Disquiet Junto 0171 Oblicardo

The Disquiet Junto this week continued with the One Minute Past Midnight (OMPM) theme, asking for a rework of an existing track based on instructions from the Oblique Strategies cards developed by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt.

Like the Junto, I've been a fan of Oblique Strategies for a while but not used it for recording music. I tend to look at the widget occasionally when I've something on my mind and don't want to ask my partner to get her tarot cards out.

When the Junto email arrived I checked the Strategies and it said "Remember those quiet evenings" and I thought immediately of playing guitar.

As the day progressed, I looked again and got "Go outside. Shut the door" -- which made me think of the second recording I made for the first OMPM project, when I'd set the mic outside and you can hear me shut the screen door.

That recording was the 'safe for work' version I'd made a bit after midnight because I had doubts about using the 'not safe for work' recording. Both can be found here. Last week I remixed the other version and I didn't consider using it for the Junto this week

Then this evening I consulted oblicard.com and found it offered a few new strategies, particularly "Abandon normal instructions" and "Use your own ideas" and "Make what's perfect more human" and "Trust in the you of now" and "Give way to your worst impulse" among others.

It led me to set the microphone outside again and record myself playing the guitar. I don't know many songs and, while I could've improvised something, I wanted to record my song 'Blue Moon'.



I've recorded it a number of times since I wrote it in 2008 by adapting a poem that I remember writing at the Hyatt in Canberra in the mid-1990s. One of my favourite versions is this instrumental take on gated guitar.



The result tonight isn't particularly polished and uses new ambiance from my backyard but it's what the Strategies were telling me to do.