enters the piece. This experience culminates later, toward the end, when all three musicians are simultaneously eking out sympathetic drones, the viewer’s eye primed to itemize who is responsible for what sounds. This video is ConcertLab’s 97th recording on YouTube I’m excited to hear what they’ll have for the 100th.

White Noise with Narrative Intent

The sounds of Hellblade 2

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

I don’t know much about Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, though I know more than I had since it became available on the PlayStation 5 earlier this month, over a year after its initial release. The game is heavy on the Iceland / Norse environs, which is why this hour-long ambience of a “frozen settlement” makes for especially grueling — intended as a compliment — white noise. The intense gusts of wind and snow are realistic, indeed: background listening with narrative intent. The video shows the game’s main character, Senua, standing there grimacing as the fierce weather does its best to knock her over. The video was uploaded to on YouTube on the Atmospheric Gaming channel, which specializes in this sort of thing.

LJ Holoman, Live

At Mr. Tipple's, Saturday, August 23, 2025

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Went to Mr Tipple’s, a jazz club in San Francisco, again, a fantastic trio led by organist LJ Holoman. It was the final night of a two-week run of concerts featuring a Hammond B3 organ that, if I understand correctly, previously belonged to the defunct Club Deluxe on Haight Street. The owner of Tipple’s is now co-owner of the soon-to-be-reopened Club Deluxe. When Deluxe reopens, this organ will move back there. Holoman and band — Elijah Green on bass, Qyu Jackson on Drums — were tight as could be.