Marc Weidenbaum's Blog, page 431
February 10, 2014
Aphex Twin SAW2 Countdown: Track 4 (“Hankie”)
I am going to do this track-by-track countdown to the release, on February 13, 2014, the day prior to Valentine’s Day, of my book in the estimable 33 1/3 series. It is a love letter to Aphex Twin’s album Selected Ambient Works Volume II, which will mark its 20th anniversary this year, less than a month after my book’s publication. More on my Aphex Twin book at amazon.com and Bloomsbury.com. The plan is to do this countdown in the reverse order, from last track to first. For reference, an early draft of the introduction is online, as is the book’s seven-chapter table of contents. The book’s publisher posted an interview with me when I was midway through the writing process.
There is some irony to doing this countdown since the book is already shipping to folks who pre-ordered it via an online retailer such as Amazon, but the official date stands, and that’s the target — the end date — of this countdown, February 13. And for what it’s worth, while the physical copies are mailing now from retailers, the Kindle version won’t turn on until February 13. Still, the digital version costs less.
As I’ve noted on Twitter, this track-a-day approach is exactly the opposite of the book’s approach, which is a collection of interrelated, reporting-based essays.
I am enjoying seeing the book pop up in people’s Twitter and Instagram feeds:
Nice, Selected Ambient Works volume II by Marc Weidenbaum came in #disquiet @disquiet pic.twitter.com/7CEEdLHOcu
— Michel Banabila (@Banabila) February 10, 2014
Half-way through Marc Weidenbaum's book on Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Work Volume 2 which arrived Friday. pic.twitter.com/fMj5kCKyGg
— Larry Johnson (@LAJ1953) February 10, 2014
And Mark Rushton, of Iowa City, managed to get his library to purchase a copy. He posted more images on his website:
The second most rare of the two rare tracks on the album, “Hankie” is one of the pieces that truly sounds like the sound design of an interstellar horror movie, and that’s on a record where just about everything could serve such a purpose. What would be more difficult to attribute to it is ease, which much of the record is often associated with, despite the darker underpinning.
It opens with a blood-in-the-ear swell, and proceeds to play host to these shimmery motifs, synthesized violins that seek the common ground between dramatic score and sound effect. The pace of that string section is, shortly after the mid-point, considerably quicker than the underlying pulse, and the whole thing can get stomach-churning at the correct volume.
This is the track that is on copies of the record with 24 but not 25 songs (the other rare piece being “Stone in Focus”).
And here it is reversed:
More on my Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works Volume II book at amazon.com and Bloomsbury.com.
Thanks to boondesign.com for the sequential grid treatment of the album cover.
Aphex Twin @ 33 1/3 (1/5): Book I Did(n’t) Write
The publisher of my Aphex Twin book, 33 1/3, an imprint of Bloomsbury, has invited me to write blog posts this week to note the book’s official publication on Thursday, February 13. The first of these five posts is up today: “The Aphex Twin Book I Did(n’t) Write.”
These are the first three paragraphs of the piece, about a third of the piece’s total length:
It is fitting that I wrote a book about “Volume II” of something, because I wrote the book twice.
When I proposed writing a book for the 33 1/3 series about Selected Ambient Works Volume II, the landmark 1994 album by the British electronic musician Aphex Twin (aka Richard D. James, above), I knew the sort of book that I wanted to publish. I also knew the sort of book that I didn’t want to publish. And because this was to be my first book, and I was very much finding my way in the process, I ended up also writing the book that I didn’t want to write, just to get it out of my head. Doing so probably wasn’t the best use of time in a practical sense, but it proved very satisfying, and even a little useful.
The Book I Didn’t Want to Write involved working through the album track by track, each of its 25 individual pieces of music in a row. By mentioning this disinclination of mine, I don’t intend to offend any other authors in this series — or in similar pursuits — who have taken this track-by-track approach. I simply had little interest in taking the opportunity to publish a book with 33 1/3 only to simply guide the listener/reader through the record one song at a time, like a docent on a walking tour of some historic cemetery. That approach didn’t seem true to the ambiguity inherent in this record, with its nearly vocal-less content, all but one of the tracks lacking words for a title (utilizing pictures instead), the whole thing intended as much for deep background playing as for attentive listening. It’s an album to get lost in, not to be be provided a Star Map for.
…
Read the full piece at 333sound.com
February 9, 2014
Disquiet: 15, 10 & 5 Years Ago This Week (2014.06)
This would be roughly the week of February 3 through February 9.
5 Years Ago (2009): Highlight of the week was definitely a two-part overview of an incredible exhibit of graphic scores at the New Langton Arts gallery in San Francisco. My photography was especially terrible, but there’s lots of documentation. These included work from Robert Ashley, William Basinski, Gavin Bryars, Cornelius Cardew, Alvin Curran, Philip Glass, Ryoji Ikeda, Joan Jeanrenaud, György Ligeti, Christian Marclay, Barry McGee, Gordon Mumma, Conlon Nancarrow, Phill Niblock, Carsten Nikolai, Raster-Noton, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Steve Roden (see above photo), Karlheinz Stockhausen, Morton Subotnick, Yasunao Tone, Stephen Vitiello, Iannis Xenakis, and others. The show was curated by Christoph Cox and Robert Shimshak. … Quote of the week was humorous hater comments about a white-noise app (“Good app if you like to fall asleep to static!”). … The PhotoShopping of sound. … The Downstream included some laptop-enabled improv, the latest in Taylor Deupree’s daily sound uploads, live recordings from D’Incise, some dusty drones from Eluder, and dubby 8-Bit from Simon Mattison.
10 Years Ago (2004): Quote of the week was from Greg Egan’s then new novel, Schild’s Ladder:
As she entered the chamber, she seemed to emerge from the mouth of a burrow to float above a lush, wide meadow beneath a cloud-dappled sky. The illusion was purely audiovisual — the sounds encoded in radio waves — but with no weight to hold her against the ceramic hidden beneath the meadow, the force of detail was eerily compelling. It took only a few blades of grass and some chirping insects to make her half-believe that she could smell the late-summer air.
Review of a show at the Luggage Store Gallery by Jorge Boehringer and Mohtallah (Brian O’Reilly and Stefanie L. Ku, performing with Peter Segerstrom). …
Downstream entries included netlabel work from Veem, heavily mediated spoken-word experimentation from Warren Ellis and Scott Lamb, some Game Boy fun from Overthruster, a Cex remix by Colongib, and live loops from Rick Walker’s Loop.pooL.
15 Years Ago (1999): Nothing this week.
disquiet.com/saw2for33third
Updated 2014.02.09: If you’re reading this web page, it’s likely because you read the very last sentence on the very last page of my book in the 33 1/3 series, Selected Ambient Works Volume II, about the 1994 album of that name by Aphex Twin. On that page I provided the URL disquiet.com/saw2for33third for future “Annotations and supplements to this book.” That URL will stand as a repository of the main secondary materials related to the book. Below are essential such posts. A full, list of posts that relate to the book can be accessed via this site’s #saw2for33third tag.
. . .
Where to Get the Book: You could always order it through (or locate it at) your local bookstore, for example those (such as City Lights in San Francisco and Powell’s in Portland) that are graciously hosting me reading from it. The book is available to purchase at amazon.com (paperback and Kindle-digital), the Google Play store (digital), and bloomsbury.com (paperback, epub, PDF).
Social Reading: Also, there’s a goodreads.com page and a librarything.com page, and it’s at Google Books, which contains the full first chapter.
. . .
The Essential Related Disquiet.com Posts:
Aphex Twin Interview (1996)
The full text of my 1996 interview with Aphex Twin, published in early 1997
SAW2 for 33 1/3
This is the post in which I announced the book project after signing my contract with my publisher.
March 20 Talk/Concert at City Lights
Announcement of me reading in San Francisco, with help from musician friends
Q&A at the 33 1/3 Blog
I was interviewed by my publisher when the book was still being written.
Aphex Twin SAW2 Countdown: Track 25 (“Matchsticks”)
The first in a daily series of track analysis, leading up to the February 13, 2014, release of the book. When the full 25 are done I’ll do a post linking to all of them.
Cornish for Jungle
Full transcript of my mid-1990s interview with Aphex Twin’s fellow Cornwall native Luke Vibert (aka Wagon Christ, aka Plug)
Aphex Twin SAW2 Countdown: Track 5 (“Grass”)
I am going to do this track-by-track countdown to the release, on February 13, 2014, the day prior to Valentine’s Day, of my book in the estimable 33 1/3 series. It is a love letter to Aphex Twin’s album Selected Ambient Works Volume II, which will mark its 20th anniversary this year, less than a month after my book’s publication. More on my Aphex Twin book at amazon.com and Bloomsbury.com. The plan is to do this countdown in the reverse order, from last track to first. For reference, an early draft of the introduction is online, as is the book’s seven-chapter table of contents. The book’s publisher posted an interview with me when I was midway through the writing process.
There is some irony to doing this countdown since the book is already shipping to folks who pre-ordered it via an online retailer such as Amazon, but the official date stands, and that’s the target — the end date — of this countdown, February 13. And for what it’s worth, while the physical copies are mailing now from retailers, the Kindle version won’t turn on until February 13. Still, the digital version costs less.
As I’ve noted on Twitter, this track-a-day approach is exactly the opposite of the book’s approach, which is a collection of interrelated, reporting-based essays.
I enjoying seeing the book pop up in people’s Twitter and Instagram feeds. Here is a proof-of-life shot from Matmos’ Drew Daniel:
@disquiet look what arrived in the mail: pic.twitter.com/rVJkmOTnpB
— Drew Daniel (@DDDrewDaniel) February 9, 2014
“Grass” gets covered quite a bit in a section about the under-appreciated rhythmic qualities of the album (chapter two: “Background Beats”). This is one of a handful of tracks on the album that connect to the Fourth World music of Jon Hassell, music in which “rituals are brought to bear through unintended uses on new technologies, especially of castaway materials,” as I put it. Later in the book (chapter 6: “Embedding Vapor”) I touch on its employment in this black-comedic skit by satirist Chris Morris:
This is “Grass” and the track “Tree” playing simultaneously, courtesy of a YouTube-hosted fan mix:
And here it is reversed:
More on my Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works Volume II book at amazon.com and Bloomsbury.com.
Thanks to boondesign.com for the sequential grid treatment of the album cover.
February 8, 2014
Aphex Twin SAW2 Countdown: Track 6 (“Mould”)
I am going to do this track-by-track countdown to the release, on February 13, 2014, the day prior to Valentine’s Day, of my book in the estimable 33 1/3 series. It is a love letter to Aphex Twin’s album Selected Ambient Works Volume II, which will mark its 20th anniversary this year, less than a month after my book’s publication. More on my Aphex Twin book at amazon.com and Bloomsbury.com. The plan is to do this countdown in the reverse order, from last track to first. For reference, an early draft of the introduction is online, as is the book’s seven-chapter table of contents. The book’s publisher posted an interview with me when I was midway through the writing process.
There is some irony to doing this countdown since the book is already shipping to folks who pre-ordered it via an online retailer such as Amazon, but the official date stands, and that’s the target — the end date — of this countdown, February 13. And for what it’s worth, while the physical copies are mailing now from retailers, the Kindle version won’t turn on until February 13. Still, the digital version costs less.
As I’ve noted on Twitter, this track-a-day approach is exactly the opposite of the book’s approach, which is a collection of interrelated, reporting-based essays.
This is a track that a good chunk of the book is spent on. It’s one of the few vocal tracks, though that simple distinction — vocal versus non-vocal — doesn’t do justice to how the vocal is, essentially, a form of percussion. Which is to say, its presence is a kind of double refutation of received wisdom about the album (that is devoid of vocals and beats). The way the vocal resounds, the meandering keyboard part, the loping bass — all of these make “Mould” a standout track on an album where tracks do their best to not stand out.
Just a side note: as is discussed at length in the book, various factors play a role in the murky definition of tracks, from the different number of tracks on different editions, to the absence of titles, to the presence of images, to the widespread employment of words in place of those images. In the case of “Mould,” there is the additional factor of Americans tending to spell it “Mold.”
And here it is reversed:
More on my Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works Volume II book at amazon.com and Bloomsbury.com.
Thanks to boondesign.com for the sequential grid treatment of the album cover.
Past Week at Twitter.com/Disquiet
My buddy Bob Levine will be on WQXR Opera Quiz today during 1st Madama Butterfly intermission, 2pm EST. ->
RIP, Anna Gordy Gaye (b. 1921), cofounder of Anna Records, songwriter, sister of Berry Gordy, wife of Marvin Gaye: http://t.co/2owSzoEoFh ->
In my Aphex Twin countdown, I'm posting people's photos of copies of my @333books. Yesterday: @jpbartee @emarg0ed http://t.co/W4pi1KfAgJ ->
Today will be day 13 of my 25-day Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works Volume II countdown. Halfway through means … "Blue Calx"! ->
Nothing as personal as PR email addressed to "Marc2" with faux personalized opening and an emoticon. ->
I look forward to a movie as interesting as the serial drama of casting announcements. ->
Marveling at the light rain like a character in a Paolo Bacigalupi book. ->
There's a @goodreads entry for my Aphex Twin @333books book should you, you know, wanna add it to your reading list: http://t.co/mo5DxViDU1 ->
I'm including folks' Twitter/Instagram shots of my @333books Aphex Twin SAW2 book in my daily countdowns, so lemme know if you post one. ->
Y'day: Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works Vol II (@333books) reverse-order daily track countdown: #13 (“Blue Calx”) http://t.co/diJcsvvilb ->
Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works Vol II (@333books) reverse-order daily track countdown: #12 (“White Blur 1”) http://t.co/rWKERwTIkd ->
Been posting weekly looks back 15, 10, and 5 years to what I've written. Here's a 1999 interview with Steve Reich: http://t.co/YGuwJYpOnO. ->
PSH film I most look forward to is Most Wanted Man, directed by Anton Corbijn, music by Herbert Grönemeyer (of Corbijn's The American). #RIP ->
Much of U2's new song, the Danger Mouse–produced "Invisible," sounds more like a Brian Eno project than does some of their Eno stuff. ->
Next time I ride Caltrain I need to remember to have Chris Bacon's Source Code score on my iPod. ->
Someone on Caltrain (north, arriving in San Carlos at 5:28pm) has named their mobile modem "Larry Ellison's iPhone." ->
Because you never hear a train coming. #caltrain #soundstudies #signage http://t.co/0sDQJFRWaV ->
This photo makes me especially happy: http://t.co/4W8f8YQtyr. Thanks, @npseaver. ->
RT @wcraghead: great piece from @disquiet in last week's Junto project based on my seed toss drawings and field recordings: http://t.co/W1a… ->
Tuesday noon siren in San Francisco: http://t.co/FrVmKgO1Mx ->
Thing I learned today: the extended subsidiary clause is a significant challenge to the comprehensible spoken narrative. ->
RT @westyreflector: Riding the F-train with Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works Vol II by @disquiet http://t.co/V5sIxqE9Ua ->
Tuesday noon siren rang out while we were filming a brief (er, well, maybe 20-minute) video for the 33 1/3 Aphex Twin book. ->
Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works Vol II (@333books) reverse-order daily track countdown: #10 (“Tree”) http://t.co/qhWHkz1aYs ->
Thanks to @npseaver + @westyreflector for their photos of my Selected Ambient Works V2 book: http://t.co/qhWHkz1aYs. ->
Image reportedly of Brian Eno + projected talk notes upon realizing he's running late: http://t.co/7qjxMo09nD. Info: http://t.co/aowPK0RJZY. ->
Today in sound class, a brief history of listening: celebrity death, oral culture, memory, synesthesia, sonification. ->
Reading my students' first sound journal entries. Some exemplary work in there, and just imagine where they'll be in 15 weeks. ->
ScopeCreap dot com is not yet registered. #justsayin ->
The sound of elevator floor bells one or two floors down. ->
Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works Vol II (@333books) reverse-order daily track countdown: #9 (“Weathered Stone”) http://t.co/tZkosphPY4 ->
Today's Selected Ambient Works V2 proof-of-book-life photo apparently features food from Burma Superstar http://t.co/tZkosphPY4 ->
Not one student in my course has seen The Conversation before. I'm looking forward to next week. ->
Yes, tomorrow's @djunto project will be about that old cut up, William S. Burroughs. ->
RIP, William "Bunny Rugs" Clarke (b. 1948). As I recall, "1865 (96° in the Shade)" was one of the first reggae songs I ever heard. ->
If there were an Emmy for best use of photos in a recap it would go to Esther Inglis-Arkell of @io9 for this: http://t.co/nj4Ro6VOpA #arrow ->
We skipped the Gordon Hempton documentary this semester. Thinking again about swapping in Diva and swapping out Playtime. ->
radio unshack RT @otolythe: unshackleton RT @everyword: unshackled in reply to otolythe ->
Sound of library study room's electricity turning off because my typing style isn't histrionic enough to confirm a human is in the room. ->
Sound of the person in adjacent library study room aggressively writing on a blackboard. ->
Palatino was ubiquitous. Now it isn't. The word isn't even in my phone's autocorrect. What happened to Palatino? ->
Irony of prepping for literary cut-up chaos: the anal-retentive orderliness of the step-by-step cut-up-process instructions. #wsb100 ->
Making cut-up music to celebrate William S. Burroughs' 100th birthday: http://t.co/wx5cREWVmj. Do join in. ->
3 3 3 3
14 10 5 7
3 3 3 3
8 18 11 4
3 3 3 3
6 17 12 9
15 15 15 15
3 3 3 3
13 2 16 1
3 3 3 3 ->
Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works Vol II (@333books) reverse-order daily track countdown: #8 (“Blur”) http://t.co/BKCTEKUsLA ->
I'm always late with holiday cards, but my Aphex Twin 33 1/3 book, due out the day before Valentine's Day, is certainly a love letter. ->
Reading at Powell's in Portland for my Aphex Twin book has been set for May. Details to follow. ->
I hope nothing important happens before the Sochi Olympics are over, because I've turned off my New York Times news alerts. ->
RT @dpnem: Listening to Aphex Twin. Thanks Obama.
No, it’s really @disquiet’s fault. ->
Today lots of two-year-old San Franciscans get to learn about this "rain" stuff their parents have been talking about for the past year. ->
When I'm done with this project I am going for a walk even if it requires scuba gear. ->
By the way, I have a 3.5-year-old, not a 2-year-old, who knows about rain and can sense the existence of puddles around corners. #mutie ->
Harps, hushed voices, electronix. All I've listened to all day is the Brumes feed: https://t.co/VKzS157wBI. When it ends I start all over. ->
Irony of songs of cutup new articles is if you don't know the language you don't get the chaos. Still, a good start: https://t.co/RG5yL7CI2z ->
I want to watch the Redshirts TV show. But I really just wanna read a book about the authority figures we only get glimpses of. ->
"It's around the second hour of listening that I come to recognize …" ->
My visual diet: Lotsa slow-reveal images of Aphex SAW2 cover (courtesy of @boondesign) + William S. Burroughs. http://t.co/6nqXaaQwix ->
Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works Vol II (@333books) reverse-order daily track countdown: #7 (“Curtains”) http://t.co/clyzXLJKn7 ->
Today's Aphex Twin SAW2 entry includes original track ("Curtains"), reversed, and appearance in a Chris Morris skit: http://t.co/clyzXLJKn7 ->
February 7, 2014
Aphex Twin SAW2 Countdown: Track 7 (“Curtains”)
I am going to do this track-by-track countdown to the release, on February 13, 2014, the day prior to Valentine’s Day, of my book in the estimable 33 1/3 series. It is a love letter to Aphex Twin’s album Selected Ambient Works Volume II, which will mark its 20th anniversary this year, less than a month after my book’s publication. More on my Aphex Twin book at amazon.com and Bloomsbury.com. The plan is to do this countdown in the reverse order, from last track to first. For reference, an early draft of the introduction is online, as is the book’s seven-chapter table of contents. The book’s publisher posted an interview with me when I was midway through the writing process.
There is some irony to doing this countdown since the book is already shipping to folks who pre-ordered it via an online retailer such as Amazon, but the official date stands, and that’s the target — the end date — of this countdown, February 13. And for what it’s worth, while the physical copies are mailing now from retailers, the Kindle version won’t turn on until February 13. Still, the digital version costs less.
As I’ve noted on Twitter, this track-a-day approach is exactly the opposite of the book’s approach, which is a collection of interrelated, reporting-based essays.
This is one of the first tracks I began to take extensive notes on, pages upon pages about just one song. Looking back at those notes today, I come upon this opening part of a sentence: “It’s around the second hour of listening that I come to recognize …”
The immersive experience I made of listening to a track a day, and to little else, for a year, rotating through them, comes backs to me as I work down this reverse countdown to this coming Thursday, February 13, when the book is officially released. That’s a somewhat less than meaningful date since: (1) physical copies in the U.S. are already shipping (and images are popping up on Twitter and Instagram), (2) it applies at this point to the digital version (which goes live that day, though in my experience of pre-ordering digital books that probably means that if you live on the West Coast of the United States you may have access to it on Tuesday night at 9:01pm, just as the East Coast enters the next day), and (3) the U.K. version isn’t officially on sale until April.
The track is built around two bars with a step-like melody, up and down and up and down. It comes to seem like the minute spaces between the notes in the theme alter, giving it a woozy, uncertain quality. The repetition has a parallel in the echo that allows the notes to repeat: they repeat in sequence, and also as suddering halos of themselves. This is the hall of mirrors, a languorous ambient techo rendition of the climactic scene in Lady in Shanghai. Ultimately, it isn’t an either/or distinction — it’s all about the merging, this place where all repetitions are themselves a form of note, a kind of instrument.
The track “Curtains” was used by satirist and comedian Chris Morris as a backing score to one of his sketches, “Man’s Bottom,” as heard below. Morris’ use of Aphex Twin makes an appearance in my book (in the chapter “Embedding Vapor”), but I focus on a different instance.
And here it is reversed:
More on my Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works Volume II book at amazon.com and Bloomsbury.com.
Thanks to boondesign.com for the sequential grid treatment of the album cover.
February 6, 2014
Aphex Twin SAW2 Countdown: Track 8 (“Blur”)
I am going to do this track-by-track countdown to the release, on February 13, 2014, the day prior to Valentine’s Day, of my book in the estimable 33 1/3 series. It is a love letter to Aphex Twin’s album Selected Ambient Works Volume II, which will mark its 20th anniversary this year, less than a month after my book’s publication. More on my Aphex Twin book at amazon.com and Bloomsbury.com. The plan is to do this countdown in the reverse order, from last track to first. For reference, an early draft of the introduction is online, as is the book’s seven-chapter table of contents. The book’s publisher posted an interview with me when I was midway through the writing process.
There is some irony to doing this countdown since the book is already shipping to folks who pre-ordered it via an online retailer such as Amazon, but the official date stands, and that’s the target — the end date — of this countdown, February 13. And for what it’s worth, while the physical copies are mailing now from retailers, the Kindle version won’t turn on until February 13. Still, the digital version costs less.
As I’ve noted on Twitter, this track-a-day approach is exactly the opposite of the book’s approach, which is a collection of interrelated, reporting-based essays.
Aphex Twin’s music on this album can be so rudimentary that, in some manner, it comes across like the base notes of the machines, the sound of them newly turned on and running through their self-maintenance functions. It is the sound of the room tone — were the pieces of equipment themselves rooms, rather than lines of code and collections of circuitry. So, this isn’t so much machines singing their own song, as it is machines making a tour of their own essential sounds, a song of themselves.
There is no doubt that track eight, “Blur,” has a beat, despite the album’s reputation for the absence thereof. The beat sounds like something off an early Peter Gabriel album, an association not undermined by the cinematic synth washes and subtle keyboard motif. The beat is the thing here, though. It’s little more than an augmented click track, but it’s played loud, each imperfect facet exaggerated until it gains texture, like that of an old metronome heard up close. It brings an emotional weight in the form of antiquated technology, in the rich detail of its low-key clank.
And here it is reversed:
More on my Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works Volume II book at amazon.com and Bloomsbury.com.
Thanks to boondesign.com for the sequential grid treatment of the album cover.
Disquiet Junto Project 0110: WSB100
Each Thursday at the Disquiet Junto group on SoundCloud.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 project was published in the evening, California time, on Thursday, February 6, with 11:59pm on the following Monday, February 10, 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 0110: WSB100
The day before this project began marked the 100th birthday of William S. Burroughs, who passed away in 1997. We celebrate his literary legacy by employing one of his classic artistic subroutines, the cut-up. (Special thanks to C. Reider of Vuzh Music for the centennial reminder.)
These are the steps:
Step 1: Take the lead article from your local newspaper and write down the first 18 sentences on separate slips of paper — or, if you prefer, extract the first 18 lines on separate strips of paper.
Step 2: Label these pieces of text from 1 to 18.
Step 3: Either read them out loud or use text-to-speech and record them.
Step 4: Construct the vocal of a song using the material. Sequence the vocal in the following order. Note that text element 3 serves as the chorus and text element 15 serves as the bridge. The remaining elements are in random sets of four, with no repetition.
3 3 3 3
14 10 5 7
3 3 3 3
8 18 11 4
3 3 3 3
6 17 12 9
15 15 15 15
3 3 3 3
13 2 16 1
3 3 3 3
Add music, whatever instrumentation you choose, to flesh this out into a proper song.
Step 5: When posting the track be sure to include a link to the originating source article. If you cut up the text by hand, please include photos of your process.
Deadline: Monday, February 10, 2014, at 11:59pm wherever you are.
Length: Your finished work should be between 1 minute 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 “disquiet0110-wsb100” 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 110th Disquiet Junto project (“Celebrate the 100th birthday of that old cut-up, William S. Burroughs”) at:
http://disquiet.com/2014/02/06/disqui...
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
Join the Disquiet Junto at:
