Bassling blog

Disquiet Junto 145 / Naviar Haiku 40 There’s a Lifetime In

This week the Disquiet Junto asked for a track inspired by a haiku. Image shown with Marc Weidenbaum's poem is by Geir Tønnessen.

This morning I recorded the two clicks of a screen door lock. Then I worked on a few riffs that showed promise. Then I decided I was being too literal in my interpretation of a track inspired by the poem shown above.

Then I remembered the track I'd started making last night. It was sorta inspired by the riffs I've been riffing but for some reason I decided to try a 3/4 time signature. I think the deep-ish house track is now a waltz. Is waltzhouse a thing?

There are only a few parts. The bassline started as an accordion, then in a later draft I started using an analogue-flavoured preset in Massive. The chord progression is mirrored on Operator and Phosphor synths.

The drums were originally 808 but I swapped for one of Ableton's 909 kits later. I think the dance-y direction this week was influenced by listening to dance music last weekend at Burning Seed, particularly a psytrance-y set at dawn on the morning of my birthday. That was pretty cool.

AND, 5: Raucous Chorus

The fifth track on AND was written in 2013 on the way to concluding the For 100 Years project, which celebrated the centenary of Leeton. You can hear an early version of the song Raucous Chorus in the material screened around town in July that year.

At that time I wanted to add vocals to one of the 'parktronica' tracks I'd recorded and had asked a vocalist to contribute to a track created from recordings at their local park in Wattle Hill. In the end it didn't happen with the vocalist but I'd come to hear my partner Jo's voice in the track.

The lyrics were inspired by my partner's observation that gallahs are a sound she associates with Leeton. Jo has been visiting this town all her life, as she has family here. Once I started thinking about gallahs I found a lot to write about but it was mostly informed by the comments that she's made about these social birds, including how you can spot the flocks of offspring in contrast to pairs of parents -- which I wrote a haiku about a while back.

The version of Raucous Chorus on AND is an acapella over recordings of gallahs roosting. I made the decision to drop the backing track made from Gossamer Park (hear it here) for technical reasons but it also seemed a good idea to increase the variety of material on the album.

AND, 4: Restyn Park

Back in 2012 I stopped in Hanwood while driving home from Griffith and discovered Restyn Park. I'd been recording playgrounds in Leeton for my For 100 Years album and was looking for interesting equipment, so the circular shapes on the metal climbing frame caught my ear.

Later that year I returned to Restyn Park to record the playground. Images were used in an article in Audio Technology but I didn't do anything else with the recordings because I was a bit over manipulating playgrounds. I got back into it in 2013, at the close of Leeton's centenary when I screened work around town, but the files for Restyn Park remained on my desktop.

Earlier this year a Disquiet Junto asked participants to share a technique and I thought to use the sounds from Hanwood to share my Parktronica, IDM made from playgrounds using contact microphones and Ableton Live.

There are a few subtle differences between the initial version of the song Restyn Park in the video above and the AND album version below. A lot of lower frequencies were cut out and an effect on a buss adds a squeak like an old rusty swing, which is actually a sound I'm very fond of and appears on a couple of albums now.

AND, 3: Of Leeton

The third track on AND has been described as "Electro Black Flag" for infusing a punk-ish electronic track with cut-up lyrics. It was a Disquiet Junto exercise using William S. Burroughs as inspiration.

The lyrics came from a front page story in my local paper The Irrigator and, using a formula promoted by the Junto, arranged the text into a new shape. Using these words, I experimented with different backing tracks until the result seemed appropriate.

While it was recorded very quickly, the result has generated many positive comments. I've been thinking I should try an album of songs using this approach.

AND, 2: Dust Devil

The second track on AND is Dust Devil, a dynamic instrumental performed with guitar, bass and drums. It stayed pretty much the same as when it was recorded for a Naviar Haiku project earlier this year.

The haiku above was about Mars but the image I had in mind was the desolate landscape of the planet. The funky intro riff was something I wanted to use, so I began imagining watching that dusty landscape and arrived at thinking about a whirly-whirly.

I can see a cloud of dust dancing to this track, kinda erratic in the distance at first but then thrashing about around you.

It was tempting to add distortion to the guitar near the end of the track but the cymbals seemed blistering enough. I think I probably would've done more to develop this track if there hadn't been an issue with the files. As it is it's fun enough, so I just worked on EQing it to sound okay in the car stereo.

Actually, one of the biggest learning curves while mastering AND was listening to the album in the car. Suddenly I realised the inaccuracies in my studio monitor speakers, particularly in reproducing lower frequencies.

AND, 1: Wind-up

The first track on AND is Wind-up. It started like many, a composition recorded for a Disquiet Junto exercise. It was only May this year and the idea was to create a soundtrack for a fake movie, a kinda kids horror film inspired by bad video games. My own inspiration for this piece was the Poltergeist Theme and I remember it was quickly written and recorded on a Sunday.

It seemed a good opening track as soon as I started collecting material for the album but it needed something. I added a field recording and was looking for something else when I remembered the Fisher Price Clock recorded to try out my then new contact microphone. Ableton Live time-stretched it to fit the track and, once I'd adjusted the key, it seemed to fit perfectly.

I think the idea to look for something else came from reflecting on this advice from Andrew Weatherall.

AND a new album

Here's a collection of tracks recorded in 2013-14, including a number inspired by Disquiet Junto projects and also a couple that resulted from Naviar haikus. (Coincidentally, Naviar have a track of mine on their new compilation.)

You'll hear that there's a lot of variety, from funky instrumentals to electropunk with cut-up lyrics and a few songs featuring the voice of Jo.

There was a lot of material to choose from, with tracks made from storytime at the library, a boiling kettle as well as a playground and then an assortment of instruments. I'll write something about each next month.

See above for a playlist of 13 videos for some tracks from AND, my collection recorded 2013-14.

Disquiet Junto 143 Live duet through window

Busy weekend this week but I found time for my 70th Disquiet Junto. Instructions were to record a live duet with the world outside my window and the best sound seemed to be that of a lawnmower.

Lawnmowers are a very suburban sound and a couple of my neighbours are very regular about maintaining their lawn. I was lying in the bath when one started on Saturday morning, so I cut short my wash and picked up the semi-acoustic bass.

The engine drone seemed to be in A and I tried a couple of ideas, settling on a rhythm and then an arpeggiated chord progression that I'm fond of playing.

Richard D James on tunings

You're brainwashed in the West with equal temperament, so it's quite hard for people who like following rules to get outside of that and see what you can do. But for me it's easy because I don't work like that. I work intuitively. I actually prefer it if I don't know what I'm supposed to do.

If you've got an equal temperament piano keyboard, then you know what you're going to get if you play certain chords. But I actually like it if you don't know where the notes are, because then you do it intuitively. You're working out a new language, basically. New rules. And when you get new rules that work, you're changing the physiology of your brain. And then your brain has to reconfigure itself in order to deal with it.

So if you hear a C-major chord with an equal temperament, you've heard it a million times before and your brain accepts it. But if you hear a chord that you've never heard before, you're like, "huh." And your brain has to change shape to accept it. And once it's changed shape, then you have changed as a person, in a tiny way. And if you have a whole combination of all these different frequencies, you're basically reconfiguring your brain. And then you've changed as a person, and you can go and do something else.

It's a constant change. It could sound pretty cosmic and hippie, but that is exactly what's going on.

Summer's Day

Filmed a lava lamp tonight, added a solarisation effect and BINGO! A film clip for a song about the weather recorded for a Junto in January.

New Diabolical Devices Casio SK-1

Bought a second Casio SK-1 modified by Diabolical Devices on Ebay and it arrived today. It was going cheap so I couldn't resist.

I was surprised to discover the bends are very different between to two keyboards. Both have MIDI and mini patchbays but that's where the similarities end.

The new purchase is shown below and the switches on the right-hand side control the patches if you use the coloured sockets. In comparison the switch on the older purchase controls a pitch variation knob, producing nice warbling vibrato effects.

The switches on the left-hand side of my new purchase can glitch the rhythms, both the keyboard chord basslines and the percussion. It worked better on the former than the latter, which froze and required resetting by turning the machine off and then on.

Reverb pedal comparison

Tried a couple of reverb pedals today, the Biyang Tri Reverb and the TC Electronic Hall of Fame. The former has spring, plate and hall settings, while the latter has many more options but I focused on these types also.

It wasn't an exhaustive comparison but at first I thought they sounded kinda similar, then I noticed the deeper bass on the Hall of Fame and the sound was richer, although the Tri Reverb doesn't have an effect blend control.

Guess you get what you pay for.

OMG

Circle of Abstract Ritual from Jeff Frost on Vimeo.

Disquiet Junto 141 Bare bones

The Disquiet Junto this week asked we:

Interpret a New Yorker cover as a graphically notated score.

The image is by Saul Steinberg and I decided to interpret it as the barebones of a funk track because the skeleton rat would probably smell funky and at first I thought it was holding a drumstick.

The drums were recorded earlier this year and I'd wanted to record a single-take bassline to accompany them, so this Junto was the incentive.

I used a Rode VideoMic into a Nikon D5100 and recorded it to see myself drumming so I might observe my technique. Can't remember what I played along with but I did think that my effort practicing each day was starting to pay off.

Today I recorded my Tony Levin Signature 5-String Bass using my Mackie mixer. Unfortnately my bass playing isn't so hot at present and my fingers don't have callouses. I've got angry pulsing bumps on my digits that I'll need to piss on to harden up over the next few days.

The bass riff was the first thing that came from my hands when I sat down with a guitar on Friday afternoon and started thinking what I might record for the Junto this week.

When I recorded on Saturday I thought it could use more variation, so I added the bit where it moves to A from G, as well as the chord progression. Then during my second take I added the bit where it goes down to D. The final part was the third take recorded with no edits.

I spent a bit of time getting everything sounding nice, using compression and EQ and a little reverb too. The track really is bare bones and it'd be great if anyone wants to add another instrument on top. Please send me your take.

Schemawound visits Gossamer Park

Awesome remix by Schemawound. Below is the original.

And here is a remix by me, when I returned to the original recordings in 2013 ahead of screenings to conclude the centenary of Leeton and the For 100 Years project.

All about that bass

Disquiet Junto Project 140 Solo Swap

So I've done this Junto and the one I'm covering arse-about.

This week the project was meant to be a cover of a recent track. As I looked over my tracks and considered a cover, I settled on the soundtrack for Josh Azzarella's video. The thing is it was a chord progression I'd developed for a song I hadn't recorded, so I decided to record it.

The lyrics were written a while ago. I forget when but they were some lines that came to me while driving. I've written a few songs this way, drafting ideas into poetry that becomes a song when I find the music.

The theme is intuition, although it's written in a way to keep the meaning open for other interpretations. The line about 'headlights behind a crest' has been looking for a home for more than a decade. Often I write sentimental songs about masturbation fantasies and stuff, but with this song I was trying to explore something different. Not sure the apple fell so far from the tree though.

A month or so ago I settled on the chord progression and remembered these lyrics. I experimented with phrasing and bashed it out on the acoustic guitar a few times. Then I used MIDI to record the version for the previous Junto and ran it through VSTs.

This version was recorded on my semi-acoustic, which doesn't hold tune as nicely as my acoustic but there was too much background noise today to record it on that guitar. In fact, if you listen carefully you might hear kids yelling during the vocals sung by my partner Jo. Or a hum of a lawnmower.

I'm not sure it works. The pace feels slow and the instrumentation a bit yawn, as well as flat in places. I really should've recorded the bass after the lyrics as it's needlessly busy in places. Anyway, it's a good draft for now I guess.

Another view

Thanks to Dan for this pic from my performance in Grong Grong earlier this year. You can see my partner Jo bowing 'the wires' in the projected video that accompanied my gentle arpeggios.

Click here to download an hour-long collection of Bassling tracks that draws together material from music I've released online since 2004.

Restyn Park Remix remixed by Kelp

The Disquiet Junto this week prompted me to return to remixing Restyn Park, which I'd recorded nearly two years ago.

It also encouraged me to see if Kelp wanted to remix the track to share the process he introduced me to in the Ninja Tune remix chains we've been running. We're currently part way through our third chain and once again it's linking together producers from around the world, including some like Lee Rosevere who I recruited from the Junto.

Below is a sampler of our last collection of remixes.

Antipodean in the Antipodes

A blend of two Disquiet Junto tracks from earlier in the year: Aeolian Metrics and Mediated Solo Duet.

A Restyn melody

Restyn Park remix

Disquiet Junto Project 139 Tech Technique

The Assignment: Create and upload a track that exemplifies explain one key process you’ve developed.

My process is recording playground equipment with homemade contact microphones and then remixing the sounds to make EDM. I've re-pitched short loops of sequences tapping on swings, monkey bars, a sign and a climbing frame -- click here to see video. You can download the Restyn Park stems here.

I recorded Restyn Park in Hanwood on 13 September 2012 but haven't done much with this material until now. My hair looked good that day, so I used images for a magazine article.

This process of manipulating locations developed from an idea that landscapes could influence my audio productions.

The Space Program had a cool philosophy that being based in regional Australia was a key part of their sound. That made a lot of sense to me when I started remixing field recordings.

Around the time I published my first album of electronic music online in 2004, I was introduced to the work of Alan Lamb and his large-scale aeolian harps via the Wagga Space Program's Unsound festivals. My partner Jo and I worked with Lamb for Unsound in 2006.

Lamb showed me how he makes piezo contact microphones and those used for these recordings are the same pair shown in this guide.

When I moved away from his installation outside Wagga Wagga, I started using them on playgrounds for a project to celebrate the centenary of the town Leeton. All sounds in the tracks on the album For 100 years used only those from the playgrounds in the titles.

Of course, once you get an audio recording into Ableton Live there are a lot of ways to manipulate the sounds. I've also used these piezo contact microphones and Live to remix myself eating an apple for an art exhibition.

You can hear more about my 'parktronica' in this short video.

Restyn Park, Hanwood

Disquiet Junto 138 Video Sonic Void

Untitled #8, 2004 from Josh Azzarella on Vimeo.

The Disquiet Junto this week involved composing a soundtrack for the video by Josh Azzarella shown above. This piece is

part of the permanent collection of the San Jose Museum of Art in San Jose, California. This Disquiet Junto project is the result of an invitation by the Museum for me to develop a sound installation to be displayed on its second floor from October 2014 through February 2015. Tracks submitted to this project will be considered for inclusion in that installation.

After considering a drone, I decided to record a chord progression I've been developing for a song. Actually, one thing that's been an interest of mine in Junto projects is coming up with something that's distinct and I guess that's what led me away from the drone.

I used my MIDI guitar to capture the notes and made a few edits before experimenting with different VST synths. I settled on Lokomotiv again, which was used last week, then added effects including reverb and EQ with further reverb and EQ on a bus. You can see some of the effects in the screenshot above.

It was written and recorded with a view to being looped, like the video, but it jumps an octave and an abrupt start didn't feel right.

P.S. Below is an edit of the video with my soundtrack.

Forest Swords Fact mix

Enjoyed listening to this mix the other day.

Switched On Bach

My introduction to electronic music as a child was Wendy Carlos' Switched On Bach album (shown). I remember asking my mum to play it as I liked the pace and relationships between the notes.

So when the Disquiet Junto asked for 'old-time electronica' it was one idea and, after time wasn't going to allow me to make a Chemical Brothers homage this weekend, it was the project I developed.

Reed Ghazala on circuit bending

Disquiet Junto 135 Yanco Weir

The Disquiet Junto this week asked for a sonic equivalent of air-conditioning. I suggested to Marc that it was Northern Hemisphere-centric as it's the middle of winter here and this morning was the coldest morning yet. The day was sunny though and some varieties of wattle have started to bloom, offering a promise that spring is on the way.

My partner gave me the idea to revisit my recordings of the Murrumbidgee River, which I'd made for the Reimagining exhibition last year at a similar time I think. Cooling among the river red gums on the banks of (and in) the River is one of the highlights of this region in warmer months.

Abre Ojos' Incandescent Arc

Incandescent Arc from abre ojos on Vimeo.

John McEntire on limitations

I think that's one of the great things about working with limitations. You get situations where you are forced to get really creative to come up with solutions to problems even though you only have a few resources. That is in stark opposition to working on a computer where you have (seemingly) limitless possibilities.

Grong Grong last Saturday

Couple of pics that Derek took at the Fanny Lumsden show in Grong Grong on the weekend, where I played.

Disquiet Junto 134 Music From Choreography

Exciting Junto this week, composing a piece to accompany choreographed dance. I was pumped from playing my first gig in years and used the gear I'd patched together to improvise along with the video.

When I generated a random number to determine the section of video to compose with, I got a seven. I did a take playing along at the seven-minute mark but I didn't like that video as much as around the third-minute. I'll be honest, that section reminded me of Duran Duran's video for Girls On Film. I'll add my earlier take below as I like the vocal sample in it.

What you hear is a single take on electric bass and theremin. There's a third part created with a Super Ego pedal, which adds a pad-like drone from the bass. It wavers a bit, due to an old Ibanez unit that's transposed it up an octave. It gives it a kinda eerie feel.

One of the decisions made when improvising was to create a feel that added a sense of tension to the visuals. The key of D was what I'd been using for the part of my gig with the theremin. I could've used something else but I was happy to have some ideas that were already a bit developed and it's a great key for giving a sense of something a bit deep. I like the idea that the dancers are acting out a complex plot or relationship, so the music needed to convey something more than how fun it is to paint with your friend while you wear underpants.

Above is video of an alternate take. It's not the clearest picture but you can see a bit. The theremin is run through a Ravish sitar-emulator pedal, which keeps it in key and sounds nice. The bass is sorta sampled with a circuit bent Boss pedal. In the earlier take below I sampled my voice with the same effect, something I did for tracks in my set last night.

And at the bottom of this post is the audio track that was posted to the Disquiet Junto Soundcloud group, where you can hear all the other contributions.

Bassling [disquiet0133-sixnotesong]

The project is this: Compose a song that consists of just six notes. There should just be one short passage, with one “voice,” on whatever instrument you elect to use.

The first three notes are my favourite to play on a piano. Since I don't have a piano I used my bass that sounds closest and layered up three takes. Does it sound more like a piano? Dunno.

Dangerous dubstep

Return to Disquiet Junto 132

Lee Rosevere and I collaborated with Nofi previously and I'd hoped we'd work again this time, but my piece was too busy for him. So I've taken his piece with Westy Reflector and Nofi and added one of the basslines I recorded for this four-way collaboration.

That previous piece with Lee and I went on to become No Nofi on my WHILE album last year, and also appeared in this television commercial I made for the Bidgee Binge.

Disquiet Junto 132 posthumousnofitrio

This week the Disquiet Junto returned to an earlier project that played tribute to Jeffrey Melton:

Step 1: Choose one of the tracks that resulted from Disquiet Junto project 0066:
https://soundcloud.com/disquiet/sets/disquiet0066-nonofi
Step 2: Listen to your chosen track several times, to get to know it.
Step 3: Extend the file by 10 to 15 seconds.
Step 4: Record yourself performing live along with the track. Any instrumentation is fine. Just no voice. Be sure to play alone for approximately 10 seconds after the original track ends.

The track embedded above by Westy Reflector suggested a dub-style bassline and I mucked about for a while without much success on Saturday.

As I was giving up, I added a favourite monologue from True Detective where Rusty Cohle ruminates on death. My partner immediately called out that it worked, so I left it in.

On Sunday morning I returned to the bass and found my basslines changed. In the end I made a mess of the bass, I think. It's a mash of two unedited takes with some delay and lots of EQ. My idea was to layer up takes to get a richer sound. It's something James Holden told me he does but it didn't work as well for me.

P.S. Seems I didn't pay enough attention to the instructions as they specified "no voice"! Aside from liking that scene from True Detective, the content seemed right for this context. The stuff about being isolated within a body kinda reminds me of the process of working in a computer and seeing within it the responses from other participants. I've communicated with a few people from the Disquiet Junto over the last couple of years but only via computer. Even when I interviewed Marc Weidenbaum, who runs Disquiet, it was via email.

Another useless remix

Another remix of material filmed at Keith Cameron's property and featuring his sculptures, also seen here.

The first and second remixes from RealArtWorks' Nothing Is Useless project can be seen here.

Disquiet Junto 131 The Key of Tea

This week the Disquiet Junto project called for recording a boiling kettle, whistling preferred. I decided to invest in a whistling kettle for Burning Seed this year.

The kettle was recorded in my kitchen using a Rode NT-2 and an AKG PZM. The former microphone is my oldest and has a tinny edge that's good on soft sounds. The latter captured more of the boiling sound. I experimented with varying levels of steam by moving the kettle on the stove top.

About a decade ago I recorded a song called Slow Boil and I was thinking of it when I began manipulating samples of the hand clap and finger click used to make a beat. There's an Ableton Live Beatrepeat effect that bothers me a bit, now I listen back to it. You can hear it changes the kick.

There are a number of other effects on the percussion, including a drone towards the end. The bass was created from another file of the kettle recording fed through effects by Sinevibes and Sausage Fattener.

The photo on Soundcloud was snapped while driving through fog this week. It's a nod to the video I made for the earlier track and I like those ironbark trees outside Temora.

Dance

Disquiet Junto 130 Filtered Melody

The Disquiet Junto this week involved filtering a loop as a way to develop a composition. I tried a couple of responses and have posted videos for both below.

My first attempt was gated and reverberated, shaping a composition of increasing snippets from the loop. It worked well with the bell-like chimes from a recording made at an art-making session on the north coast of NSW last weekend.

The video shows Mike and Keith tapping steel canisters to produce the tones.

My second attempt concentrated on using a filter to shape the frequencies of the recording, sliding from low to high to low again as reverb feedback increases. This produced a fade in, out, in and out again while the reverb has a descending feedback.

Disquiet Junto 128 One Year Ago

The Junto this week asked for a soundtrack to accompany reading text from a year ago. This is a bit of rushed recording as I've been parenting solo over the weekend.

I looked at my ShowcaseJase blog to see what I'd been writing about and found a piece on the Richardson family sword.

The bass riff is one I've been jamming on and occasionally recording since the funeral for my cousin Chris, mentioned in this piece. I think about him often while making music as it's an activity he encouraged, buying me my first bass guitar.

Disquiet Junto 127 Library Shhh

Leeton Shire Major Dooley Library won an award a couple of years ago for their Saturday morning story program. When I read the Junto this week I wanted to share one of their readings.

There was a small audience this week but I recognised one of the kids and know the librarian Sandra, who I hope will excuse me recording her without seeking permission.

The short track loops parts of the recording to create drums and drones and a vocal loop.

Beck breaks

20 tracks by Beck for a new Ninja Tune Forum Seven Minute Mix project. I focus on the WTF? moments and key changes from funkier songs. Beck's production is really hot, both in terms of levels and exciting content. I like his collage approach.

Almost enough for an album

Disquiet Junto 125 Yellow Dog Blues

At a conference a couple of weeks ago I was introduced to an app by the National Library of Australia that offers their sheet music, arranged chronologically. I suggested they develop a competition to record a rendition of a piece from the app and started thinking it could be something for the Junto.

Coincidentally this week the Junto are proposing covering a 100-year old tune called The Yellow Dog Blues. The recording above helped me get a feel for the lyric delivery. I also liked this Yellow Dog Blues.

My version is a slinky rock track that sounds kinda karaoke.

The sheet music was kinda impenetrable for me. After googling a few renditions, I started jamming on a blues riff and eventually settled on a rock feel via disco.

My vocal performance needs more practise, especially the second verse. I was tempted to edit that out. Meant to use an English accent but ended up with that bad twang after too much Singstar this morning.

From musician to goat farmer

Following the logical step doesn't always lead you deeper into an activity. What I find amusing about the text shown here, aside from the slide from making music to raising goats, is that I had a similar series of thoughts but decided to find sounds elsewhere. For me it started with becoming frustrated with loops and samples but ended with finding music everywhere and sampling the environment.

Tomorrow's Harvest the movie

Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest The Movie from Julien Lavigne on Vimeo.

Disquiet Junto 122 8bit Undead ET

The Junto this week was to "create music for a fake movie whose plot is 'Poltergeist meets Wreck-It Ralph.'"

A quick google and I soon realised I liked the music to the former more than the latter. The Poltergeist theme is lovely and not what you'd expect from a horror movie.

The more I played my guitar and experimented with ideas the more I wanted to record a mellower track. I settled on a few chords and worked to try and make them more interesting.

Once the notes were settled I entered them as MIDI into Ableton Live with a view to playing it through my cheap synths but this didn't really work. A lot of notes were missed and there were a few other technical issues. So I used the instruments in Ableton Live and then tried to make them sound nicer with reverb and equalisers.

The title ET Cemetary is a play on Stephen King's Pet Semetary and acknowledges the Atari video game burial that inspired the Junto this week.

Control

Verdi's Requiem Remix by Ethan Hein

More great work from Ethan Hein. Read how he remixed Verdi's Requiem on his blog.

Disquiet Junto 121a: Jigsaw Composition

For the Math Rock Junto project I cut up my Sonic Tinsel track into around 135 parts. I added four extra snippets to 'set A' as I couldn't think how to divide them into 60 parts based on the grid in Ableton Live.

You can hear the sampled track in its entirety below.

Naviarhaiku 016: Flawless face of Rouge

Ostensibly this track is a response to the haiku shown on the NASA picture below; but mostly I just wanted to record a chord progression I discovered on holiday last week.

Wonderland remix

Audio Technology magazine are running a remix competition and you can hear my entry above and the original tune below.

The Occupants' track offered a lot of possibility, as well as excellent musicianship, and my remix is composed entirely from samples taken from their stems. I wanted to create a remix that took the material into a different tempo and mine is 113 BPM compared to their 166.

My idea was to focus on creating a new song from the elements, rather than just putting the material into a different genre. So I settled on using the hook 'Yeah, I believe you understand' because I have a theory that pop music is effective when expressing vulnerability.

I also was thinking about something Marc Weidenbaum phrased in an interview recently when discussing remixes:

I remember being astonished by how listening to the remix could kind of make you completely rethink the way that you relate to the original, and that moment was really important, realizing that altering something does not detract from the original, but can enrich your understanding of it.

Ethan Hein picked up on this too and has written:

There is no worthwhile work of art that isn’t derivative. Bad art is insufficiently derivative of too few different sources.

Which leads me to confess that inspiration for my remix came from emulating another tune. When I thought of my favourite remixes and what approach to take, I remembered the approach taken by a talented producer named Charlie Van Pelt who used to post on the Ninja Tune Forum as Czar Kastik. I used a remix he made about 10 years ago as a scaffold for my track, which is the first time I've tried this approach and found it surprisingly easy and effective. It's an idea I'd previously discounted but reconsidered after learning the Beastie Boys have did the same thing on one of their best tracks.

Windowlicker cover

Aphex's apex?

Recently interviewed Marc Weidenbaum about his book on Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Volume II. The piece is now online at Cyclic Defrost.

It was great to engage Marc in conversation as I've been an admirer of his work since joining the Disquiet Junto.

Earlier this month I recorded a musical response to the book, as part of the Junto.

Disquiet Junto 120 Readymade Rhythm

The Disquiet Junto this week involved interpreting the heartbeat of artist Marcel Duchamp.

The graphs of Duchamp's heartbeat reminded me of arpeggios, probably because I've still been playing around with picking the notes used last week. This track is a variation on that chord progression.

I guess it was readymade.

I've added an 808 kick as a heartbeat to the piece. It was mixed on headphones, hopefully it sounds okay.

Hiroshi Yokoi's Dream Tide

We are about the enter a period of major historical change not often witnessed in the long history of mankind. I believe that people involved in media have an important obligation to fulfil. That is to truly grasp the spirit of the period. And at the same time use their imaginative powers and practical skills to create a ‘dream tide’.

Naviarhaiku 014: Sunrise

This tune was recorded for the 14th Naviarhaiku project. It was inspired by a haiku by Marios Schismenos, presented below with an image by Flavio Jota de Paula.

My idea was to make an upbeat track that could be in the soundtrack to a modern Western. I'm not sure I've really managed the latter but the idea of a modern Western is an oxymoron. Brass would be good with it and an organ, or maybe a harmonica?

Disquiet Junto Paperback Beatmaker

This week the Disquiet Junto worked with rhythms inherent in text:

Step 1: Locate a section of a piece of written fiction that you admire. The section should be roughly between 125 and 200 words long.

Step 2: Record youself typing those words. Please note: You need not type it perfectly, and you should feel comfortable making some corrections as part of your typing. That said, you should come as close as possible to typing it straight through. And you should, if possible, record this in stereo in a way that distinguishes between the left and right sides of your typewriter. That text should account for roughly between a minute and a half and three minutes.

Step 3: Listen through the recording, making note of rhythmic themes, such as repeated sequences of letters, or natural pauses, or intriguing spacial separations across the keyboard.

Step 4: Record a piece of music to accompany the typing, music that uses the inherent rhythm of the typing as its foundation. Imagine, if you will, that someone could listen to this music while writing, and get into the groove, the zone, the mindset of the original writer.

I disregarded the direction to use fiction. Kerouac's On The Road came to mind because it's the first example of rhythm inherent in fiction I immediately think of, particularly the section about watching live jazz. I also like James Baldwin's Sonny's Blues, another piece featuring jazz.

Instead I decided to be cheeky and use Marc Weidenbaum's book about Aphex Twin's album Selected Ambient Works Volume II. As I've been reading it most recently it was close at hand and because Marc is responsible for setting the Disquiet Junto projects it seemed logical. I also decided to try making a track in the style of Aphex Twin's ambient work, ensuring a rhythm and heavy reverb on synth pads.

The section I located was the first page of the second chapter:

Background Beats

The critical evidence is overwhelming. The vast majority of discussion, especially as represented in writing — in music journalism, in criticism, in online discussion — about Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Volume II does not simply take the genre associations of its title for granted. It actively embraces and proliferates the idea that the record is largely if not entirely devoid of rhythmic and percussive material. The operative tag throughout such discussions gets to the point quickly. That tag is “beatless.”

##Meet the Beatless

Two takes were recorded using my Rode NT4 stereo microphone and the computer keyboard, as I couldn't locate a typewriter. The first take was used. In the second I typed the full page and it was over six minutes, which seemed too long.

There was a guitar riff I had in mind, which was recorded loosely as MIDI and run through a few Absynth presets. These were treated with plate and room reverbs.

It was put together quickly and I don't think I've nailed the spaciousness of Aphex Twin's arrangements. It feels more like Cliff Martinez' Solaris soundtrack to me. I probably would've made it shorter but I liked the way the typing ended with the two s's. It punctuates the piece.

Smug As a Sicksquid remix

Today I remixed a tune by Sicksquid. Above is his version, below is mine.

You can hear I've sped it up a bit and left out his piano part, as well as the percussion and bass. In their place I've added an 808 and synths, both a bass and a pad.

It was fun mixing a track by someone else, particularly working with vocals. I like the sentiment of the track.

Austin Kleon on imitation

The reason to copy your heroes and their style is so that you might somehow get a glimpse into their minds. That's what you really want -- to internalize their way of looking at the world. If you just mimic the surface of somebody's work without understanding where they are coming from, your work will never be anything more than a knockoff.

Naviarhaiku 013: Sunday afternoon

For the Naviar Haiku Project I returned to my acoustic guitar. The poem I've responded to was by George McKim:

Sunday afternoon
The phone ringing
In a vague way

I've responded quite literally, although it was recorded on Saturday afternoon. The idea of sitting on my bed for the recording was inspired by the blanket used as a backdrop for the poem.

The chord progression is the one I used in my Brush Brush Brush Brush Junto (below) because I'm thinking this version will lead into it nicely when I put together a compilation of tracks latter this year, like I did with the Junto tracks that went into While in 2013.

P.S. I've also responded with a haiku of my own.

Disquiet Junto 118 Internet Room Tone

“What is the room tone of the Internet?” asks the Disquiet Junto this week and you can hear my answer below.

It was a question that stumped me for a few minutes, then I remembered the digital-sounding interference recorded when using my Sony Cybershot camera while recharging.

To minimise other noises I covered the microphone on the camera with Blu Tack, on tape to ensure it wouldn't get stuck in the microphone holes. Two takes of around six minutes were recorded, which is the maximum possible on each side of my old memory stick.

These were cut into three and layered in Ableton Live. I panned them in various directions and removed the one with the most noise from elsewhere in the house. Then equalised them before running through an effect to widen the sounds.

The image below comes from a Reddit thread about a pregnant woman emanating WI-FI.

Brian Eno (by Alfred Dunhill)

“…the big mistake is to wait for inspiration. It won’t come looking for you. It’s not so much creating something, I think, it’s noticing when something is starting to happen…”