naviarhaiku521 – basking

 

The haiku shared by Naviar Records spoke to me, specifically the line about "my trashy hut" as it could describe my home studio!

So I recorded the track I've been jamming on this week.

Disquiet Junto 0626 Audio Journal 2023

The final Disquiet Junto prompt each year has been an opportunity to survey one’s media and it’s always fascinating to see the scenes thrown together. 

It’s a great insight into what participants have been making outside of the Junto too. 

So I was disappointed to see my 2023 seemed quieter than previous years (and here I note this is my ninth video response to the Audio Journal prompt). 

 I can spot there were many visits to material from previous years, as well as reusing recordings through successive projects. 

At first it disappointed me to see there were no videos published on my Youtube in June, then I remembered that was the month that my partner had pneumonia and the Ngurambang exhibition opened in Griffith. 

That was hectic! 

Other highlights not captured here include an exhibition about Murray Cod, winning the “Champion Exhibit” award in a local art competition and being commended for a short story. 

All the best for the new year and I’m looking forward to hearing what you’ve been recording this year, cheers.

naviarhaiku520 – Winter sky

 

The haiku shared by Naviar prompted me to plug in my Moogs and play around.

They sound rich, so I find myself just grooving along and enjoying what follows.

I am hoping to get better at programming the sequencer, as the MIDI inputs don't trigger everything.

Straight out the shoe box


 

Disquiet Junto 0625 Noise Ceiling

 

The Disquiet Junto this week asks participants to imagine the sound of the room in a photo.

I looked at the pic and in the other room my son was cooking an apple pie in a halogen oven, so I thought it sounded appropriate.

Disquiet Junto 0624 Fresh Pair

 

The Disquiet Junto project this week asks participants to combine a couple of influences.

I'd been playing with a melody that reminded me of the gargle of a wattle bird, then arrived at giving it an accompaniment that I found kinda jazzy.

(Admittedly, jazzy for me lately is electric piano and pizzicato double bass samples.)

Then I added more electronic elements and thought it sounded like early Senor Coconut.

And, before long, I was imagining the winter that Uwe Schmidt spent in Melbourne before he moved to Santiago.

Then I wondered if he had a lonely afternoon jamming with a wattle bird.

naviarhaiku517 – Early dawn’s pale light

 

The haiku shared by Naviar Records had a line about a "gentle start to the day" and the weather has been warming up here.

It's heading toward a maximum of 40 and that gentle moment feels brief, as the sunlight begins to bite from the first direct beam.

So I tried to convey a sense of the day being brighter than expected.

Disquiet Junto 0622 Know the Shadow

 

The Disquiet Junto assignment asks "How do you depict a shadow in sound?"

It prompted a few thoughts for me, starting with the line that The Shadow knows the evil that lurks in hearts of men.

Then I reflected on the way shadow blocks light and thought it'd be interested if the sounds came from the edges, so I explored panning and tilting and compression artefacts.

Finally I realised that I had an example of shadowboxing if I used the two takes I'd recorded on the drums.

Guitar players on laundry day

 


Disquiet Junto 0621 The Leftovers

The Junto prompt arrived as I was wondering if I had useful bits from recording last weekend. 

 That session built on the drums I'd played for the recent 0619 project, but felt like I was cheating since I didn't use material from another contributor. 

So that became a Naviar track and now this feels like the material has returned to the Disquiet fold. 

Last night I took an alternative drum performance (notably it lacked the triplet part), as well as two ukulele recordings and added them to the bass part. 

Then this morning I edited out one bit that didn't seem to gel, so there's a little jump but it probably blends in with the other edits.

I'm here to tune your guitar

 


naviarhaiku515 – Last bloom before autumn

 

The haiku shared by Naviar this week was an opportunity to jam with myself.

While the seasonal reference didn't gel with the summer temperatures we've been having in Leeton, the line about a sibling did -- since I'd recently spoken with mine.

Disquiet Junto 0619 Beat Accrual

 

The Junto instructions this week is to accrue a beat over time.

It seemed obvious to record the drums, which are sitting in the living room while my son rehearses for a music assessment.

naviarhaiku513 – a black dog

 

The haiku shared by Naviar Records this week prompted me to think how transformation is central to music-making.

So I took the MIDI information and played it through a collection of Roland Boutique sound modules in the studio I've set up in my caravan.

Paper scissors

Disquiet Junto 0618 Burying the Lede

The Disquiet Junto assignment is to "Turn old news into new music."

I searched Trove for an article about Griffith from 50 years ago.

The Bulletin was a journal that ran for over a century and a story mentioning Griffith appeared as soon as I search the Trove database for a publication from 1973. 

However, this "local" story appeared to be linked only to the name Griffith, the rest seemed to be discussing the left-leaning factions across the Australian political landscape. 

I took the Mac's text-to-speech software into Matriarch via an oscillator input, then jammed with the Mood Sound Studio. 

It gets satisfyingly loud toward the end. 

At the time it made sense since I've been looking at another copy of The Bulletin in Griffith, but that printed copy came from 1899 or so and sits in an old homestead which was used as a film set this week.

 

Not all heroes

Here's a little tune I wrote


 

naviarhaiku512 – Endless echo

The haiku shared by Marco this week is one that he wrote.

It surprised me to see it echoed one I wrote recently, as well as his account of cleaning his mother's place as that's the subject of a story that I began writing recently.

So I took the opportunity to record a jam on Moogs.

Disquiet Junto 0616 Definition Jam

The Disquiet Junto project this week asks participants to "render, through sound, the two different definitions" and explore the nuance in language.

I've been playing with a new synthsiser and thought I'd consider the definition of synthesis as "the combination of components or elements to form a connected whole."

So I've layered recordings of different patches on the synthesiser.

Disco Steve


 

naviarhaiku511 – in dark autumn nights

The haiku shared by Naviar Records this week prompted me to start exploring ideas in the dark.

I wanted to use my new keyboard and thought reaching out to the moon would sound like rising delays, while the autumnal setting suggested F minor for fall.

It was light by the time I recorded, then I layered up the two takes that sounded best together.

naviarhaiku510 – in pre-dawn darkness

 

The haiku shared by Naviar this week is different than I remembered.

Thinking back I can see that I read it earlier in the week and then associated the scene it describes with one I wrote in a recent short story, where pre-dawn rain was making percussive sounds on scrap metal.

My haiku might be:

in pre-dawn darkness
metal makes percussive sounds
rainfall in junkyard

Anyway, that's what led me to record this piece.

This week I'm traveling and had a couple of hours with my nephew's drums.

I recorded them first, using the Rode mic that attaches to my Nikon camera.

Then I quickly put together a chord progression that would suit the C key of my tongue drum, then recorded a couple of takes on that instrument.

It would've been good to add a bass but the ukulele and tongue drum were the only instruments at hand.

Disquiet Junto 0614 Alternate Route

The Disquiet Junto this week prompted me to plug in a few previously unrecorded instruments.

This piece was composed in April, when I wrote a bunch of tracks and then had some computer problems.

I recently bought a Yamaha digital piano and used it with an Alesis SR-16 and Bastl Softpop 2.

Disquiet Junto 0612 Drum Vector

The Disquiet Junto assignment this week is to "Walk the listener through variations on the same percussive instrument."

I decided to quickly record on the drumkit, using the camera's built-in mic without rehearsal.

I wish my life had background music


 

Disquiet Junto 0611 Music That Listens to Itself

 

The Disquiet Junto assignment this week is to "Record a piece of music that repurposes itself as it proceeds."

I pondered that directive for while, at first thinking it was about establishing a leitmotif, then reading the detail about effects:

From reverb to echo to tape loops to granular synthesis to accessing a buffer, various techniques serve such a compositional and performance purpose. Consider a means to achieve this result.

This led me to use my gated effects with two chords to draw attention to how the different pedals are triggered by the drumloop to shape the ukulele part.

The effects chain splits an octave below and above, while the original part goes to the Empress Zoia pedal with the "Loopforest" preset.

On the octave below is a Mainframe bitcrusher and Bass Synth, while the octave above goes through a stereo chorus and into the Modrex.

The drumloop is going through a Platform compressor and Generation Loss, before being filtered by a Mini Kaoss Pad.

The Beastie Boys are releasing

naviarhaiku504 – Lazing in shadows

Layered up my takes from the Junto recording for the Naviar track this week.

Every day is better


 

Disquiet Junto 0609 Speed Limit Pt 1

 

The Disquiet Junto instruction is to "Record a simple track at 60 BPM in 4/4 that will be reworked subsequently by other musicians."

naviarhaiku503 – Caterpillar

 

This haiku shared by Naviar Records prompted me to record the chords I'd been jamming with on my electric ukulele.

Inspiration

Disquiet Junto 0608 Nature-to-Text

 

As someone, I think Brian Eno, once said “Honour thy error as a hidden intention.” 

When I read the Junto instructions I thought they said to use a text-to-speech tool to turn a field recording into instructions for a composition. 

Anyway, it led me to plan to use lines from my micro-journal with a recent field recording to start a composition. 

After I double-checked the assignment and realised my error, I tried Youtube's auto-subtitles and Macwhisper but couldn't use a speech-to-text tool to turn a field recording into instructions. 

So, I took the instruction to also include considering Eno and his hidden intention is where that recording landed.

Disquiet Junto 0606 Three to One

The project this week is to "Compose a piece of music with three times as much silence as sound."

Once again I reached for the guitar and began recording while waiting for my son to return home.

I recorded a few takes but the camera battery ran out before completing the final.

This version is the first take and I picked it as it has more silence.

In post-production I added some tape delay and reverb, as well as tube-style saturation.

Disquiet Junto 0605 Fifty Fifty

The Disquiet Junto prompt this week is to "Compose a piece of music with as much silence as notes."

It came from a suggestion I made to Marc after hearing Mozart on the radio while driving to work.

Ed Le Brocq had introduced the piece observing that it had as much silence as notes and it seemed perfect for a Junto exercise, particularly since I've found myself frustrated by making busy music.

(And, as an aside, I read Ed's book 'Whole Notes' recently and enjoyed it. One of the volunteers at the museum where I work had recommended it, saying all of the members of her ukulele group had liked it.)

Anyway, I found half an hour this morning to set-up a camera on the balcony of my out-laws place outside Wagga and recorded a few takes.

This evening I've tried to improve the sound quality by EQ-ing away higher frequencies and sneaking a bit of tape warble and delay, as well as compression.

And, I've got to add, I was pleased to read this from Marc in the Junto email:

Major thanks to Jason Richardson, aka Bassling, for having proposed this week's project. There may not be another person who's recorded as many Junto projects as Jason has, and so he has a unique sense of them. He interviewed me back in 2017 for Cyclic Defrost, and I learned quite a bit about the Junto myself during the conversation. I think frequently about an observation he made, in the context of one of his questions: "Junto themes seem to have proportion to daily life, with a number about sleeping, waking, eating, walking, etc." I couldn't agree more.

Disquiet Junto 0604 Heaven’s Gate

The Disquiet Junto assignment this week asks participants to "Use a picture of the clouds as a plan for adjusting your sound."

It's been a long time between Juntos, the longest in nearly ten years; but I've been keen to get back.

Marc shared a photo of clouds that reminded me of a clock and the title said gate, so I ended up thinking about gating the sound of the chimes I heard while volunteering at the front desk of a museum on the weekend.

The snippets of sound that broke through seemed ripe for delay and then I added back in the clock to make sense of it all near the end.

Gibb's son

I'd love to add The Bee Gees to my effects chain.

Seriously, I spent many years dancing to a copy of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.

Recently I saw a doco on them and found myself admiring their harmonies, songwriting and a joyful jam that led to 'Jive Talking'.

Not my pic but I'd like a fuzz pedal just to see their eyes light-up to my music!

World Listening Day

This morning I heard a Pied Butcherbird singing outside my office, so I attempted to make conversation with a renowned songbird and appreciated that it entertained my efforts.

Pausing


 

Disquiet Junto 0595 Filter Progression

 

The Disquiet Junto this week asks participants to modulate a tone or field recording using only filter frequency and resonance.

Earlier today I was walking past the ricegrowers facility that seems to make dog food and remembered recording it for the Junto proposed by Australian Kate Carr, number 0218.

And earlier his week I was remembering Junto 0186, which used Morse code. 

For that I recall spell my name using the kick drum and I went for a similar idea here, but it's more of a high-hat part.

I was remembering Morse code his as it was a topic being presented to a school group visiting the Museum where I work.

Martin Amis on anxiety

Use any anxiety you have about your writing — or your life — as fuel. Ambition and anxiety: that’s the writer’s life.

naviarhaiku490 – The cold forest flaunts

 

When Naviar Records shared the haiku this week, I thought of the wind rushing between the trees in my front yard.

It's not really a forest but Australian trees don't really grow that way.

I don't know what a wood anemone looks like, since apparently they don't grow on my continent, but I thought it might sound like wind organs.

Disquiet Junto 0593 The Charm

The Disquiet Junto project this builds on previous weeks as we form trios.

I joined a couple of tracks using my Korg Volca FM synth driven with MIDI from Ableton Live.

Unfortunately my computer browsers are too old to access the forum where the Junto community gather, so I'll try to add these videos when I can and draw attention of the other musicians.

The track below also uses a 909-style drum machine in Live.

Disquiet Junto 0592 Better Than One

 

The Junto this week asks participants to join a trio.

And we also get to respond to more than one trio, so I recorded two tracks.

 

Korg volcas

Still playing with my Korg Volcas and happy with the bass sound from the Keys.

I've taken a couple of samples from the MIDI of an old pop song, then played with the drums to get them through the Percussion unit.

Disquiet Junto 0591 The Loneliest Number

 
Disquiet Junto Project this week is to "record the first third of a trio."

It's become an annual prompt and I've used different instruments, so as I looked around and pondered the Moog DFAM seemed a good choice.

I like that the tempo is so varied that it needs to be used as a textural sound more than an electronic drum track.

The patch uses the Make Noise CTRL to drive the clock via a sequencer going back and forth.

You can also hear the Subharmonicon in the distance on the righ channel, since I didn't think it was right for the DFAM to be lonely.

Ethan Hein on funk

"Funk works best when the musicians subsume their egos into the groove."

Disquiet Junto 0590 Concrète Roots

The Disquiet Junto asks participants to "Combine field recordings and feedback in the development of an original track."

Time was running out in more ways than one, but I wanted to use my Bastl Thyme unit although the deadline for the Junto had passed.

Today is Anzac Day, a public holiday that gave me opportunity to position a Rode NT4 microphone in doorway and record sounds from a couple of young families in my street.

Disquiet Junto 0589 Auto Play

The assignment is to "Automate something manual" and it arrived at the correct moment.

This week I've been playing in Ableton Live and trying to make something musical.

Today I made a drum loop and then recorded a bass part, before making a couple of other recordings using the M-Tron VST.

They sounded harmonically interesting but the playing was scattered since I'd used the computer keyboard and have almost zero keyboard skills, aside from touch-typing.

Anyway, I read the Junto prompt and decided to add arpeggiation to every track -- except the drums, which got an Automaton effect.

Then I went looking for a video in the public domain about automation and the result seems kinda cool.

Disquiet Junto 0588 Swell Time

The Junto this week asks for surf music.

My mind went to Valla Beach, where I wish I was holidaying.

Then I remembered a song that was prompted by a haiku about a beach and thought I should revisit it.

The Penny Effect

One of the best things about making video for other people is when I get to soundtrack the resulting production.

So it was with The Penny Effect, which was made about three years ago and has now been premiered at the local gallery.

It will now be a permanent exhibit and I like that my music will be playing for days.

Disquiet Junto 0587 Sour Mash

The Disquiet Junto assignment this week is to "Let something go out of tune."

Because I've been busy, I wanted to use an existing recording and my mind went to the washing line.

I recorded this extended squeak for Junto assignment number 356 and remembered it was dissonant but had forgotten how short my hair was back then!

To really get it out of tune I transposed it in Ableton Live, then recorded myself playing a bass part with a synth along with a drum loop.

For a bit more interest I added chance and delay to the drums, as well as an arpeggiator to the bass.

Organ Donor at Burning Seed

Burning Seed, the NSW Burning Man event, happened last weekend and I got a grant to build a collection of wind organs. 

Organ Donor was the name for the collection and came with a message in the program about donating organs to save lives.

Transmitter

Something about the handwriting on this radio appeals to me, but there's also that lovely blue mesh.