Marc Weidenbaum's Blog, page 409
September 1, 2014
Sensing Lisbon
The audio is a race of everyday noise at what feels like hyperspeed. There are warbling sirens and clipped voices of public address systems or low-resolution audio surveillance, not to mention foremost this underlying bass drone. Played on a laptop’s speakers at mid- to high level of volume, it will vibrate your desk until your pens and spare change join in the quotidian cacophony. It all has this sense of speed because of the high pitch and the constant pervasive environmental presence.
As it turns out, that sense of presence is rooted in the source audio. The track, “Mere Pis: Lisbon” by Abinadi Meza, is a digital reflection of constant triggers from everyday life. As the brief project description explains:
“Mere Pis: Lisbon is an exploratory atmospherics project that was made in Lisbon, Portugal using custom-built sensors and software. The sensors recorded micro-local environmental elements such as ambient light, humidity, light frequencies, and temperature. Meza treated these sounds as residues, glitches, and afterimages – fragments of a city beyond the city. The project was presented as a live performance at the Sinel de Cordes Palace in Lisbon on September 19 and 21, 2013.”
The above image shows the sensors in question. More on the project at abinadimeza.blogspot.com. This recording was episode 55 of the excellent Radius podcast.
Track originally posted for free download at soundcloud.com/theradius. More details at theradius.us. Abinadi Meza is an American living in Rome, Italy. More from him at abinadimeza.blogspot.com and twitter.com/abinadi.
via instagram.com/dsqt
It’s assumed you can figure out what the fourth button in the series is for.
Cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt.
August 31, 2014
Dawn-Break Ambient
As the track title suggests, “I Have Been Waiting For You, Quiet Morning” posits itself as dawn-break ambient. The drone comes in slow and stays slow, with an extended break between each soft-metal ping and each phase of wind-in-pipe shuddering. It’s a gorgeous, gaseous piece that hovers in the middle distance, full of promise.
Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/leonrosado. More from Leonardo Rosado, who’s based in Gothenburg, Sweden, at works-by-lr.tumblr.com and subterminal.tumblr.com.
August 30, 2014
August 29, 2014
August 28, 2014
Disquiet Junto Project 0139: Tech Technique
Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto group on SoundCloud.com and at Disquiet.com, 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.
This assignment was made in the early evening, California time, on Thursday, August 28, with 11:59pm on the following Monday, September 1, 2014, as the deadline.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0139: Tech Technique
The Assignment: Create and upload a track that exemplifies explain one key process you’ve developed.
Thanks to Karl Fousek, aka analogue01, of Montréal, Canada, for indirectly inspiring this project.
The Junto is as much about musicians listening to and communicating with each other as it is about making their own music. This week’s project aims to combine those two goals. The instructions are simple:
Step 1: Think of a specific technique that you are proud of having developed, perfected, or in some way folded into your work.
Step 2: Produce a short track that includes that technique.
Step 3: Upload the track to the Disquiet Junto group on SoundCloud, and in the notes field associated with the track describe the technique.
Deadline: Monday, September 1, 2014, at 11:59pm wherever you are.
Length: Your finished work should be between 1 and 4 minutes.
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 “disquiet0139-techtechnique″ 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, please be sure to include this information:
More on this 139th Disquiet Junto project — “Create and upload a track that exemplifies one key creative process you’ve developed″ — at:
http://disquiet.com/2014/08/28/disqui...
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
Join the Disquiet Junto at:
http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet...
Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:
The image associated with this track is by Wesley Fryer and was used thanks to a Creative Commons license. Originally posted here:
August 27, 2014
Corruption in Full
More from Corruption, whose presence in music is of the sort that may best suit SoundCloud’s existence — that may be of the sort that is the result of SoundCloud’s existence. It isn’t about albums, or singles, or videos, or remixes, so much as it’s about the steady, frequent, largely unmediated appearance of unexplained, alternately quotidian, melodic, and noisy sonic fragments — snatches of odd everyday sound, subsets of songs, and crunchy extroversion. Perhaps collectively they form some meta-canvas. “Norma,” the latest of Corruption’s output, is echoed burbles of throaty synth. As an assessment of range, “Tirth” is slomo solo piano, like a broken android Nils Frahm Pinocchio straining for sentience. And “Soak” is weirdly warbly, like a future kalimba designed by Laurie Anderson:
Tracks originally posted by Corruption at soundcloud.com/corrption. The account lacks the “u” but the tracks are signed Corruption in full.
August 26, 2014
Ambient Pauses from Kamakura, Japan
The white noise could be static or surf. The hum could be hushed vocals or a deep sine wave. The piece is “パラレル” — which I believe translates to parallel. It’s a track by Michiru Aoyama, who is based in Kamakura, Japan, and it is a blissful slice of determined ambient music. Tonally is is consistent and remote, the sort of thing that requires a fair amount of concentration to accept as foreground listening. What distinguishes it as a composition is how it unfolds, in particular a pause about a minute in and then again about a minute before the five-minute piece comes to a close. Both quiet moments remind the ear of the sonic content, waking you up to the atmospherics just as they get underway and just as they begin their slow fade to silence.
Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/michiru-aoyama. More from Aoyama at michiruaoyama.bandcamp.com, twitter.com/6michimichiru9, and michiruaoyama.jimdo.com.
via instagram.com/dsqt
Playing with directed audio for San Jose Museum of Art exhibit.
Cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt.
