Disquiet Junto Project 0135: Sound of Summer

Record the sonic equivalent of air conditioning.

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

20140731-airc

Each Thursday at [the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com](https://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-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](https://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/).

This assignment was made in the early evening, California time, on Thursday, July 31, with 11:59pm on the following Monday, August 4, 2014, as the deadline.

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 0135: Sound of Summer

Record the sonic equivalent of air conditioning.

This project is as follows. You are being asked to try to record one minute of sound that would suggest to the listener the pleasing experience of air conditioning — of the air being cooled on a hot summer day.

Deadline: Monday, August 4, 2014, at 11:59pm wherever you are.

Length: The length of your finished work should be approximately one minute.

Information: Please when posting your track on SoundCloud, 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. Also note the segment of the video you worked on.

Title/Tag: When adding your track to the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com, please include the term “disquiet0135-soundofsummer” in the title of your track, and 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, and note the segment of time you composed for:

More on this 135th Disquiet Junto project — “Record the sonic equivalent of air conditioning”— at:

Disquiet Junto Project 0135: Sound of Summer

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

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

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

https://disquiet.com/forums

Photo associated with this track by Egi Primayogha via a Creative Commons license:

Air Conditioner 2

Time in the Library with Mark Rushton

An extended Disquiet Junto piece

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

There are many mysteries to the Internet, among them why Mark Rushton has a total of just 173 followers at the moment on his [SoundCloud account](https://soundcloud.com/markrushtoncom). He’s an active and frequent participant in ambient music online, with a deep archive at [markrushton.bandcamp.com](http://markrushton.bandcamp.com/) and a must-subscribe [podcast](http://markrushton.com/rss.xml), just to note a few of his outposts. In any case, among his most recent treats is an extended version of an earlier Disquiet Junto entry. Back in June he was among the members to [record the sound of their local library and turn it into music](https://disquiet.com/2014/06/05/disquiet0127-libraryshhh/). The [first take](https://soundcloud.com/markrushtoncom/service-desk-disquiet0127-libraryshhh) was two minutes, which he found wanting, and so he has extended it by nearly three times. He talks a bit about the source audio in [the original post](https://soundcloud.com/markrushtoncom/service-desk-disquiet0127-libraryshhh):

>I decided I would try to get a recording by checking out a couple of books. There were two people staffing the Service Desk, so there was a chance for additional sounds in the recording. I figured I could easily get a minute’s worth of recording, and I did. The microphone was peeking out of my shirt’s pocket in a rather unobtrusive way. I tried to be quiet and be careful with my breathing as the mic was pointing upwards at my nose.
>
>Since the elevator exit is right around the corner from the Service Desk, I left that sound in. I thought that was an interesting start. Surely if you work the Service Desk you have to hear it all the time.

The [extended version](https://soundcloud.com/markrushtoncom/service-desk-exit) takes even more time to locate the musicality in those source elements and create a lithe, gently percussive, quotidian fantasia from them.

Track originally posted for free download at [soundcloud.com/markrushtoncom](https://soundcloud.com/markrushtoncom/service-desk-exit). More from Iowa City”“based Mark Rushton at [markrushton.com](http://markrushton.com).