Disquiet – Page 773 – Listening to culture. Playing with audio. Sounding out technology. Composing in code.

Disquiet Junto Project 0203: Beat Basis

Add something to a rhythm track titled "It."

November 19, 2015November 19, 2015 / By Marc Weidenbaum

20151119-nameconstant

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.

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

This assignment was made in the early afternoon, California time, on Thursday, November 19, 2015, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, November 23, 2015.

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 0203: Beat Basis

Add something to a rhythm track titled “It.”

Step 1: Listen to and download the track “It” by Name Constant:

[https://soundcloud.com/random-coil/it-1](https://soundcloud.com/random-coil/it-1)

Step 2: When posting the track, Name Constant accompanied it with this invitation: “additions welcome, should anyone be inspired by emptyness.” Please create a new track with the source audio as the foundation. (Do not change the source audio, though you can also use it as raw material for whatever you choose to add.)

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

Step 4: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Deadline: This assignment was made in the early afternoon, California time, on Thursday, November 19, 2015, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, November 23, 2015.

Length: The length is up to you. The original is just under six minutes, though you needn’t create something that long.

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 “disquiet0203-beatbasis.”Also use “disquiet0203-beatbasis”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 203rd weekly Disquiet Junto project (“Add something to a rhythm track titled ‘It'”) at:

[https://disquiet.com/2015/11/19/disquiet0203-beatbasis/](https://disquiet.com/2015/11/19/disquiet0203-beatbasis/)

Monochrome Music for Symphony Orchestra

"Textile" by Juste Janulyte of Lithuania

November 18, 2015September 22, 2020 / By Marc Weidenbaum

20151118-janulyte

The spare, grey-toned home page of Juste Janulyte describes her simply as “composer of monochrome music.” Her compositions bear that out. Monochrome, however, does not mean simplistic. Where colors fail, textures prevail. Hence her “Textile for symphony orchestra,” which over the course of seven and a half minutes grows from slender layers of symphonic tonal material. Strings and horns eke out small phrases. As time passes, the meager parts grow, and the orchestra summons a gargantuan swell, and yet “Textile” never gains momentum, only density. True to the work’s title, these slivers of sound are like threads in a piece of fabric that gets larger and larger as the piece progresses.

In a brief description of the piece, she writes:

>Textile (2006-2008) for orchestra is a single gesture, one metamorphosis of register, timbre and dynamic. There are no sound attacks used in the score; the only gesture which reflects also the macro form of the piece is the sound emerging and submerging into the silence. The layers of dense texture are based on this gesture, thus evoking an image of underwater pulsations. Even though “Textile” is written for different instruments, the author, who usually writes for the ensemble of the same timbres, is is trying to achieve the “monochrome” aestetics of the sound.

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/juste-janulyte](https://soundcloud.com/juste-janulyte). More from Janulyte, who is Lithuanian, at [janulyte.info](http://www.janulyte.info/).

A Memory of a Night Out

"Fear Biz" by Italy-based IQbit (aka Claudio Cuciotti)

November 17, 2015November 17, 2015 / By Marc Weidenbaum

It’s not uncommon to come upon a description of culture that is said to take apart the very thing it seems to be a part of: gallery exhibits that critique the art world, pop music that is poking holes into pop music, poetry that undermines poetry. Often the supposed critique is so difficult to distinguish from that which it is commenting on that it becomes a part of the whole. The revolution is televised, and then syndicated. Now, “Fear Biz” by IQbit makes no immediate claims for its purpose. The track, as posted on the Italy-based IQbit’s SoundCloud account, is accompanied just by one bit of description: “Any Resemblance to Real Persons or Actual Facts is Not Coincidental.” The comment may just be a toss-away joke, or it may be a direct reference to the reality that surfaces in “Fear Biz,” courtesy of sirens and street noise. No matter. The heart of the track is a sequence of club-like emanations: synth pads, strobing percussion, throbby beats, echoing voices, dramatic modulations. A few of them on repeat for six minutes would be a minimal brand of dance music. Instead, it’s a story of sorts, a suite of transitions, three-and-a-half minutes of moments, more like a memory of a night out than the score to a night out. I’ve written [once previously](https://disquiet.com/2011/11/21/iqbit-claudio-curciotti/) about IQbit’s music, back in November 2011. The subject then was a remix he’d done that emphasized the ecstatic opening moments of minimal techno over the rote beats that often follow.

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/iqbit](https://soundcloud.com/iqbit/fear-biz). There’s a lot more of music from IQbit — aka Claudio Curciotti — at [brainstormlab.org](http://www.brainstormlab.org/). He makes his home at [claudiocurciotti.com](http://claudiocurciotti.com/).

The Industrial Drone

A live recording of Offret (John Spell and Matthew Swiezynski)

November 16, 2015 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Offret is the duo John Spell and Matthew Swiezynski, and “Ester et Iselin” is their nearly 13 minutes of reckoning with mechanical drones. It’s a track of deep tonal loveliness that masks an underlying industrial intent. Beneath the hovering warmth of a dark, low-register moan is an extensive array of factory noise: machine tools, overworked engines, metal shards, acetylene torches. Of course, none of that is actual source audio, necessarily, just associative comparisons of the sounds. The track is a live recording, posted by the Invisible Birds label, made on September 16, 2015.

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/invisible-birds](https://soundcloud.com/invisible-birds/offret-ester-et-iselin). More from Spell, Swiezynsky, and Invisible Birds at [invisiblebirds.org](http://invisiblebirds.org/). Track found thanks to a repost by [soundcloud.com/experimedia](https://soundcloud.com/experimedia).

“White Noise Beat”

And two reworkings

November 14, 2015August 8, 2018 / By Marc Weidenbaum

20151114-noise

I’ve wanted to get a white-noise module for awhile, and finally added one to my setup. This module has 7 different noise sources, including white, red, grey, and blue. Each is being triggered by a different sequence. They’re all in sync, though one is slightly delayed, which lends a tiny bit of character to the cadence, I think. The only reason I skipped pink is because I don’t have any pink cables right now, and the color-coded cables helped me keep track of things.

You can blame this on someone who’s listened to too many Chain Reaction releases, too much Consolidated, and too many scores to Michael Mann films.

Slightly more technical information: The sequences are all in CV Toolkit (a piece of software running on my laptop), and they’re getting to my modular synthesizer via an Expert Sleepers ES-3 module. The noise-source module is the Quantum Rainbow 2. The white, red, and grey sources are all receiving sequences directly from the software. The blue source is getting a slight trigger delay (and a slightly extended length to the trigger), thanks to the Doepfer A-162. The whole thing is being mixed in an ADDAC 802 VCA Quintet, and out through a Pittsburgh Outs, through a Focusrite Scarlett 2i4. It was recorded in Audacity.

Then Rupert Lally ran with it, writing:

>Marc (disquiet)referenced Micheal Mann’s films in his track description, so I decided to “take that ball and run with it”, overdubbing more synths, percussion, and electric lap steel on top of his original track.

And, in turn, Yellow Salamd’r took a go, writing:

>I heard Marc’s track … and thought “Nice! I like whitenoise, I should mix that into something”, then I hear Rupert’s remix, and I think “Wow, it’s been done, and damn nice too!”, but I couldn’t “not” mess with it somehow, so here is my remix of the remix :),,,, I took Rupert’s mix, reversed it and slowed it down, and then I kept cycling Marc’s slowed down track overtop of Rupert’s mix.

Original posted at [soundcloud.com/disquiet](https://soundcloud.com/disquiet/white-noise-beat
). Lally’s “White Noise Industry” at [soundcloud.com/rupertlally](https://soundcloud.com/rupertlally/rupert-lally-marc-weidenbaum-white-noise-industry). Slamand’r’s at [soundcloud.com/user-440651706](https://soundcloud.com/user-440651706/marc-weidenbaumrupert-lallyyellow-salamandr-white-noise-industry-beat-rmx-rmx).