Disquiet Junto 3 Parts

The Disquiet Junto this week called for three parts: a beat from an oscillator, form from a drum machine and a field recording for melody.

After experimenting with the low frequency oscillator in my Sherman Filterbank, I recorded a slow 'blap' sorta sound using one of the four in my Utopia synth going into the aforementioned filterbank, which really warped the waveform.

This was then manipulated with various effects in Ableton Live, including re-pitching, compression, transient designing and gating to get a big kick sound and another on a slower loop.




Drum sounds came from an Alessis HR-16 circuit bent by Diabolical Devices. I recorded a few passes with different bends, before editing takes together.



The field recording is a wetland on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River in Wagga Wagga. You can sort of see it about a third of the way down the left-hand side below, opposite the water works on Marshall Creek that source town water from the Murrumbidgee aquifer. I have a theory that the reason the city has earned a reputation for sportspeople is partly due to this mineral-rich water supply but it does add a murky taste.

Redacted Disquiet Junto

  Disquiet Junto this week is an open-ended exploration of surveillance and graphic notation.

The image presented is page 8 of recently declassified documents related to NSA collection of telephone metadata records.

It's became the musical score for this piece I recorded using a Casiotone MT-36 circuit bent by Frankenmusik, a kick drum and my voice.

I considered recording this interpretation in the opposite direction to the score as a form of protest to the widespread surveillance being reported since Edward Snowden's brave decision.

The Junto is an opportunity for me to try something different so I decided to record live because I liked the idea of events happening in real-tiem being recorded. Then I cast my mind about for suitable instruments.

It had to be something quick and dirty, the score was rough and black but the content was human. So there needed to be a vocal and the time signature was suggested by the page number, although I wasn't too strict once it started.

I like the sound like a dot matrix printer, it's dated but seems apt for a government record.




Current set-up




This weekend I'm making acid, driving basslines from the Mochika and looping snippets of crunchy circuit bent beats from this diabolical Yamaha device. Enjoying it so much I might not get around to recording the Junto piece that's losing my attention.