Marc Weidenbaum's Blog, page 218
October 8, 2020
Disquiet Junto Project 0458: Phrase Shift
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, October 12, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, October 8, 2020.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0458: Phrase Shift
The Assignment: Make music in a sequence of parts with shared elements.
Step 1: You’re going to create a piece of music that goes through a series of unique but related phrases. Beginning with the second phrase, each phrase will repeat one element from the previous phrase. It’s best to read through the following steps before beginning work on the project.
Step 2: Compose and record a brief initial phrase, of between roughly four and ten seconds in length, that has three separate and distinct simultaneous components. These might be three tones, or a tone and two beats, or a tone and a beat and a texture, or three field recordings, and so on, whatever three components you choose. (Silence can count as a potential component, certainly.)
Step 3: Compose and record another brief phrase, again of between roughly four and ten seconds in length, that has three separate simultaneous components. One of these components should be retained from the previous phrase. The other two components should be entirely different from the previous phrase.
Step 4: Repeat Step 3 as many times as you like, preferably for a combined length of at least one minute. Longer is fine.
Step 5: When you have recorded as many phrases as you determined in Step 4, collect them all into one long single track. That is the completed composition. Some overlap between phrases is fine.
Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: Include “disquiet0458” (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 “disquiet0458” (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 tracks in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0458-phrase-shift/
Step 5: Annotate your tracks 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.
Additional Details:
Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, October 12, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, October 8, 2020.
Length: The length is up to you.
Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0458” 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 458th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Phrase Shift (The Assignment: Make music in a sequence of parts with shared element), at:
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
Subscribe to project announcements here:
https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0458-phrase-shift/
There’s also a Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.
Image associated with this project is by Thomas Hawk and used via Flickr thanks to a Creative Commons license allowing editing (cropped with text added) for non-commercial purposes:
October 7, 2020
On Colossus: The Forbin Project
I recently re-watched a favorite movie, Colossus: The Forbin Project, for the HiLobrow series of essays on pre-Star Wars science fiction. Which got me thinking about set design in Jacque Tati’s Playtime, diversity on Star Trek, and how Jonathan Nolan’s pre-Westworld series Person of Interest was a form of fan fiction.
The short version is that architecture is destiny. The essay itself is at hilobrow.com.
Contributors to the series, which is titled Klaatu You, include Erik Davis, Madeline Ashby, Peggy Nelson, Luc Sante, Rob Walker, Seth (an essay, not a comic), Susannah Breslin, Gary Panter (also an essay, not a comic), James Hannaham, and Neil LaBute, among many others. Start with editor Josh Glenn’s introduction.
October 6, 2020
O.A. Jensen of Nordland, Norway
Deep swells. Soft shadows. Rhythmic elements buried under dense drones. A sense of motion in constant contrast with a sense of stillness. These are all shared elements of a certain type of ambient music, and they are in full effect in “Ninas Garden” from the musician Havdis, aka O.A. Jensen of Nordland, Norway. Those aspects here are expertly executed. What distinguishes the work further arrives about halfway through, when it nudges ever so slightly to something song-like, as shifts between chords become apparent, lending structure to the gathered sounds. The change isn’t quite glacial, but it is subtle, excellently so.
Track originally published at soundcloud.com/havdis.
October 5, 2020
Mnemonic
. . .
I have always struggled with the spelling of this word, so I worked up a mnemonic for it. And yeah, yeah, there are days when I could benefit from a mnemonic for spelling “mnemonic.”
Many thanks to illustrator Hannes Pasqualini (horizontalpitch.com, papernoise.net) for the ongoing collaboration.
October 4, 2020
Writing on Billy Childish and Punk at Hilobrow
I announced this back in mid-August, but I appear to have neglected to note when it was published. I contributed a short essay about Billy Childish for hilobrow.com. As I write at the start of it, I was obsessed with the music of Billy Childish in the 1990s. My obsession had a partner in how prolific he was (and remains). Most households contain fewer records than he’s released. And then there’s the EPs, and the singles. Being obsessed with Childish meant my love was always unrequited, which meant it was always fresh. Billy Bragg? Nick Lowe? I could accumulate those Brits’ discographies pretty quickly. With Childish, there was always another release to stumble upon. By no means was I a completest. I was an opportunist. If I had some credit left over at Amoeba after trading stuff in and hoarding import ambient records, I’d snag some Childish. A single here, an LP there. It added up. Jeepers, did it add up.
Thanks to Hilobrow for the opportunity to reflect on an old favorite. The essay is part of a series the website ran about late early (or early late) punk, called Carbona Your Enthusiasm. There are 25 essays in the Carbona series, and among the contributors are Luc Sante, Mimi Lipson, and series editor Josh Glenn. The final entry is by Mike Watt (on the Dils’ “You’re Not Blank (So Baby We’re Through).” I wrote the introduction to a comics anthology tribute to his legendary band the Minutemen back in 2014.
Current Listens: Newly Sequenced, Windshield Filter
A weekly(ish) answer to the question “What have you been listening to lately?” It’s lightly annotated because I don’t like re-posting material without providing some context. In the interest of conversation, let me know what you’re listening to in the comments below. Just please don’t promote your own work (or that of your label/client). This isn’t the right venue. (Just use email.)
▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰
NEW: Recent(ish) arrivals and pre-releases
I admit that if I’m not careful, this could end up being a new Jeannine Schulz album and a new Orbital Patterns video every week (I say that in the hopes that they discover each other’s music and team up). But so be it. My listening is my listening.
▰ Orbital Patterns welcomes a new sequencer into his synthesizer rig, and the result is a super slow melody that’s part jazz sermon, part illbient atmosphere:
▰ Glistening, blippy, pop-leaning instrumental piece performed live by S. B. Arweiler.
▰ The highly talented Jeannine Schulz has been releasing a steady stream of music at a pace in inverse proportion with how slow and placid is the music itself. Much of that has been on her own Bandcamp page, but last week the label Stereoscenic, of Cleveland, Ohio, announced Ground . The Gentle, 10 tracks available for pre-order as a CD, but already streaming in full. Start with the aptly named “Heaven-Sent,” all cautious chords and dirty-windshield textures.
October 3, 2020
Grace Notes
Some tweet observations (twitter.com/disquiet) I made over the course of the past week, lightly edited:
▰ “I am debating in a room different from the one you are in now.” The Commission on Presidential Debates has announced Alvin Lucier as the next moderator. This helpfully charts a course to unintelligibility that will be a relief for all in attendance.
▰ Was dipping a toe into the fetid conspiracy swamp of earpiece b.s., but it appears the freak show has moved on to contact-lens b.s. Enjoy the ride, HUD scholars. (That’s heads-up display, not Housing and Urban Development, but given our strange times, who knows what lies ahead?)
▰ Got my Underworld Drift box, the three-CD Matmos set, Sarah Davachi’s two-CD latest, and Thomas Dimuzio’s three-CD live set. Multi-hour releases seem to, for me at least, challenge the non-corporeality of (“mere”) single-album releases, justifying their physical presence on my shelf and their claim for my attention.
▰ “You’re the first one here”
▰ Yes, I am up for a movie about a drummer who goes deaf. And all the more so when it’s Riz Ahmed behind the kit: criticalhit.net. Sound of Metal is due out later this year (first in theaters, then on Amazon Prime).
▰ One thing I’ve come to realize lately is there’s nothing I can think of that tastes good with cinnamon that doesn’t even better with cayenne in addition: cereal, hot chocolate, ice cream, etc.
October 2, 2020
Davachi, Live
Figures In Open Air by Sarah Davachi
Bandcamp’s occasional Friday fire sale — when the company passes its share of profits straight on to the musicians and labels that are its lifeblood — is about to come to an end. Its conclusion is, as I type this, about two hours away on a long day in what has been one of the longest and strangest weeks of a long and strange year. Stranger than strange. “Strange” suggests “interesting if perhaps from a distance,” whereas this is a year from which one wants to gain substantial distance. Until such times, music that takes advantage of long time periods, music suitable to the long present, is a valuable thing. Sarah Davachi is expert in such things. As a “supplement” to Cantus, Descant, her recent two-CD set of contemporary music for the organ, one dating back to 1479, she has announced another collection, Figures in Open Air, a half dozen — presumably lengthy, given the release is also on two CDs — live performances. One track is up as a preview, “Diaphonia Basilica,” recorded on the 1954 Casavant Frères pipe organ at the Église du Gesù in Montreal, Canada. The liner notes mention the presence, as well, of cellist Marianna Houle and French horn player Pietro Amato. Listen closely, and certainly that explains the sheer depth of the dense vertical tonalities that comprise the track. But you could also miss them entirely, so tightly do they align with the organ’s breathy embrace. I’m fairly certain I was at the March 2018 concert during which another of the tracks was recorded, at the Lab in San Francisco. Of course, there are in essence no live concerts right now, due to the pandemic. In fact, this live album was released, Davachi explained yesterday on Facebook, “in lieu of the touring” she had planned later this year. This year being the long year. The long year that necessitates music for the long present. Music like “Diaphonia Basilica.”
Album posted at sarahdavachi.bandcamp.com. More from Davachi at sarahdavachi.com.
October 1, 2020
Disquiet Junto Project 0457: System Alert
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, October 5, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, October 1, 2020.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0457: System Alert
The Assignment: Compose sounds for an OS.
Step 1: There’s an operating system called Haiku. It’s open source. Learn more at haiku-os.org.
Step 2: The OS is currently running a contest for System Sounds. Read the details at the subpage on haiku-os.org.
Step 3: The due date for our Junto project is this Monday, October 5, though the due date for the actual contest is November 25th. Regardless, please read through the instructions and create sounds accordingly. In terms of posting the sounds as part of this Junto project, please create a single track with each sound in sequence.
Thanks to Erik Schoster for suggesting this project.
Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: Include “disquiet0457” (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 “disquiet0457” (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 tracks in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0457-system-alert/
Step 5: Annotate your tracks 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.
Additional Details:
Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, October 5, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, October 1, 2020.
Length: The length is up to you. Alerts tend to be brief.
Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0457” 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 457th weekly Disquiet Junto project, System Alert (The Assignment: Compose sounds for an OS), at:
Thanks to Erik Schoster for suggesting this project.
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
Subscribe to project announcements here:
https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0457-system-alert/
There’s also a Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.
Image associated with this project is by Stanley Zimny and used via Flickr thanks to a Creative Commons license allowing editing (cropped with text added) for non-commercial purposes:
September 30, 2020
Reading Derek Bailey
Participants in the Disquiet Junto will begin discussing this book, Derek Bailey’s Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice in Music, in a Slack-based book club starting this coming Monday, October 5. The plan is to spread the discussion over the course of about seven weeks. Last time we did an online read, years ago (the subject was a Kim Stanley Robinson novel), too few people finished, and too many were at different spots when discussion occurred. This staged approach should keep us on the same page, so to speak.
