iOS Dub

A mobile beat by Mike 88

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

What really makes the melody that floats atop the Casio-inspired beat of “Float On By” by **Mike 88** is how it avoids melody-ness. Sure, it is more varied, more melodic, than is often heard in beat-driven, dub-oriented, iOS-generated electronic music, but it is also willfully absent of the key things that make melody melody, which is inward consistency, such matters as cycles of repetition and incremental development. Instead the melody veers between brief riffs and droning mantras, and often ventures into rangy soloing, more like an extended solo by a jazz musician than a verse by a songwriter. It’s heady stuff. Mike 88 states in a brief accompanying note that the whole thing was put together in a series of iOS music tools: DM1, NodeBeat, iKaosilator, and Orphion.

https://soundcloud.com/mike-88/float-on-by

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/mike-88](https://soundcloud.com/mike-88/float-on-by). More from Mike 88, aka Mike Dayton, at [twitter.com/dayton_mike](https://twitter.com/dayton_mike).

Past Week at Twitter.com/Disquiet

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

A Recently Ticking Clock

A Junto participant's prior execution of a similar endeavor

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Sometimes the Disquiet Junto projects are very new to the participants, and sometimes they’re quite familiar. Just last night the [56th](https://disquiet.com/2013/01/24/disquiet0056-matteroftime/) of these weekly endeavors in the realm of creative restraint began, and it took as its subject the sound of a ticking clock, which was intended to be sampled by each participant and spun into something new. As it turns out, at least one Junto regular, **Schemawound**, had already done such a thing. On his 2010 album *Hospital Songs*, the track “Datapump” clearly employs the ticking of a clock. One of the interesting things about the use of a second hand as a rhythm is the extent to which the space between the ticks is heard. Here, the level of detail in the tick barely seems to leave space before the next one kicks in. Layered on is a haunting drone that sways back and forth with a woozy malevolence.

https://soundcloud.com/schemawound/datapump

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/schemawound](https://soundcloud.com/schemawound/datapump). The full album is available at [itunes.apple.com](https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/hospital-songs/id461014114) and (name your price, including free) at [music.schemawound.com](http://music.schemawound.com/album/hospital-songs). More from Schemawound, aka **Jonathan Siemasko** of Naugatuck, Connecticut, at [schemawound.com](http://schemawound.com/) and [twitter.com/Schemawound](https://twitter.com/schemawound).

Disquiet Junto Project 0056: Matter of Time

The Assignment: Make music from the sound of the tick of a clock.

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

20130124-time

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/).

After [last week’s project](https://disquiet.com/2013/01/17/disquiet0055-twoscrews/), which involved exceptionally beautiful source music in the form of [solo piano works by Nils Frahm](https://disquiet.com/2013/01/17/disquiet0055-twoscrews/), it seemed fitting to go the other direction this week: to require the recording of the source material, and to make that source subject among the most rudimentary sounds as possible.

This assignment was made in the early afternoon, California time, on Thursday, January 24, 2013, with 11:59pm on the following Monday, January 28, as the deadline. Below are translations into five languages in addition to English: Afrikaans, Croatian, Japanese, Polish, and Turkish, courtesy respectively of [Kurt Human](http://kurthuman.com), Darko Macan, [Naoyuki Sasanami](https://soundcloud.com/naotko) and [Yukiko Yamasaki](https://soundcloud.com/yukiko-yamasaki), [M. Emre Meydan](http://emremeydan.com/), and [Grzegorz Bojanek](http://bojanek.bandcamp.com/album/live-in-may).

Above photo courtesy of [Flickr.com](http://www.flickr.com/photos/robbie73/5924985913/sizes/z/in/photostream/), via Creative Commons license.

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 0056: Matter of Time
>
>This week’s project requires you to make a field recording to serve as the source audio. These are the steps:
>
>Step 1: Locate a clock that has an audible, even if very quiet, tick to its second hand. A watch or other timepiece is also appropriate to the task.
>
>Step 2: Record the sound of the clock for at least 30 seconds, and do so in a manner captures the sound in the greatest detail. A contact mic is highly recommended.
>
>Step 3: Adjust and otherwise filter the recording to reveal the various noises that make up its tick. The goal is to get at the nuance of its internal mechanism.
>
>Step 4: Create an original piece of music employing only layered loops of that sound. These layered loops can individually be transformed in any manner you choose, but at least one unaltered version of the original recording should be included in your piece.
>
>Deadline: Monday, January 28, 2013, at 11:59pm wherever you are.
>
>Length: Your finished work should be between 2 and 5 minutes long.
>
>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: When adding your track to the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com, please include the term “disquiet0056-matteroftime” 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, be sure to include this information:
>
>More on this 56th Disquiet Junto project at:
>
>https://disquiet.com/2013/01/24/disquiet0056-matteroftime/
>
>More details on the Disquiet Junto at:
>
>http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Continue reading “Disquiet Junto Project 0056: Matter of Time”

Brooklyn Beats (MP3)

From here to there; the transition, as much as the destination

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

To say that “Corduroy,” by the Brooklyn-based musician **Matte Wood**, goes unexpected places would be an understatement. How exactly it moves from its opening to close is worth paying attention to, because those two points are so distinct from each other. The end is a vibrant, post-rock excursion into whirligig flourishes atop a nifty chiptune rhythm; it manages, much to its credit, to be both downtempo and upbeat. The opening, by contrast, is modulated pitches of what appear to be string samples, echoed into the middle distance yet retaining their catgut texture. This goes on for nearly a minute before the track gets underway. The second time around, and henceforth, it pays to pay attention to the transition.

https://soundcloud.com/matte-wood/corduroy

In the brief accompanying note, Wood refers to the track as follows: “Another really old tune that I’ve been sitting on for a while.” Here’s to hoping for more from the archives soon.

Track originally posted at [soundcloud.com/matte-wood](https://soundcloud.com/matte-wood/corduroy). More from Wood, aka James Jano, at [twitter.com/Matte_Wood](https://twitter.com/Matte_Wood).