The Junto this week was another interesting challenge, this time posed by artist Charles Lindsay. Dunno if I can describe it, so have a look at the Disquiet page.
In some ways it's not surprising that I've taken the tracks and remixed them into a dubby feel. It's an approach I've taken with many other samples but here it also reflects the rhythms that the three audio recordings had in common.
The request to explore "notions of perceived techno-organic intelligence" lent itself to an IDM remix and then I started getting all cosmic thinking about cycles falling in and out of phase, as well as the idea of a pulse or heartbeat that's central to all things.
I got a nice dub-sorta track going at 120 BPM and then sped it up to 126 because it swung better there. Before long I was jamming along on my bass guitar and I recorded a part but found it seemed to define the track too much, so I took it out again.
This morning I listened back and thought it was done, then started uploading. Then I listened again and decided to cancel the upload, as I'd had an idea to make the rhythm more complex.
Opening Live again, I exported the track at 94.5 and 189 BPM before editing these with the version at 126. I like the result, especially the way the track seems to slow down then speed up as the kick parts fade in during the last third.
I called the track 'Signature' because, as mentioned, the remix approach is a bit of a stock response from me. Another signature is my use of a three-quarter-length rhythm, like the 3/4 alongside the 4/4. This was why I used tempos at 94.5 and 189 against the main one at 126 BPM.
Then at the end I reversed the opening so it can pull up to where it started to be looped.