It’s important for me to say that being proud is not so much a claim on quality or achievement in the work, or lack thereof, but of satisfying the artistic potential within oneself.
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.
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
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.
Disquiet Junto 0590 Concrète Roots
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
Disquiet Junto 0585 F9
When I saw the prompt to fastforward a piece, I thought it'd work best with a very slow track.
The slowest track I have is the 10bpm track from Junto 299, then I noticed a couple of beats at 83 (397) and 84 (429).
My track ended up at 90bpm.
There was a bit of pitch adjustment in Ableton Live, but I decided to push through with the idea.
Not sure what happened in the bit where the drums both drop out.
naviarhaiku479 – Summer night
Disquiet Junto 0584 Generations
The Junto prompt this week stirred a lot of thought about music I liked when I was younger.
In the end I'd repurposed a piece of music from countless childhoods and brought to it an instrument that stirred a child-like wonder for me.
I also reflected on sequenced and performed music.
My idea was to create a separate but complementary piece that ran independent, then I noticed afterwards how I'd adjusted the number of bars to suit the sequenced music from the clock.
Disquiet Junto 0583 Wall to Wall
Disquiet Junto 0582 X Techno
naviarhaiku476 – Birds in a bare tree
Disquiet Junto 0581 Helsinki Downspout
Disquiet Junto 0580 Evo Evol Evolve
What I've learned from using the Cut-Up Technique
This week I gave a Studio Co!Lab Artist in the House talk on what I've learned using the Cut-Up Technique.
To begin I encouraged everyone to print a copy of Picasso's poem about noon, since he's known to have stated that artists steal and it feels right to honour this contemporary of Cut-ups.
My Cut-up experiences have been realised in lyrics, sampling and also a book that invites destruction.
I also mentioned the poetry reading that I gave at a book launch which performed a live remix.
We began cutting Picasso's poem into individual words while I explained how the imagery reminded me of the Riverina and introduced David Bowie's use of the technique.
The singer acknowledged his debt to Brion Gysin and echoed some of the magical attributes he promoted with a process pioneered earlier in the 20th Century by Tristan Tzara.
My recollection is Cut-ups were a significant development in the split between Surrealism and Dada, when Tzara created a "manifesto" using newspaper clippings.
At the time the Surrealists were writing manifestoes and took offence at this brute process for generating words.
However, the cut-ups have been seen to share in common the influence of Freud's ideas of dream analysis as a way of identifying cues from the unconscious.
Cut-up documents interrogate the text in a haphazard manner that reveals as much about the dynamics and relationships of the reader, while allowing anyone to be an author.
In this way it shows a Dadaist antiestablishment attitude that can be seen as an attack on authorial intention.
Some might view the process as reassembling a document and the process can be viewed through a variety of philosophical positions, such as the magic and art roles.
When you begin creating a cut-up text there are decisions about the process that determine roles for chance or probability.
You might choose to draw a word from a hat, or you might assemble them from a visible pool of possible words.
My partner developed an exhibition that referenced William S. Burroughs' use of the Cut-up Technique in 2014 and that year introduced me to an alternate approach proposed by the Disquiet Junto.
While the process of preparing the pieces and then pasting them together has a meditative quality that suits gallery spaces that are open for more of a performance art aesthetic, the simplicity of the idea is ripe for technology.
It is interesting to see David Bowie returned to the idea as personal computing developed with the Verbasizer, which has been beautifully realised at this website.
The idea of cutting seems simple and it's worth remembering that many ideas about editing have developed since Tzara.
When you cut up a text the words are never entirely anonymous, even if the document become a palette for beige language.
Each discrete piece becomes a springboard for a chain of connotations, which is a process that has been called "unlimited semiosis" in semiotic theory.
These become potent symbols and through the popularisation by Gysin the cut-up practice came to be infused with ideas of magic that were researched by Genesis P-Orridge.
Burroughs undertook audio and film-based cut-ups that extended the ideas he identified in literary practice.
I explained an audio-based curse that P-Orridge detailed and how sampling harnesses a similar energy when it takes a small example from a larger whole.
Working with the landscape as a document to sample you find inspiration in selecting small symbolic examples to trigger memories of entire ecosystems.
Which l led into my discussion of my Soundscaping videos and exhibitions.
Using video as a medium for cut-ups led to the role of Arthur Lipsett's 21-87 in the development of Star Wars.
I pondered religious implications as well as broader philosophical questions of free will and determinism.
There were some questions towards the end, including some discussion of AI and machine-learning tools.
I talked about my collaborative poetry, where I fed lines about the environment into a website.
It offered results that were surprising in a way similar to cut-ups but overcame a key constraint.
The responses from AI saw angels, which was delightful and language that I never use.
So the AI experiment gave a nice counterpoint to the Cut-up Technique and Andrew, the moderator, decided that was the moment to end.
Nine years of Naviar
Very happy to continue my collaborations with Naviar Records and see a few of my tracks from last year included with their latest compilation.