Disquiet Junto 0714 Remix Yourself

The Junto arrived with the knowledge that I wanted to remix the track I recorded last week.

I knew there would be vocal takes that would fit together nicely, and I’ve panned them to either channel here with a reverb shared on the buss.

What I was stuck on was who to imitate in my remix.

I asked my partner and she said “your former self.”

So the bassline takes some inspiration from the song ‘Slow boil’ on my first album, which I published online more than 20 years ago.

I used the UAD Opal synth for bass and a kind of textural sound at the beginning, middle break and end, along with Ableton Live's 909 samples.

These were given various saturation and distortion for warmth and to add legibility on smaller speakers.

Disquiet Junto 0713 Airwave Workout

The Junto assignment this week is to "Record exercise music for an imaginary broadcast."

Nearly 30 years ago, when I went to the gym, there was an instructor who liked to play a tape with guitar arpeggios during the cool down part of the Saturday morning session. 

So, thinking of this music when the Junto arrived, I grabbed my guitar and asked ChatGPT to generate a calisthenics routine.

As I played and read aloud the exercises, I started to sing, so I asked ChatGPT to make the routine into lyrics with sensual language.

That was on Friday night and I wasn't sure it was the right interpretation for the Junto.

Then today, Sunday, I decided that I wasn't going to have a better idea and recorded three takes.

I liked my guitar solo best in the first, sang better in the second but didn't like the chorus.

So the third take has a chorus that I made up, which ended up as the outro for the song.

Disquiet Junto 0712 Zebra Code

The Junto project this week came from a post I saw online, where barcodes were being interpreted as riffs.

I shared the idea with Marc and he indicated it was an idea worth exploring.

So I began looking at products in the kitchen cupboards and found most were atonal, which suited metal and I began riffing to settle on the stripes I'd use.

This label from a local supermarket took my interest as it had a more musical key and I think the Junto projects are an opportunity to share something specific to my location, as it's often interesting to see glimpses of participants' lives from around the world.

Then Marc shifted the idea to be a rhythm, which made sense as the Junto is not just guitarists.

The barcode I'd chosen was interpreted with the longer lines as accents for the narrow lines, which I decided were kick drums as I'm so used to putting them on the "one".

You can see there's a cymbal for the wider line and I settled on a snare for another width.

I took this rhythm and found a chord progression from my folder of Live sketches, then began arranging the parts.

In the process I halved the speed of the drum part at the beginning and in a middle section, as well as reversing the chords in other parts to add harmonic interest. 

Finally, I like to add delay, so I took the grainy quality of the barcord to suggest a granular or glitchy effect. 

Disquiet Junto 0711 Show & Tell &

The Junto project this week is to "Share some recent music; get and give feedback." 

I'm sharing a track that was originally recorded for the Junto, which I thought to revisit recently.

My feeling is that it's too long, possibly too repetitive (although it is aiming for a pop sensibility), and I've wondered if it's offensive -- so I was thinking to replace the word "bitch" with "glitch" and then adding more of that kinda effect.

Disquiet Junto 0710 Let's Get Loud

The Junto project has one step, "Choose a recent piece of your own music and rework it by making some portions of it significantly louder and busier than they were initially."

I've taken a piece of a guitar recording and cut it in half, then layered those together. 

Disquiet Junto 0709 Overclocked

The Disquiet assignment is to "Speed up a machine (or process) until it falters":  

Step 1: Think of a machine (or process) you use frequently. 

Step 2: Push that machine (or process) by speeding it up, until it begins to break down. 

Step 3: Record something making use of the sounds resulting from Step 2.

I've recorded my second pedal board, which I put together after noticing I'd left a bunch of Chase Bliss pedals off my first pedal board. 

Disquiet Junto 0708 Vocal Chords

The Disquiet Junto assignment is to "Do something with layers of the sound of your voice."

Disquiet Junto 0707 Chain of Practice

The Disquiet Junto project this week has a few steps:

Step 1: Think about your artistic practice. 

Step 2: Write down one sentence that in some manner describes your artistic practice. 

Step 3: Record yourself, or someone else, reading the sentence that resulted from Step 2. 

Step 4: Use the recording made in Step 3 as the sole source material for a new musical/sonic composition.

I recorded myself with an old iPhone saying the line shown to the top-right of my blog, hear below.

When I imported the video into Ableton Live I noticed there was a considerable click at the end, which saved me from having to manipulate a transient to produce a kick sound.

Then I picked a couple of ess-y bits for other percussive sounds, looping them and adding Live's Beatrepeat to gate them. 

I also looped the word "sample," pitching it down and adding a filtered EQ, as well as the word "looping," which was pitched up and also EQ'd. 

I looked for a few extended vowel sounds, to pitch up and create harmonic progression.

These weren't grabbing me, so I added Live's resonator and a Sinevibes' effect that is a great shortcut for this sorta thing.

Disquiet Junto 0706 Tile One On

The project has one step, "record something that makes use of the acoustics of your bathroom." 

I took the opportunity to make my first recording of a cute little secondhand drum kit that I bought.

It has a snare attached to the kick drum, which rattles a bit, but I'm thinking that I might leave that off for my Fire Cracker snare in future.

Wasn't sure what to add, so I grabbed my ukulele and started with the G minor chord that gets used a lot. 

Disquiet Junto 0705 Book Start

The Junto assignment this week is to "Let the beginning of a book help you begin a new piece of music."

I've read the opening to Andrea Wulf's Magnificent Rebels, which I began this week because I enjoyed her book on Alexander Von Humboldt. 

Disquiet Junto 0704 Right on Cumulus

The Junto prompt this week is to "compose 8-bit music" and I was kinda stumped.

I looked at using some of the Nintendo-sounding presets on the Kaossilators that my son has been using recently for an assignment, then decided to try the Bitquest pedal that arrived this week. 

It's being run through the Chase Bliss Habit pedal for delay/looping, while I cycle through a few settings. 

Disquiet Junto 0703 That's How You Got Killed Before

The Junto assignment this week is to "Revisit something that you just couldn’t get to work last time."

I've gone back to my track 'Wanderer' to try layering a couple of takes that I noticed were close in their tempo, despite not using a clicktrack.

Disquiet Junto 0702 Chain of Application

The Junto this week asks participants to misuse music software.

Usually I use Ableton Live by composing in MIDI, then exporting those notations as sound.

Today I thought to record a song called 'Inner Bitch' using my Suzuki Omnichord to play the MIDI parts. 

Disquiet Junto 0701 Gap Ear

The Disquiet Junto assignment is to "Break apart a piece of music and fill the resulting spaces."

I've gone back to my surprise hit from Easter, Innuendo.

Carefully the ukulele part has been cut away, then a moody synth added. 

Disquiet Junto 0700 View Frame

I couldn't resist recording this piece for the 700th Junto project.

The directions were to show people a glimpse outside my world, so here's my backyard and some of the laundry that I washed today.

As I haven't packed away my drumkit yet for winter, I decided to have a bash.

A 303-style bassline has been added because it was the easiest thing to consider at this time. 

One bit of reflection is how I began recording videos for Junto projects at number 100.

Since then that playlist has grown to over 450, which means I've responded to three-quarters of the prompts in that time. 

I was first introduced to the Junto community around 027, which involved music from text but I worried my response had misinterpreted the instruction and didn't share it. 

Green light

The second round of the 2025 Disquiet Junto trio project has been a delight.

Once again Sam Knot has added prose to my drums and I love hearing his gentle voice bringing colour to my beats.

 

unclewaybaaack · green light (disquiet0698)

Disquiet Junto 0697 First Third

The first in a trio for the Junto this week.

Disquiet Junto 0695 Clean After Each Use

The Junto assignment this week is to "Put a piece of music through the dryer."

While I've been holidaying at the coast I'm making happy associations with a chord progression in A# on my ukulele.

A week ago I tried making a song based on lyrics about cupid's arrows and innuendoes.

It was rough and didn't entirely work, but I've used the backing here.

(This chord progression worked better with my Easter Sunday song, I think.)

For the Junto I've taken my backing track and tried to put it through the dryer, but I'm not a fan of those machines for the energy they consume and the uselessness they have in my life.

(There isn't much rain where I live and lots of opportunity for me to get my washing on the line.)

I considered a granular approach to represent lint, but when I decided to use a video from swimming in the Pacific off Valla Beach, arrived at a result more akin to a washing machine.

There's some rotary speaker emulation added, as well as Goodhertz' Lossy effect and DelayCat.

Disquiet Junto 0694 5/4ify

There is one step for the Junto project this week: 

Take a pre-existing piece of music that is in 4/4 — either your own or something in the public domain — and add a beat to each measure, transforming it into 5/4. 

As I'm preoccupied with homework, I listened to a few of the sketches on my desktop for inspiration.

This bass riff is a bit uneven, so the extra beat in the drum loops hardly seems to unsettle it.

Which meant that I added more feedback to the delay on the synth!

Disquiet Junto 0693 Melody Sorted

The Disquiet Junto project this week is to "Reorganize a familiar song note by note." 

It outlined a process using sheet music, but I thought I'd use a MIDI file instead.

So I downloaded Hall and Oates' 'I Cant Go for That' and rearranged the melody into an ascending sequence of notes.

It was a process that I stopped after running out of space, so there are still some of the higher notes in place -- particularly at the start of verses. 

Then the song seemed to need a bit of rearranging, so I muted a couple of parts, such as the organ.

I also added some randomisation to the MIDI for the drums.