New Disquietude podcast episode: music by Lesley Flanigan, Dave Seidel, KMRU, Celia Hollander, and John Hooper; interview with Flanigan; commentary; short essay on reading waveforms. • Disquiet.com F.A.Q. • Key Tags: #saw2for33third, #field-recording, #classical, #junto • Elsewhere: Twitter, SoundCloud, Instagram

Listening to art. Playing with audio. Sounding out technology. Composing in code. Rewinding the soundscape.

tag: science-fiction

Disquiet Junto Project 0501: PKD Playback

The Assignment: Record the sound of a Martian daydream, interrupted.

[ August 5, 2021 / Department: downstream / Leave a comment ]

Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto group, 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. (A SoundCloud account is helpful but not required.) There’s no pressure to do every project. It’s weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when you have the time.

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, August 9, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, August 5, 2021.

These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):

Disquiet Junto Project 0501: PKD Playback
The Assignment: Record the sound of a Martian daydream, interrupted.

Step 1: Early on in the Philip K. Dick short story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale,” a man name Quail has a daydream interrupted. He dreams of visiting Mars, but then reality intrudes: “the daylight, the mundane noise of his wife now brushing her hair before the bedroom mirror — everything conspired to remind him of what he was.” As the reader will learn, Quail has in fact already visited Mars, subsequent to which his mind was wiped free of the visit. His daydream at the start of the story is as much a remnant memory as it is a wish to be fulfilled. Keep this scenario in mind, and maybe read the short story.

Step 2: Record the sound of some realistic-feeling alien landscape, perhaps Martian, and then at the very end of the recording have real-world sounds appear to break the spell.

Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0501” (no spaces or quotation marks) in the name of your tracks.

Step 2: If your audio-hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to also include the project tag “disquiet0501” (no spaces or quotation marks). If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to subsequent location of tracks for the creation of a project playlist.

Step 3: Upload your tracks. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your tracks.

Step 4: Post your track in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0501-pkd-playback/

Step 5: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.

Step 6: If posting on social media, please consider using the hashtag #DisquietJunto so fellow participants are more likely to locate your communication.

Step 7: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Note: Please post one track per weekly Junto project. If you choose to post more than one, and do so on SoundCloud, please let me know which you’d like added to the playlist. Thanks.

Additional Details:

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, August 9, 2021, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, August 5, 2021.

Length: The length of your finished track is up to you, with or without the Martian time-slip.

Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0501” in the title of the tracks, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.

Upload: When participating in this project, 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.

Download: It is always best to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution, allowing for derivatives).

For context, when posting the track online, please be sure to include this following information:

More on this 501st weekly Disquiet Junto project — PKD Playback (The Assignment: Record the sound of a Martian daydream, interrupted) — at: https://disquiet.com/0501/

More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0501-pkd-playback/

There’s also a Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to [email protected] for Slack inclusion.

The image associated with this project is used via NASA/JPL-Caltech:

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/perseverance-s-left-navcam-views-ingenuity-during-its-third-flight

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twitter.com/disquiet: Cables, Triads, Surrealism

From the past week

[ July 31, 2021 / Department: field notes / Leave a comment ]

I do this manually each Saturday, collating recent tweets I made at twitter.com/disquiet, which I think of as my public notebook. Some tweets pop up (in expanded form or otherwise) on Disquiet.com sooner. It’s personally informative to revisit the previous week of thinking out loud.

▰ Been re-watching Downton Abbey and thinking about the way it maps the adoption of technology as time passes (electric lights, cars, a blender, a radio), and was about to tweet a quote (“Mrs. Patmore is not what you’d call a futurist”), only to find when I searched Google that I had done so when it first aired. Later: “Why is it called a wireless when there are so many wires?” This is something said by Daisy when a radio is brought into the house for the first time, thanks to the king being due to make a broadcast announcement.

▰ Guitar class update: I haven’t been this into triads since I was addicted to Hong Kong crime movies.

▰ “Your gift is quite destructive but look at the music you can make.” (Been re-watching Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)

▰ I think there is an insect crawling slowly across my phone’s upturned face. It is the reflection a bird hovering outside the window.

▰ The term “Surrealism Tycoon” is certainly my kinda headline clickbait. And this is totally the raw material for a sequel to China Miéville’s The Last Days of New Paris: “Arturo Schwarz, Refugee Who Became a Surrealism Tycoon, Dies at 97,” via nytimes.com.

▰ Guessing this bypassed Discogs.com: “United States Sells Unique Wu-Tang Clan Album Forfeited by Convicted Hedge Fund Manager Martin Shkreli”

▰ My favorite pithy summary of the Disquiet Junto music community is Ethan Hein’s. He said in effect that I write record reviews of music that doesn’t exist yet and then internet strangers make it real. I’m not sure I could improve on that. The 500th weekly project begins July 29.

▰ “I blink with fatigue, and my eyelashes make an infinitesimal, inaudible sound against the felt whiteness of the pillows slope.” Been thinking about @espejoacustico‘s suggestion we finally get around to a proper Pessoa-themed Junto project. It is the Disquiet Junto, after all.

▰ I highly recommend the Take5 email from the Japan Times (japantimes.co.jp): a free (English) daily newsletter of five top stories, a glimpse into what’s happening. I wish more newspapers from countries where I don’t read the language did it. Maybe they do. Any recommendations?

▰ There are days when using the browser interface for the New York Times crossword is like pushing back on a ouija board against a particularly strident spirit.

▰ Cool. There’s a new entry, all about the Disquiet Junto, on the ever-growing Music Games Wiki: musicgames.wikidot.com.

▰ Yes, but when do we get the 5-CD expanded box set of George Harrison’s Electric Sound album?

▰ Tinyletter has become a drag, which is part of why I haven’t published a This Week in Sound email in quite a while. I’m looking to switch to Buttondown or an alternative. Trying out some options. So far, Buttondown seems pretty cool.

▰ It was a week:

🗹 buncha work
🗹 longform writing
🗹 cheating on longform writing
🗹 Disquiet daily
🗹 Junto 500
🗹 guitar study
🗹 exercise
🗹 gallery review filed
☐ email catch-up
🗹 home office remedies (standing)
🗹 digital tool revisions (newsletter)
🗹 sign off til Monday

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twitter.com/disquiet: Cameo x Patreon, CDs x R2D2

From the past week

[ June 26, 2021 / Department: field notes / Leave a comment ]

I do this manually each Saturday, collating recent tweets I made at twitter.com/disquiet, my public notebook. Some tweets pop up (in expanded form or otherwise) on Disquiet.com sooner. It’s personally informative to revisit the previous week of thinking out loud.

▰ My favorite morning sound remains the ice cubes clinking/fizzing in my coffee. I have a new one too. I hooked up a CD player/recorder so it’s always connected to my laptop when I’m at my desk, and in the morning when I turn everything on it emits delightful “R2D2 wakes up” whirs.

▰ Cameo, but 45-minute (real-time) music lessons from as wide an array of musicians as one could hope for. More like Cameo x Patreon.

▰ “Your pinky is like your secret weapon.”

(Thing I heard myself say in guitar class.)

(Lest there be any confusion in the matter, I am the student.)

▰ I find that music-making tools I’m drawn to are often those with active communities online. I then wonder what connection there is between building a community and building an instrument beyond both expressions including the word “build.”

▰ This week, Disquiet Junto participants share a protip and make music as an example (disquiet.com/0495). These are some of ’em:

  • dragged mics
  • notepad miniatures
  • enforced re-use
  • over repetition
  • trying new things
  • wind organs
  • excising perfectionism

▰ And on that note, have a good weekend. Get fresh air. Listen as you do so. Thank someone who made the past year livable. Re-read a favorite book while focusing on a stylistic element or secondary plot. See you Monday, or maybe Tuesday.

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twitter.com/disquiet: Audiobooks, Cylons, Bern

From the past week

[ June 12, 2021 / Department: field notes / Leave a comment ]

I do this manually each Saturday, collating recent tweets I made at twitter.com/disquiet, my public notebook. Some tweets pop up (in expanded form or otherwise) on Disquiet.com sooner. It’s personally informative to revisit the previous week of thinking out loud.

▰ Life these days: Walk into a store and find myself thinking, “This place is like someone took all the metaphors of online life and made them physical, right down to the ‘shopping carts.'”

▰ Sleepy. Hence: Was listening to an audiobook read by an actor with a particularly strong British accent and found myself thinking, “This really could use subtitles.” Which is, of course, a book.

▰ After much consideration, I opted not to test this. Far as I could tell, neither did the sheep on the other side.

▰ Feel a bit like a Cylon. Tom Petty’s “American Girl” came on the outdoor speakers at this cafe and I’m incapable of not singing along.

▰ That the concern is old enough that it was recognized some time ago, and that this sign was created and installed, and that it has aged this much since

▰ Excited to announce that the Disquiet Junto is again teaming up with Musikfestival Bern (thanks to Tobias Reber), the annual Swiss event. We’ll be doing three projects, music from which may end up as part of the festival. Details to follow. The first project will involve insects.

▰ Have a great weekend, folks.

  • Count how many different bird species you hear

  • Listen for repeated interstitial music in shows you binge-watch

  • Sort out a way to financially support a musician you like (buy an album or t-shirt, subscribe to a fan club, etc.)

See you Monday.

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twitter.com/disquiet: Theater Anxiety and Media Ambience

[ May 8, 2021 / Department: field notes / Leave a comment ]

I do this manually each week, collating tweets I made at twitter.com/disquiet, my public notebook. Some tweets pop up (in expanded form) on Disquiet.com sooner. It’s personally informative to revisit the previous week of thinking out loud.

▰ The sequel to A Quiet Place, a film about a society in which survivors of a worldwide catastrophe take extreme caution whenever leaving their homes, will apparently be available “only in theaters.”

Which is to say, the bar for the cinema sensorium has been lowered as a result of the pandemic. Simply entering the movie theater exceeds whatever Sensurround had ever been hoped to accomplish.

▰ I enjoy buying downloads. I also feel a threshold-breaking new utility (app/device/service/protocol) remains necessary for doing so to become mainstream, mainstream being necessary for downloads to pass a threshold at which they will become financially meaningful for musicians.

▰ Me at 6:45am: Yawn.

Me at 7:15am: Oh, yeah, it’s May the 4th. I’ll watch Bad Batch, but it’s not like I’m gonna be celebrating Star Wars all day. C’mon.

Me at 9:00am: Oh wow, this Star Wars Biomes audio-video feature is awesome and I’m going to play it on loop until dinner!

Pretty much the only shortcoming of these Star Wars Biomes videos is they don’t entirely ditch the music. Fortunately, the environmental sound of the various locations is prominent most if not all the time.

▰ Netflix needs a third button for “I really enjoyed this and I never want to watch it or anything like it anytime again in the near or foreseeable future.” Pondering what that hand gesture is.

▰ That thing where you’re looking at Goodreads and you go to click the “Want to Read” button and, just as you do so, the advertising banner finally slides into place, thus pushing down the rest of the page, leading you to instead trigger a full-page view of the book’s cover.

▰ Really enjoyed the dense environmental sounds of Cyberpunk 2077, so rather than just watch recordings on YouTube I got a copy. Somewhere a database is registering the machine language equivalent of “This player simply wanders around town and then stands still for a half an hour.” … Somewhere another machine on the network replies, “The player’s digital signature resembles that of someone who did the same thing in Pikmin 20 years ago.” … Further down the stack comes a whisper on the wind from an ancient BASIC subroutine: “I know that kid. Used to carry a binder of floppies around with him in high school.”

▰ I think I need to add “Loitering in video games” to the Disquiet.com profile.

▰ The phrase “panting sibilantly” was one of the first descriptions in the captions for Mayans M.C. this week.

▰ And on that note, have a great weekend. Listen to one of your favorite TV shows. Admire the emotional heft of the word balloons in a favorite graphic novel. Record the outside and bring it inside. See you Monday. Or maybe Tuesday.

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