Disquiet – Page 776 – Listening to culture. Playing with audio. Sounding out technology. Composing in code.

The Pleasure of a Systemic Shock

A glitch track by Lord of Overstock

November 6, 2015 / By Marc Weidenbaum

It’s a pleasure to listen to this glitch piece by Lord of Overstock, “HHstairsC,” as it slowly accumulates mass, as it gingerly locates a central pulse. The piece ends where it begins, with a series of digital shudders and twitchy breaks. In between there is a rattling, distant percussion, and a series of off-kilter rhythmic slaps. The core of the piece is a sequence of minor systemic shocks that begin as a semblance of errors and, true to glitch, become a form of purpose unto itself.

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/lordofoverstock](https://soundcloud.com/lordofoverstock/hhstairsc). More from Lord of Overstock, aka Matthew Austin of Germantown, Maryland, at [twitter.com/lordofoverstock](https://twitter.com/lordofoverstock).

Disquiet Junto Project 0201: Real Future

Encapsulate an album for efficient yet meaningful consumption.

November 5, 2015November 6, 2015 / By Marc Weidenbaum

20151105-realfuture

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 these playlists for the duration of the project.

This is all the music derived from the Montano album:

This is all the music derived from the Salmo album:

And this is the full project:

This assignment was made in the evening, California time, on Thursday, November 5, 2015, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, November 9, 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 0201: Real Future

Encapsulate an album for efficient yet meaningful consumption.

This week’s project is a special collaboration with Real Future, as part of the Real Future Fair being held in San Francisco on November 6 and 7. On the evening of the 7th I’ll be presenting some of this project’s audio during the Fair’s Real Future of Sound segment, and talking about the Junto with Alexis Madrigal, the Editor-in-Chief of Fusion. Madrigal and Fusion’s Cara Rose DeFabio participated in the development of this week’s project.

Step 1: First, ask yourself this question: As the population on Earth increases, and more and more people are creating art, how will technology and our brains collaborate to process all that creative information. In 2015 it’s hard enough to keep track of all the TV shows, albums, novels, and video games. What about in 2055?

Step 2: Choose one of these two albums to be your source material and download it:

This self-titled ambient pop album by the New Zealand act Montano:
[https://montano.bandcamp.com/album/montano](https://montano.bandcamp.com/album/montano)

This self-titled album by the French rock band Salmo:
[http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Salmo/Salmo/](http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Salmo/Salmo/)

Step 3: Consider an approach to compress the selected album for … let’s call it “efficient yet meaningful” consumption. Already today supercuts and superfuses condense material through quick sequences and dense simultaneity. Come up with an approach to similarly compressing a full-length album. You might consider the “overture” employed in project 0198, but you’ll likely come up with your own approach. And keep in mind that the end result should be … let’s call it “enjoyable.”

Step 4: Apply the result of Step 3 to the album you downloaded in Step 2.

Step 5: Upload your completed track to the Disquiet Junto group on SoundCloud.

Step 6: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Deadline: This assignment was made in the evening, California time, on Thursday, November 5, 2015, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, November 9, 2015.

Length: The length of your finished work should be as long as you see fit.

Upload: Please when posting your track on SoundCloud, only upload one track for this assignment, 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 include the term “disquiet0201-realfuture”in the title of your track, and as a tag for your track.

Download: Due to the Creative Commons nature of the source material, you should use the following license for your work:

[http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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

More on this 201st weekly Disquiet Junto project (“Encapsulate an album for efficient yet meaningful consumption”) at:

[https://disquiet.com/2015/11/05/disquiet0201-realfuture/](https://disquiet.com/2015/11/05/disquiet0201-realfuture/)

This project was developed for the November 2015 Real Future Fair in San Francisco at the encouragement of and with the participation of Alexis Madrigal and Cara Rose DeFabio:

[http://realfuturefair.com/](http://realfuturefair.com/)

The Next 33 1/3 Books

Wendy Carlos, Pharcyde, Japan, and Angelo Badalamenti are in the mix

November 4, 2015November 4, 2015 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Back on [September 30](https://disquiet.com/2015/09/30/this-week-in-sound/), when the 33 1/3 series posted the “shortlist” of potential titles, the list had been whittled down by the publisher, Bloomsbury, to 83 prospective titles from the proposed 605. I [listed](https://disquiet.com/2015/09/30/this-week-in-sound/), at the time, the 19 I was especially hopeful for, based on their subject matter. Today 33 1/3 announced the 16 that had been commissioned, and 6 of the ones I was hopeful for made the cut:

*The Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde* — Pharcyde
*Homogenic* — Björk
*Switched-On Bach* — Wendy Carlos
*Tin Drum* — Japan
*Twin Peaks* OST — Angelo Badalamenti
*Uptown Saturday Night* — Camp Lo

And on top of those, there are four more I’m especially interested in that I hadn’t noticed when the shortlist was posted: Siouxsie and the Banshees’ *Peepshow*, Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s *Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version*, Lou Reed’s *Transformer*, and Fugazi’s *In on the Kill Taker*, the latter especially because it’s by Joe Gross, who is sure to do a great job.

Congrats to all the new authors. I’m excited that you’re keeping strong the series that published my book on Aphex Twin’s *Selected Ambient Works Volume II*. I’m happy to see so many albums on the 33 1/3 list I want to read about. And I’m happy, for the breadth and life of the 33 1/3 series, to see plenty of LPs I don’t particularly want to read about.

Read the full list at [333sound.com](http://333sound.com/2015/11/04/open-call-2015-results-the-16-new-books-in-the-33-13-series/).

Aphex Twin Reworks “Avril 14th”

A melty, dubby new take from user18081971

November 2, 2015 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Aphex Twin added an especially welcome piece to his waxing and waning, vaguely quasi-semi-anonymous SoundCloud account, user18081971, today: a reworking of one of his most popular pieces, “Avril 14th,” which has spawned [a Kanye West sample](http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/aug/26/aphex-twin-kanye-west-avril-14th-sample-blame-game), several [film-soundtrack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Antoinette_(soundtrack)) appearances, and [a funny April Fools joke](https://disquiet.com/2014/04/10/joyrex-interview-caustic-window-watmm-aphex-twin/). This version, “avril altdelay,” is a hint of the melody subsumed in deep echoes, the piano keys a little stunted, like it’s an old bar-room upright that’s seen too many spilled beers and too few visits from a professional tuner. The melody is broken up by waves of repetition as the piece refracts into the distance. So remote is the original that this reworking brings to mind some of Aphex Twin’s takes of other musicians’ records, back at a time when, in response to a remix request, he’d return something with barely a passing resemblance to the source material. That isn’t the case here. For one thing, there’s no sonic violence intended, just deviation and derivation. For another, lovers of the original will enjoy re-experiencing it as a loose collection of hints and indications.

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/user18081971](https://soundcloud.com/user18081971/avril-altdelay).

Poll: Boolean Birthday

I promise not to do too many of these polls

November 2, 2015 / By Marc Weidenbaum

Is today, November 2, 2015, the 200th birthday of George Boole?

— Marc Weidenbaum (@disquiet) November 2, 2015