I recorded this version quickly on the ukulele and expect there'll be a polished, proper version on my next album -- which will be called SING for the vocal-driven songs it'll contain.
naviarhaiku265 – dark moon
I recorded this version quickly on the ukulele and expect there'll be a polished, proper version on my next album -- which will be called SING for the vocal-driven songs it'll contain.
Different Use
Great to be part of another Shinobi Cuts remix chain
It starts and ends with tracks by MDK, who was on the Spymania label (early home to Cassetteboy, Squarepusher and Jamie Lidell).
Shinobi Cuts is a nod to Ninja Tune. who used to have a forum on their website where these remix chains started early this century.
It starts and ends with tracks by MDK, who was on the Spymania label (early home to Cassetteboy, Squarepusher and Jamie Lidell).
Shinobi Cuts is a nod to Ninja Tune. who used to have a forum on their website where these remix chains started early this century.
Fun Fender ad
naviarhaiku264 – night wind
At first I felt a bit uneasy about trying to interpret the Dreamtime, which is a concept of the Australian Aboriginals.
This Dreamtime (great discussion here) is mythic and connects the indigenous people with their ancestors, so I wasn't sure that I could represent it in music.
Furthermore, Australia Day celebrates the arrival of the First Fleet, who claimed the country for Britain.
So it's becoming increasingly common for protests and calls to change the date to a more inclusive day for celebration.
After some reflection, I've settled on the line about the bush coming to life.
It's a phenomena that I've experienced while camping, particularly in remote locations.
Nocturnal animals roam the landscape and it can be surprising to encounter them, particularly the hiss of possums and the death metal-style growl of koalas.
Disquiet Junto 0369 Final Solo
The Junto this week continues the collaborations and I've taken Alanza's piece that builds on Sevenism's reversed piano.
Listening back I might've been too busy with my bass playing but it was fun for me.
Below is Alanza's collaboration with Sevenism.
Disquiet Junto 0368 Engage Duo
The Junto this week builds on the last, asking participants to contribute to a recording.
I explored a few recordings before settling on 'Feedback Trio' by swhic, which is described as:
Speaker/mic feedbak with room ambience intervals
Portable speaker and recorder.
You can see I've used my electric upright bass to contribute a simple part, setting the click to 99 BPM and moving from opening in A to F# into C#.
naviarhaiku262 – the reef’s silence
It's only a couple of verses, so I think it may develop further.
Disquiet Junto 0367 Trio Initiate
The Disquiet Junto this week asks for a piece of music that allows space for collaboration in coming weeks.
I’ve recorded a chord progression at 108 BPM on my electric ukulele.
It goes Gm Dm Gm Dm A#7 Dm A#7 A7, then a chorus that’s F A F C.
You can download the track here.
Look forward to hearing parts from other participants and recording a collaboration next week!
Disquiet Junto 0366 Ice Breaker
It's a new year, and we start it just like we have every year since the very start of the Disquiet Junto, back in January 2012: "Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something of it."
First time I made something for the Junto with ice in a glass I used a contact mic and drew a comic.
This year it’s the third time I’ve used the glasses I recorded at my parents-outlaws’ house.
They were recorded using a Rode NT4 stereo mic and Zoom H4, later exported with the video from a Nikon D5100.
I began by opening the video in Ableton Live and finding loops, up to a few bars for rhythms and shorter for tones.
The rhythms were gated and layered.
The kick is pitched down nearly four octaves and heavily compressed.
Those tone loops mentioned earlier have been repitched as descending notes, then I’ve duplicated the track and changed it around a bit (the light blue ones above).
The first track is playing through a reverb for the higher-pitched part (up about an octave), the second is creating a distorted and side-chained bassline through a Sinevibes effect.
I spent about an hour on Wednesday night developing one idea, then another hour on Thursday developing another, and then brought those together on Friday morning in about another hour.
Exporting the video took about that long too, so it wasn't such a long time spent making this track but I have a quick workflow these days.
This is the seventh time I’ve made something with ice in a glass and the process I’ve outlined isn’t so different to 2014, 2015 and 2017.
In 2013 I used a contact mic and ended up with a more ambient style of piece, then in 2016 and 2018 I used additional instruments – but that often felt difficult to create a cohesive sound, as ice in a glass is quite harsh and distinct.
Those qualities, particularly the transients, make the project a challenge each time and I try to get better but still think my 2015 piece was my best.
This year was good but maybe I’ll do even better next year.
No sir prison
While listening to old songs, I started layering them up and found these two from 2016 worked well together.
New album: DANCE
I've decided to put together a few albums in 2019 and started with the uptempo material that's accumulated since 2015.
Disquiet Junto 0365 2018 Tracker
My Disquiet Junto audio journal includes one second from sixty videos produced during the year.
Disquiet Junto 0363 Gymnopédie Rats
The Junto this week asks for "Erik Satie’s 'Gymnopédie No. 1' in your chosen genre," which triggered some existential angst for me.
What genre am I?
Disquiet Junto 0362 Operational Surrealism
The Disquiet Junto this week develops a Surreal idea:
Make something as “beautiful as the chance meeting on a dissecting-table of a sewing-machine and an umbrella.”
The image of the sewing-machine and umbrella reveals their similar curves; and the dissecting-table to me suggests an editing suite.
Anyway, I started looking at the videos in my Disquiet Junto folder and noticed two that were similar length and tempo and key and, then a penny dropped, water themed.
Sunrise
Playing with a few recordings and using the drums as a gate for the bassline, which has also been warped up a couple of octaves and reversed.
Hairy tunnel
Some months ago Gavin was offering this big hairy kick drum and I had to have it
The sound in this video came off my Rode Videomic, then passed through EQ and compression.
Disquiet Junto 0361 Zork Diaries
Step 1: Zork is the title of one of the earliest interactive text adventure games. The complete text of a spoiler-laden full run of the game is at the following URL, housed at Georgia Tech, or the Georgia Institute of Technology:
http://bitly.com/junto-zork
Step 2: If you’re not familiar with Zork and/or with interactive text adventures, consider reading up. Otherwise, just think of the script as exactly that: the bare-bones narrative of a story. Step 3: Compose a score (along with, if possible, sound effects) for the first page or so of Zork. It is suggested that you begin with the fifth line of provided text (“West of House”) and end about a page down, where it reads “The door reluctantly opens to reveal a rickety staircase descending into darkness.”
Zork is a similar age to an old MIDI soundcard I have, which was designed to accompany early computer games.
The piano sounds it produces led me to consider a soundtrack like that for a 'silent' movie for Zork.
My accompaniment starts with the title screen, which looked awesome back in the day, then follows up to the arrival in the attic.
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!
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.
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
Now adjusting my fills for those extra toms and cymbals.
naviarhaiku252 – The wire fence is tall
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.
Disquiet Junto 0356 Ground Swell
The Junto this week asks for a recording of a place made with layers to create unease.
I'm not sure I understood the instruction but had an idea of a place where I've been frightened and used a recording of my clothesline to create unease.
My house is on the wrong side of the tracks and, while there are routes to get to town, the quickest journey requires negotiating the railway.
This usually isn't difficult but with small children, it can prove challenging.
The biggest fright was having a train round the corner while my son was trying to get his bike over the tracks.
When he was younger, I'd read a Thomas the Tank Engine story to him about a ghost train.
It was an image that combined with this project, although it might not be obvious.
I liked the idea of being stuck on the tracks in some sort of nightmare scenario.
Aaron Levy on the role of artists
The role of artist is to occupy precisely this position of exchange, unclarity, and discomfort; maneuvering along a ‘liminal axis,’ the artist accesses a landscape of potentiality.
Disquiet Junto 0355 Sonic Vivisection
The Disquiet Junto this week asks participants to "consider the concept of vivisection" by operating "with incisions on a live sound in real time."
At first I thought about live dub, as I've been remembering watching the Mad Professor perform at Vibes On A Summers Day in Bondi some years ago.
Then I remembered my drum-triggered effects rig and thought I'd loop some chords I've been playing on my ukulele.
There's a couple of small incisions, to edit out the click-track on the Jamman looping pedal and then to add a short vocal sample.
The title comes from a piece of graffiti I used to see in the Woden Plaza Bus Interchange last century.
Toasted
Back when I decided to stop uploading tracks to Soundcloud, I started filming toasted sandwiches as a way to share music on Youtube.
This is my latest jam.
Disquiet Junto 0351 Selected Insomniac Works Volume II
This week the Junto asks participants to work with a track from last week's Selected Insomniac Works.
I listened to a few responses before settling on Sevenism's 'midnight solo (falling leaf)'
I was hoping for one of those Aphex Twin-style deceptively simple piano pieces, so I could add my upright electric bass that I've been playing a lot lately.
I was probably in the mood for Mr Twin because Marc couldn't help but make the Junto this week a play on the title of his ambient albums.
naviarhaiku246 – a ladder
When I lie down and listen to drumming, it often leads me to climb a tree to meet a spirit guide.
Disquiet Junto 0350 Selected Insomniac Works
The Junto this week asks for music to treat insomnia.
Fortunately I've done a lot of recent research into this phenomena and know that what I like is to hear something soothing.
Disquiet Junto 0349 Got Glitch?
The Junto this week asks "what 'glitch' means in music/sound."
Since my responses are shaped by what I can show in a video, this prompt led me to use my circuit bent instruments.
I have a few machines that have been bent by Diabolical Devices, including two Casio SK-1s and a Kawai drum machine.
The gear is being driven by MIDI and I've recycled a piece from earlier this year but looped it a few times while trying different bends.
I then added a few glitchy effects in Ableton Live, particularly Beatrepeat and Audio Damage's Automaton.
The result could use an edit but time ran out.
Disquiet Junto 0340 Porta Party
A couple of months ago I was invited to contribute a track to a compilation of music made with mobile equipment.
It was an idea that interested me but I thought I'd be more likely to record something if it were a Disquiet Junto project, so I shared it with Marc.
He thought it was a good idea but the project happened while I was camping at Modifyre.
So today I've recorded a belated Junto project.
Disquiet Junto 0348 Hot Mise en Abyme
The Junto this week asks for a musical equivalent to an art term describing "when a work of art includes a copy of itself, maybe more than one copy."
Before I'd had time to consider what it might be my partner suggested a mash-up.
Then I remembered the different interpretations of Offenbach's "Doll Song" 'Les oiseaux dans la charmille' from Les Contes d'Hoffman.
My quick edit combines versions by Natalie Dessay (twice), Diana Damrau and Rachele Gilmore.
Gilmore's performance is famous for being her debut at The Met and I love watching the response from the bloke over her right shoulder at the four and a half minute mark.
That performance is one I watch every now and then, enjoying a response that can include goosebumps and sometimes watery eyes.
The Burn
As preparations for Burning Seed begin, I recorded a lovely reflection my friend and fellow burner Alicia Boyd posted on Facebook recently.
This started as a response to the haiku shared by Naviar Records last week, but didn't sit with my music.
So I revisted an earlier piece, which had over a dozen takes layered together, picking out two similarly paced parts.
This year Alicia invited me to contribute music to her Threshold installation and I'm getting excited to experience the result.
This weekend the Threshold is getting it's first trial run at an event in Sydney.
naviarhaiku242 – The pine shadow falls on the tent wall
Tents and shrines both feature at the event.
My friend Alicia wrote a beaut poem about Seed recently and I tried putting it to the song but wasn't satisfied with the result.
The song uses many of the samples from my previous Naviar response.
Often I find that it's productive to rework earlier material and these samples are a mix of ukulele and tambourine from a Junto earlier this year, with playground samples I revisited for a recent Junto.
naviarhaiku241 – Nightfall
I had to look around my files for a video that showed a branch at sunrise, which I've inverted and reversed so that it might look like a big stick at nightfall.
Originally I'd planned to edit together the snippets of the videos that were sampled for the track but the drums wouldn't export from Ableton Live.
Disquiet Junto 0346 Drum Machinations
The Junto this week involves sampling the drum sounds provided by participants last week.
I've used the drums recorded by Mzero and then added an 808 to the sounds of my dishes from Junto 323.
My track came together quickly in Ableton Live after I began sequencing a groove with Mzero's hits.
The dishes are always waiting and came to hand when I went looking for a video to add.
Disquiet Junto 0345 Sample Time
The Junto this week ask we make our own drum machine sounds and then make something of them.
My sounds come from 2011-13, when I was recording playgrounds in and around Leeton for the centenary of the town.
A few of the sounds have been repitched and I seem to have made an error somewhere, as I used the same sound from a swing seat a few times.
The video is a little glitchy in places but Ableton Live has handled the short edits better than expected.
Tiny Abode
Made a song from snippets of 2017!
The title is a play on the genre microhouse for the style of using short samples.
naviarhaiku237 – The distant mountains
It's the same recording that contributed a jumping fish to my "In Sea" Junto this week.
That fish might've been a Murray Cod, if only because that was the river.
Disquiet Junto 0342 In Sea
Record a piece of music in tribute to Terry Riley’s In C using only samples of water sounds.
These videos were collected at Valla Beach, Ebor Falls and on the Murray River at Ulupna Island.
The short loops were gated to produce rhythms, which also included resonators.
Disquiet Junto 0339 Rude Mechanicals
The Disquiet Junto this week asks participants to realise the genre Rude Mechanical.
I've revisited a video that Youtube took down earlier this year, presumably because it's too rude.
My most popular Disquiet video was a remixed smack three years ago, see Three Of A Kind.
naviarhaiku234 – when the cicadas cease
My friend Hape Kiddle of Bidgee Studio gave it to me to develop a work for the Fragments exhibition in Narrandera next month.
First thing I did was tap it and found a variety of tones.
Second thing I did was atached a contact microphone and record a couple of takes of taps.
The result here is two takes layered together with some processing like delay.
Disquiet Junto 0338 Imaginary Quartet
The Junto this week asks for four live performances to be realised as a quartet.
I took short loops and created more of a remix.
Disquiet Junto Project 0337: Through-Composted
The Junto this week asks for a piece of music that is through-composed, but built entirely from samples.
I've settled on playing my Korg Wavedrum Mini while cycling through the sounds.
naviarhaiku231 – men, women
It was a track in need of a video though.
There was a sandwich filmed and waiting to be edited.
That took a bit longer than planned.
Disquiet Junto 0336 Open Mic
The Junto this week asks to hear a track in progress
Here's a start on my next toasted sandwich video.
Naviarhaiku230 – To the end of the field
The music is a variation on this chord progression recently recorded.
Disquiet Junto 0335 Alone Time
The Disquiet Junto this week asks for music for being held on the telephone.
Sometime this afternoon while pondering how it might sound I remembered a sketch started for the recent Junto responding to lottery numbers.
I’d listened to it looped for a long time without getting an idea how to resolve it.
It seemed perfect for waiting on the phone.
Originally there was a bass part but I thought that wouldn’t translate to the narrow bandwidth of telecommunications.
It features an organ I’ve used a lot in recent months, as well as percussion and drums.
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