Sounding Nature

Looks like I might be the only Australian, either way I'm stoked to be part of Sounding Nature.


The project covers 55 countries, with almost 500 sounds and 250 artists taking part -- you can explore it in full at www.citiesandmemory.com/sounding-nature

Also, look for me jamming with cicadas in Costa Rica!

Being in the music business

Disquiet Junto 0360 Fishbowl Progressions

The Disquiet Junto this week asks for a piece of music in which:

the relative position and movement of sounds are as important to compositional development as are melody, harmony, and rhythm.

Types of current musical artists

South of Taxi

White Toast

Here's another remix of the recent 12-hour Junto.

Where I took direction from Junto number 166, Slow By Steps, for the previous remix, this one takes direction from Junto 332, Lucky Numbers.

I've selected files to include in the remix based on the Powerball results.

Disquiet Junto 0359 Broken Clock

The Junto this week involves remixing an earlier activity.

I'd been meaning to try remixing my recording for that activity and already had an idea to revisit an even earlier Junto for directions, see Slow By Steps here.

The guitar part in my recording seemed suited for slowing a short loop, and I went back to the original recordings to use two takes.

Drum kitted out

Had a minor epiphany this week when I realised that owning two drum kits means I can have one really big drum kit.

Now adjusting my fills for those extra toms and cymbals.

Disquiet Junto 0358 Rhythm + Blue(s)

I've taken the Junto instructions literally this week and put a blue shading on video of drumming.

Emily Yang on ambient

Ambient music is perhaps sort of a record of cultural exhaustion, of being caught in situations that seem to demand a collapse of context. It seems to say — if we have found our present cultural landscape unlivable, the best we can do is create miniatures of it for ourselves.

naviarhaiku252 – The wire fence is tall

The haiku shared by Naviar Records brought to mind memories of my uncle Neil.

He spent a month at Bathurst Jail for refusing to pay a fine for having rabbits on his property.

That institution had a fearsome reputation and Neil spoke of hearing unsettling things at night.

In my mind those things might've been the stories of beatings by prison guards that have heard elsewhere.

Disquiet Junto 0357 Clock Work

The Assignment: Base a piece of music on your previous 12 hours

As I read the Junto email, I’d just seen my kids onto the school bus after making them breakfast.

The previous 12 hours had been dominated by around eight and half hours of sleep.

Other activities included coffee, muesli, lovemaking and having a bath.

I began writing lyrics to describe a dream but didn’t record them.

When I started writing the song for sleep, I picked the acoustic guitar.

At first I worried about noise, then realised background noise was important.

So I recorded all the guitar in the backyard to get sounds from throughout the 12 hours.