Marc Weidenbaum's Blog, page 246
March 18, 2020
Make the Best of What’s Still Around
Tread lightly. Today’s self-aware hi-jinks are tomorrow’s tragedies. Still, as musicians, like most everyone else in the world, do their best to settle into far more residential life than they may be accustomed to, they make the best of what’s still around. In the case of Amulets, that involves using a toilet paper roll as a means to extend the length of a tape loop, as heard in this video posted today.
Amulets is the Portland, Oregon, musician Randall Taylor, who does marvelous things with, among other second-hand tools, old audio tape cassettes — same tape he’s had for years. Here the rotting texture of the loop, exaggerated by a delay pedal, takes sequences from his portable synth and renders from them subsistence ambient, just loud enough to make an impression, but not so much as to squander available resources.
This is the latest video I’ve added to my YouTube playlist of recommended live performances of ambient music. Video originally posted at youtube.com. More from Amulets at amuletsmusic.com.
Foghorns
. . .
Many thanks to illustrator Hannes Pasqualini (horizontalpitch.com, papernoise.net) for the collaboration.
March 17, 2020
Set Your Scanner for Saturday
The Downstream department entries on Disquiet.com are, with the exception of Thursdays, always about streamable — and often freely downloadable — music available right now. On Thursdays the Downstream highlights the latest Disquiet Junto project, tracks from which usually begin appearing within 12 hours. Today’s post, however, is about something happening a little further off, in about — checks watch — three and a half days, as of this typing. That’s Saturday, March 21, when Robin Rimbaud, aka Scanner, will perform the inaugural live stream from his London home base. “First broadcast from the Scanner studio, especially given the rather challenging and frequently lonely situation for so many,” he wrote as an advance notice on YouTube. “I felt a little Saturday afternoon live performance might distract you from the dark news for a moment.” That’s Saturday afternoon in England, where Scanner, as well as his studio, is based. Here in California, it’ll be 9am. Adjust your clocks accordingly, or if you have a YouTube account, click on the “reminder” button on the concert’s YouTube URL.
As mentioned here in yesterday’s special edition After Live post, there are countless more performances like this being broadcast, recorded, and archived around the world, all accessible within your browser. Seek them out, support the musicians who produce them, and share the ones you recommend.
More from Rimbaud at scannerdot.com and scanner.bandcamp.com, where he recently launched a subscriber fan community, providing access to previously unreleased material, among other perks.
March 16, 2020
After Live: Grzegorz Bojanek from Poland
Early on in this hour-long performance video, the Poland-based musician Grzegorz Bojanek holds up a piece of paper to the camera. On the paper is written a terse note in Polish and English imploring people to stay at home. There is no self-interest. He’d most certainly rather not be at home himself. But while he is, like many of us, stuck at home, he wants to help out.
His live video — along with those from numerous musicians around the world seeking to connect during a time virtually devoid of live in-person concert performances — seeks to entertain and, perhaps, even to console. And certainly to commiserate. For an hour he sits on the couch and plays. The work moves from dense ambient to a gently pulsing figment and back again. The music is welcome, but even more so is the presence that Bojanek projects. He is modelling behavior, not just by staying home, not just by keeping busy, not just by sharing, but by remaining visibly focused, even calm. We couldn’t ask more of ourselves.
There are countless more performances like this being broadcast, recorded, and archived around the world, all accessible within your browser. Seek them out, support the musicians who produce them, and share the ones you recommend.
Track originally posted to Bojanek’s YouTube channel. More from Bojanek at bojanek.bandcamp.com.
Disquiet Junto Announcement
If you’re a stuck-at-home music-maker and want to connect with other music-makers during our shared period of mutual isolation aboard Spaceship Earth, this coming Thursday’s Disquiet Junto project may be of interest.
We’re doing a sequence of weekly projects starting Thursday, March 19, specifically intended to encourage and reward extended collaboration between music-makers.
Some of the most exciting Junto work has originated from these collaborations in the past.
Get instructions via email on Thursdays via tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto, or find them at llllllll.co and, of course, here at disquiet.com.
Lemme know if you have any questions. One might be:
Q: Do I have to participate every week?
A: No, by design you can join in any time.
March 15, 2020
Take on the Quiet
The sun’s down, and the city is quiet. Quieter than usual, for obvious reasons. Hunkered down, you find online connections more important than usual. You download the alpha version of a new piece of audio software, install it, and take on the quiet, a few looped notes at a time.
March 14, 2020
After Dinner
Took a walk to the ocean and back last night after dinner. Listened to Prince’s album Sign o’ the Times the whole way. (Kinda had forgotten the first track is about life under threat of AIDS, drug addiction, and nuclear war.) Saw several signs of the times, notably this one.
Extreme State
Might someone take this literally, and imagine that you have three options: buzz 4512 times, or 9028 times, or, well, “just ring the bell”? On the one hand, no one is going to actually read this and think that’s what it means. On the other, it does helpfully present an end to the continuum of poor doorbell instructions. It is, perhaps, the extreme state against which other doorbell fails could be judged.
March 13, 2020
Extracting Subsets
There is static on the line. The signal is going in and out. Bits are looping frantically, and the combined activity yields a kind of sonic mist, if at times a spiky one. The overall signal source, the original thread of audio, is almost lost as the interference takes on a syncopated quality. This is all on purpose, of course. This is the musician who goes by the name Duelling Ants taking sound from a small portable synthesizer and sending it through an ingenious looper, one that extracts subsets of the signal and lets Duelling Ants operate upon them simultaneously for varying purposes. One line moves forward while another cycles a bit round and round while another plays a different subset in reverse. (I know to listen for this because I’m familiar with the looping software.) The result is a spirited kaleidoscope of parts, where the whole is entirely besides the point.
More from Duelling Ants, aka Norway-based Marius Jacobsen, at duellingants.bandcamp.com, marsmelons.com, and instagram.com/duellingants.
March 12, 2020
Disquiet Junto Project 0428: Urban Moss
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 Monday, March 16, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, March 12, 2020.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0428: Urban Moss
The Assignment: What echoes of past concerts are retained within this pole?
Step 1: Consider how many concert posters have spent time on an old telephone pole before being torn down or succumbing to the elements. Think about the wear on the wood, the rust on the vestigial staples, as time has passed.
Step 2: Record a short piece of music that pays tribute to the accumulated echoes of past concerts promoted here over the years.
Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: Include “disquiet0428” (no spaces or quotation marks) in the name of your track.
Step 2: If your audio-hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to also include the project tag “disquiet0428” (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 track. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your track.
Step 4: Post your track in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0428-urban-moss/
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.
Additional Details:
Deadline: This project’s deadline is Monday, March 16, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, March 12, 2020.
Length: The length is up to you. Shorter is often better.
Title/Tag: When posting your track, please include “disquiet0428” in the title of the track, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.
Upload: When participating in this project, post one finished track with the project tag, and 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: Consider setting 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 428th weekly Disquiet Junto project — The Assignment: What echoes of past concerts are retained within this pole? — at:
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
Subscribe to project announcements here:
http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0428-urban-moss/
There’s also a Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.
