Disquiet Junto Project 0065: Piano Overlay

The Assignment: Compose music atop a randomly assigned segment of a pre-existing track by Jared Brickman.

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

20130328-brickman

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

Every Disquiet Junto project is about restraint, and yet every Disquiet Junto project is also about risk. Specifically, it’s about musicians taking the risk of sharing work that might not fit their overall impression of their own musical approach, and it’s about musicians taking the risk of sharing work that might not feel complete, given the nature of the given assignment and of the tight deadline. But the Junto is a risk from a broader vantage, too; in my role as administer of the group, I occasionally take risks by challenging my philosophical sense of the group’s defining characteristics. I’ve been hesitant, for example, to introduce a project that might in any way give the potential participant concern based on their work having some role beyond its own completion. This has been because, in the end, the Disquiet Junto is about being an engine to get people to make music and to challenge themselves, and one way to accomplish that is to limit any opportunities for them second-guessing themselves. But as the Junto has grown, the nature of the collaborative effort inherent in it has become more clear to me, and I’ve come to realize that the collaborative goal of a project like this week’s — in which I will likely combine all the finished pieces into one longer piece — might serve as a form of encouragement unto itself. In any case, like every Disquiet Junto project, this week’s is an experiment.

Major thanks to Ken Mistove (of [kenzak.com](http://kenzak.com)), a frequent Junto participant, for coding the browser-based tool that assigns segments of the source track for this week’s project. We’ll be employing a variation on his tool again in the near future.

This assignment was made in the mid-afternoon, California time, on Thursday, March 28, with 11:59pm on the following Monday, April 1, 2013, as the deadline. (Given that the deadline occurs on April Fools’ Day, I will go the extra step of stating that this event has nothing to do with April Fools’ Day.)

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 0065: Piano Overlay
>
>This week’s project’s theme is asynchronous collaboration — in other words, making things together separately. We will make new compositions based on short, discrete, randomly assigned segments of a single, 60-minute piano composition. Collectively these will form a longer, collaborative suite.
>
>These are the steps:
>
>Step 1: You will be making a piece of music by adding new sounds to a pre-existing track. You can download that pre-existing track, an original piano composition by Jared Brickman, here:
>
>https://soundcloud.com/one\_hello\_world/every-day-were-dying-and-outer
>
>Step 2: When you go to the following URL, at kenzak.com, you will be assigned, immediately, a specific section of the longer Brickman piece. This kenzak.com URL will randomly pull up two pieces of information. The first piece of information is the start point of your segment. The second is the length of your segment (which will be between 1 and 4 minutes):
>
>http://kenzak.com/disquiet/disquiet0065-pianoverlay.html
>
>One note: There will be overlap between assigned pieces. This was a conscious decision, informed by the overall theme of overlaying, which is explained further in step 4, below.
>
>Step 3: Extract your assigned segment from the pre-existing track.
>
>Step 4: Compose a new piece of music by adding elements to the pre-existing track. You can add anything you choose, with the exception of voice. Limit yourself to two additional elements. The original track should be audible throughout your new composition.
>
>Deadline: Monday, April 1, 2013, at 11:59pm wherever you are.
>
>Length: Your finished work should be the length determined in step 2 above.
>
>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.
>
>Title/Tag: The title of your track should begin with its start point. Also include the term “disquiet0065-pianoverlay”in the title of your track, and as a tag for your track. Your track might be titled “05:35 My Song (disquiet0065-pianoverlay)” or “34:30 Dueling Keyboards (disquiet0065-pianoverlay)” — just to provide two examples.
>
>Download: Please set your track in a manner that allows for attributed, commerce-free remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution). I’d like to potentially combine all the pieces into a single composition, and this license would allow me to do so easily.
>
>Linking: When posting the track, be sure to include this information:
>
>More on this 65th Disquiet Junto project at:
>
>https://disquiet.com/2013/03/28/disquiet0065-pianoverlay/
>
>More on the source composition by Jared Brickman at:
>
>https://soundcloud.com/one\_hello\_world/every-day-were-dying-and-outer
>
>The browser-based tool that segmented the Brickman track for this project was coded by Disquiet Junto member Ken Mistove, more from whom at:
>
>http://kenzak.com/
>
>More details on the Disquiet Junto at:
>
>http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Indian Storm (MP3)

Field recording by a fellow traveler of Chris Watson

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

20130327-Corbett Map

Into each field recording artist’s portfolio, a little rain must fall. In the case of the latest podcast from the Touch Radio series, the artist in question is **R Martin Seddon**, who participated in an educational trip to India with Chris Watson, as organized by the Wildeye, an international school of wildlife film-making. Watson is a famed audio ecologist and Touch reecording artist. Sneddon has posted an opportunistic portrait of a nature reserve, captured in the middle of a storm [MP3](http://www.touchshop.org/touchradio/Radio92.mp3). The detail is spectacular.

[audio:http://www.touchshop.org/touchradio/Radio92.mp3|titles=”Indian Storm”|artists=R Martin Seddon]

As Sneddon describes it, in part:

>[W]e settled down to the sound of distant thunder. Our hosts advised that we took shelter before the rain started and soon after the short walk to my hut the first spots were falling. Recording equipment was hurriedly set up under the veranda and my hut-mate and I settled down on deck-chairs. After only a very short wait, with skipper frogs calling from the nearby pond, the rain started. Very soon the only sound was of rain and distant thunder and everyone, even the monitor lizard that lived in the thatch of our roof, stayed put until the storm passed.

Over at his website, at [rmartinseddon.co.uk](http://www.rmartinseddon.co.uk/RMS3/Audio.html), there is a host of of other audio recordings he has made, all streaming. These include the elevator at the Imperial War Museum, a sonic portrait of Venice, and a wonderful document of a wire fence, captured with contact microphones.

Track originally posted for free download at [touchradio.org](http://www.touchradio.org.uk/touch_radio_92_r_martin_seddon.html). More from Seddon at [rmartinseddon.co.uk](http://www.rmartinseddon.co.uk/RMS3/Home.html). More on the Wildeye program, whose other tutors/staff include Jez riley French and Piers Warren, at [wildeye.co.uk](http://www.wildeye.co.uk/sound.html). Map image via [indianwildlife.com](http://www.indianwildlife.com/tc-location.htm).

White Noise or Techno or Both (MP3)

Nearly half an hour of glitch and static from Portugal-based João Ricardo

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

20130326-ocp

At about 13 minutes in — that is, 13 minutes into its nearly 25-minute running length — the track glitches out like a restaurant CD player caught in a digital groove, the skipping a fast-motion mantra, a bit of pointillism psychedelia. That the track, “Lobe,” needs to achieve near stasis for the glitch to truly overwhelm says much about how gentle and effective it is up to that point, because it is constantly reconsidering its direction, fading out before veering left, the slightest bit of percussive detail suddenly emerging as the cornerstone of the metric approach, the whole notion of a downbeat seemingly up for grabs at all points. Right from the opening, its pneumatic percussives like tiny little steam-release valves, the track teases how much it is white noise disguised as techno, and how much it is techno disguised as white noise. The rhythm emerges slowly, like the head of a particularly anxious tortoise from its shell. At its best moments, and there are many, it is like a pause tape made entirely of static.

Track posted by **João Ricardo**, of Porto, Portugal, under the **Lopa** pseudonym at a “name your price” rate at [opcabpol.bandcamp.com](http://opcabpol.bandcamp.com/album/lobe). More from Ricardo at [joaoricardo.org](http://joaoricardo.org/) and [twitter.com/ocp_pt_vu](https://twitter.com/ocp_pt_vu).

Cues: Jozef Van Wissem Per Rosanne Cash, Mike Patton Scores Derek Cianfrance

Plus: Celluloid heroes, Hearts of Space, Warren Ellis, more

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

â–¼ Part two of the two-part history of Celluloid Records is now streaming online, via [strut-records.com](http://www.strut-records.com/content/watch-part-two-our-celluloid-records-documentary-series):

â–¼ **Mike Patton**’s score to *The Place Beyond the Pines* is streaming in full at [pitchfork.com](http://pitchfork.com/advance/53-the-place-between-the-pines/). The film stars **Ryan Gosling**, **Eva Mendes**, and **Bradley Cooper**, and was directed by **Derek Cianfrance** (*Blue Valentine*). There’s also an [interview](http://pitchfork.com/features/interviews/9089-mike-pattonderek-cianfrance/) a the site. In addition to 12 original cues from Patton, the film features by **Arvo Pärt** and **Ennio Morricone**, among others.

â–¼ The soft launch of music critic **Michael Azzerad**’s new website, The Talkhouse (at [thetalkhouse.com](http://thetalkhouse.com)), included [**Laurie Anderson** on **Animal Collective**](http://thetalkhouse.com/reviews/view/laurie-anderson-animal-collective) and [**Vijay Iyer** on **Flying Lotus**](http://thetalkhouse.com/reviews/view/vijay-iyer-flying-lotus). **Rosanne Cash** describes **Jim Jarmusch** and **Jozef Van Wissem**’s *The Mystery of Heaven* as sounding “like Ennio Morricone and Brian Eno got in a fight while writing the music for a spaghetti western.” According to press materials, “The Talkhouse will feature one piece on one album written by one musician each day, five days a week. On weekends, the site will feature a long-form music feature piece written by artists across many genres: film, comedy, literature, etc.” Azerrad is the author of *Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991* and *Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana*. The site is still listed as being in beta.

â–¼ In his occasional [email newsletter](http://warrenellis.createsend1.com/t/ViewEmail/r/C8B4C3AAD2687A7C2540EF23F30FEDED/0E402F05B0548432A4A88C2FAEAC43DE), **Warren Ellis** (*Transmetropolitan*, *Red*, *Gun Machine*) talked a bit about the excellent Spektrmodule podcast (“ambient, sleepy and haunted musics,” in his description) that he concatenates. The latest [episode](http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=14785), number 17, includes music by **Pausal** and **Paul Hillier’s Theatre of Voices**.

â–¼ There’s a three-day ambient-music convention/conference, titled AMBIcon, to be held from May 3 – 5 in San Rafael, California. It is taking place to note several milestones for the Hearts of Space, which began in 1973 at KPFA-FM in Berkeley and celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. The show began national syndication in 1983, and earlier this had its 1,000th broadcast. There will be eight surround-sound performances by **Hans Christian**, **Stephan Micus**, **Jeff Pearce**, **Robert Rich**, **Steve Roach**, **Michael Stearns**, **Stellamara**, and **Tim Story**, a Q&A session moderated by **Stephen Hill** (the series’ host and co-founder), and a presentation by **Mark Prendergast**, author of the book *The Ambient Century*. More details at [hos.com](http://www.hos.com/#ambicon2013).

â–¼ There were 19 tracks produced for the [64th Disquiet Junto project](https://soundcloud.com/disquiet/sets/disquiet0064-halflive), which ended last night at 11:59 pm. The project involved the theme of “composing from memory.” … Also, I finally put together a set of the 25 extant tracks from the [14th Junto project](https://soundcloud.com/disquiet/sets/disquiet0014-oumupo), which involved sonic versions of the comic that served as the starting point for Matt Madden’s Oulipo/Oubapa comic, *99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style*.

Haiku Music (MP3s)

Seventeen minutes of reflection

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Five, seven, five. These are the incremental dimensions known as the haiku. In written and spoken language, these numbers translate into syllables, forming a collective literature of single-serving reflection. When those numbers are stretched to represent minutes rather than syllables, their relative size diminishes in terms of its self-evidence, but in the hands of the musician named **Mystified**, the matter of reflection remains. The netlabel Subterranean Tide has released a three-track collection by Mystified, each track taking its length and title from a line of haiku, in this case a work whose central subject is sound: “Night cicada; / having slipped upon some dew / to the moon he cries.” The first track is five minutes long, the second seven, the third five again. Each is a mix of what might, in other contexts, be thought of as ambient industrial music, except that the notion of the cicada transforms the background hiss into the imagined constant whir of insectoid activity (at times what appears to be an actual cicada is also heard). There is a variety of droning, lightly percussive sonic material, and the highlight may be around two thirds of the way through the second track, when the combined rhythmic elements form something that might even be considered a groove.

https://soundcloud.com/subterraneantide/sets/haiku-hk01-by-mystified/

More from Mystified, aka **Thomas Park**, at [mystifiedmusic.com](http://www.mystifiedmusic.com/). More from the netlabel at [subterraneantide.com](http://www.subterraneantide.com/).