Daniel Lanois, Back in the Ambience

A preview track, "Heavy Sun," from the forthcoming Goodbye to Language

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

The good news isn’t simply that there’s a new Daniel Lanois album coming out, *Goodbye to Language*, due September 9 on Anti- Records. The good news is that it’s the Daniel Lanois album that many Daniel Lanois admirers have long been waiting for, one that reflects his early production work with Brian Eno (notably *On Land* and *Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks*), and nuances heard later as grace notes and sympathetic background ambience amid the productions he developed for Michael Brook, Jon Hassell, U2, and Bob Dylan, among others, not to mention his own film scores, such as the lilting *Sling Blade* music.

Lanois’ previous release, *Flesh and Machine* (2014) had many fine moments of composed quietude, like the wispy warpy opening of “Space Love” and the deeply filtered pedal steel guitar of “Aquatic,” but it was also a rangy listen, from the hard psychedelic dub rock of “The End” to the nostalgic pop of “My First Love.” In contrast, *Goodbye to Language* — which I’ve been enjoying an advance copy of, and will write more about when it’s released — is a self-contained whole, consistent but certainly far from samey. And the consistency is deep in the ambient zone, a mix of pedal steel and rich effects, a swampy murk full of echoes and glitches, warm swells and gentle atmopsheres.

Again, more on *Goodbye to Language* when it’s finally out. For now we can enjoy “Heavy Sun,” which has been [up on the SoundCloud account of the Anti- label](https://soundcloud.com/antirecords/daniel-lanois-heavy-sun-feat-rocco-deluca) for a few days. With leisurely loops that twist back on themselves and the surfacing glimmers of guitar — either his own pedal steel or the lap steel of guest Rocco DeLuca — the track is among the album’s finest.

Disquiet Junto 0236: Hello Jun(t)o

The Assignment: Say hi to the Juno Spacecraft by embedding Morse code in an original composition.

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Screen Shot 2016-07-07 at 10.38.56 AM

Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto group on [SoundCloud.com](https://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/) and at [disquiet.com/junto](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. 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 was posted in the late morning, California time, on Thursday, July 7, 2016, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, July 11, 2016.

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 0236: Hello Jun(t)o

The Assignment: Say hi to the Juno Spacecraft by embedding Morse code in an original composition.

In this project we’re going to send a friendly signal to the NASA probe, the Juno spacecraft, that just entered orbit around Jupiter. Well, we’re going to compose such signals. Sending them is a separate endeavor. We’re going to build on the “Say ‘Hi’ to Juno” endeavor, which had thousands of ham operators sending a message to Juno during its five-year voyage. The “Say ‘Hi’ to Juno” message was Morse code for “Hi” — that is, four dots followed by two dots (…. ..).

Step 1: Listen to the Morse code for “hi” (four dots followed by two dots) on repeat for a short time.

Step 2: Create an original musical composition that in one or more ways interpolates that Morse code.

Step 3: Upload your completed track to the Disquiet Junto group on SoundCloud.

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 was posted in the late morning, California time, on Thursday, July 7, 2016, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, July 11, 2016.

Length: The length is up to you, though around one minutes seems about right.

Upload: Please when posting your track on SoundCloud, only upload one track for this project, 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.

Title/Tag: When adding your track to the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com, please in the title to your track include the term “disquiet0236.”Also use “disquiet0236”as a tag for your track.

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, please be sure to include this information:

More on this 236th weekly Disquiet Junto project — “Say hi to the Juno Spacecraft by embedding Morse code in an original composition”— at:

https://disquiet.com/0236/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place on a Slack (send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for inclusion) and at this URL:

https://disquiet.com/forums/

More on the Juno Spacecraft technology at:

http://spaceflight101.com/juno/spacecraft-information/

More on the “Say ‘Hi’ to Juno” ham operator project here:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/details.php?id=1263

Image associated with this project courtesy of NASA.

The Birds of Winter

Steve Ashby captures a moment by refashioning field recordings

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

There’s much to recommend *Winter Birds*, the new album from Steve Ashby. It came out about a month ago, long after winter had faded, but it draws you into that climate with ease. Or more to the point, with unease. Industrial ambience mixes with birdsong and other elemental noises to conjure up a dense, anxious sonic space. The highlight may be the track “Window,” which manages to appear still and yet have an intense, pulse-quickening momentum hidden in its seeming stasis.

Ashby explains the work’s origin in a liner note:

>If you’ve ever spent a winter in Virginia, you know the weather can be a bit topsy-turvy. Snow storms one day, 70 degrees and sunny the next. Not only does it play tricks with our human body chemistry, but the wildlife outside our doors as well.
>
>The impetus for this project took place in the winter of 2015, as I heard birds singing in the middle of a snowstorm. Pretty heavy winds, snow, sleet, and the songs of birds. The backbone of this work hinges on field recording made during that winter. Each piece builds upon these field recordings by exploring the resonant frequencies embedded within to present their musical qualities in a minimalist soundscape.

Field recordings can capture the documentarian reality of a moment. However, it can take post-production work to fully capture the emotional experience of that same moment. The field recording may trigger a memory in someone who was there when the recording was made, but that sound at its original time in its original place was filtered through the ears, the memory, the life of the person who first heard it. It can be the composer’s role to then refashion the sounds in a manner that brings experience to bear on the source audio. That’s what Ashby set out to do on *Winter Birds*, and the roiling, ecstatic drones and found elements that result are a testament both to the season and to his talent. The sound is also, no doubt, a testament to the efforts of Taylor Deupree, who is credited with having mastered the recording in all its widescreen-headphone glory.

Album originally posted at [ashbysounds.bandcamp.com](https://ashbysounds.bandcamp.com/album/winter-birds). More from Steve Ashby, who is based in Richmond, Virginia, at [ashbysounds.org](https://ashbysounds.org/).

What Sound Looks Like

An ongoing series cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Doorbells are a sign of welcome. They adorn an entrance and serve as an introduction. They make an address’ early if not first impression, and inform the inhabitant of the visitor’s own personality as well. You can learn something about someone by the way they ring a doorbell. Do they hold it for a long time? Do they let go too quickly? Do they impatiently ring a second time? Do they pause for awhile after their feet announce their arrival on the doorstep? Doorbells may be a sign of welcome, but this setting places the ringers so far from the door that they’re almost on the neighbor’s property. The wires extend far from the bells before entering the wall and venturing inside the home. Then there’s that patch of black tape. It’s as though there had once been a third bell, but it’s gone missing. The sign of welcome has, in fact, run away. Perhaps we should, too.

An ongoing series cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt.

Unleash Your Personal Drones

A tape release from Austin, Texas—based Amulets – motivated by motivational tapes.

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Part of the beauty of cassette releases is when they tap into the design energy — the tactile experience, the cultural legacy — of the object itself. As Ted Laderas [wrote to the New York Times late last year](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/31/opinion/appreciating-the-virtues-of-the-maligned-cassette.html) in a letter to the editor, the cassette continues to offer something beyond mere nostalgia: “The cost of manufacturing vinyl and CDs is prohibitive for musicians who sell small numbers of albums. While not ideal, tape is easy to manufacture and easy to personalize, and provides small-time musicians with a viable way of sharing our music that our fans are willing to buy.”

chart-of-the-day-music-industry-1973-2009-feb-2011

Sure, the tape cassette was once a dominant pop-music medium, and yes it has long since faded from mainstream commercial employment, but in addition the pop music market it was the foundation of late-night infomercials that promised a fast-forward education in business, real estate, language — and self-knowledge. The Austin, Texas”“based Amulets (aka Randall Taylor) feeds on this association with his new album, *Personal Power*. Its seven tracks, with titles like “Self-Sabotage” and “The Power of Focus,” are built from the source audio of motivational tapes, specifically those of Tony Robbins, the audio of Amulets replacing the original text spoken by Tobbins. *Personal Power* was released on June 28, just a few days after participants in one of Robbins’ “firewalks” were reportedly treated for [second- and third-degree burns](http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/dozens-treated-burns-after-firewalk-exercise-tony-robbins-event-n598446).

Short bursts of speaking flesh out some of the tracks, referring to the side of the tape the listener is on, and welcoming the audience to the realm of self-actualization. The music itself is deeply droning, occasionally giving hints of guitar and loops, and generally enjoying the warpy loveliness of tape-based composition. There’s a certain cultural bleed at work here, a certain irony, in that for all his “business” aura, Robbins is a creature of what’s often called the “new age” movement. The music of the new-age movement, in turn, overlaps with and bears certain aesthetic and structural parallels with exactly the sort of music that Amulets is up to, namely a meditative music that can serve as background for activities and focus on introspection.

tonyrobbins2

Amulets’ creative repurposing of the source material isn’t restricted to the sound and the tape cassettes. Even the “notes/study guide,” as he described them, are part of the project. No doubt the limited edition, a total of 20, was determined by the availability of the originals. If you miss out on the physical cassettes, the audio will still be available for download.

tonyrobbins1

Album originally posted at [amulets.bandcamp.com](https://amulets.bandcamp.com/album/personal-power). More from Amulets at [amuletsmusic.com](http://www.amuletsmusic.com/). (Chart via [businessinsider.com](http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-music-industry-sales-2011-2?utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Silicon+Alley+Insider+Chart+Of+The+Day&utm_campaign=SAI_COTD_021611).)