Disquiet Junto 0436 Planetary Headspace
The Disquiet Junto this week invites close listening to the landscape, through sharing recordings and participating in a communal soundscape:
Download field recordings by other Junto members. Play the downloaded tracks in one ear, leaving your other ear open to hear the sounds in your midst. As you listen to the stereo soundscapes, your hearing will be extended, situating you in acoustic environments that you’ll share with other participants.I've recorded the galahs that nest in a park at the end of my street.
Their chatter is a sound I associate with the town of Leeton and hearing them helps me recognise first light when I'm at home.
Grieving for a changed world
While I haven't studied the stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance), I have been prompted to consider how they make sense of the range of responses I see from people discussing the swift social changes since Covid-19 became a worldwide phenomenon.
I was just reading an interview with sound artist Maria Chávez and thought I'd share this part:
I'm not so sentimental about capturing concerts and live events, because so often they reinforce the feeling that one had to be there.
As a student of history I can see their value in providing a sense of what it is like to stand in a crowd, although the proximity effect of most microphones will likely make many listeners wonder how one endured the noises from nearby strangers.
However, like those recordings, the sentimentality for something that's both close and distant seems analogous with the experiences many are now sharing.
The recent disruptions to our lives by Covid-19 is in stark contrast to the relatively carefree experiences of only a few months earlier.
Like many others I have been going through the disappointment of re-evaluating my plans for the year and recognising it's possible some events will never be the same again.
It's a mild expression of depression but I'm sad that I can't imagine I'll be stripping off and brushing shoulders with people running around a burning effigy anytime in the near future, for example.
Yesterday I read a profile of the actor Val Kilmer that was remarkable how it illustrated a journalist grappling with uncertainties.
I found the piece fascinating for the way the article moves from trying to reconcile the actor's philosophy about illness, to trying to make sense of a series of profound changes in the journalist's life.
We're all making sense of living during a pandemic and this week I'm digging into how that manifests in creative pursuits.
One outcome for my music-making was recognising a piece I'd been looking forward to sharing had been set aside until things settle.
Cities and Memory founder Stuart Fowkes replied to my inquiry about the Future Cities project:
In the meantime, I wonder if my opportunity to record a sense of the anxiety of visiting the supermarket has passed.
This week I'm surprised how quickly people have returned to what was normal, as I navigated the groups conversing in the aisles.
I also noticed the regular messages about social-distancing that would interrupt the in-store music have stopped.
It's both a relief and a cause for concern that so many in my community have moved on from practising the measures designed to limit the spread of Covid-19.
Maybe it's denial?
I was just reading an interview with sound artist Maria Chávez and thought I'd share this part:
"I always thought field recording was just an audio snapshot, really. Now, taking the audio snapshot and adapting it to our present moment – who knew our times [would] so drastically [change] in a matter of two weeks. And my god, all of these field recordings that we’ve all been doing for the past 20-30 years, especially as the hand-held recorders got more and more accessible for the general public – I used to think of it all as, What are we going to do with all this stuff? It’s just trash, everybody’s just recording field recordings. I’d always roll my eyes. Now I’m like, You’re such an idiot. Thank god everybody was recording our world because it’s gone.
"Concerts and live events will never be the same even if they can. You know what I mean? Now that I’ve changed my mind about all of these ridiculous amounts of recording, I think somehow we all knew. That we were privileged in some way to live in this world. Everybody I knew that was really into field recordings was just frantic – once they got hooked on it, it was like a rabbit hole. Now I just feel like, My god, we’re so lucky. Now we need to make a library of everything that everyone has done and it’ll be audible postcards of our past that we’ll never be able to hear again."
I'm not so sentimental about capturing concerts and live events, because so often they reinforce the feeling that one had to be there.
As a student of history I can see their value in providing a sense of what it is like to stand in a crowd, although the proximity effect of most microphones will likely make many listeners wonder how one endured the noises from nearby strangers.
However, like those recordings, the sentimentality for something that's both close and distant seems analogous with the experiences many are now sharing.
The recent disruptions to our lives by Covid-19 is in stark contrast to the relatively carefree experiences of only a few months earlier.
Like many others I have been going through the disappointment of re-evaluating my plans for the year and recognising it's possible some events will never be the same again.
It's a mild expression of depression but I'm sad that I can't imagine I'll be stripping off and brushing shoulders with people running around a burning effigy anytime in the near future, for example.
Yesterday I read a profile of the actor Val Kilmer that was remarkable how it illustrated a journalist grappling with uncertainties.
I found the piece fascinating for the way the article moves from trying to reconcile the actor's philosophy about illness, to trying to make sense of a series of profound changes in the journalist's life.
One outcome for my music-making was recognising a piece I'd been looking forward to sharing had been set aside until things settle.
Cities and Memory founder Stuart Fowkes replied to my inquiry about the Future Cities project:
"Future Cities is delayed due to the ongoing destruction of all that our cities previously stood for! Will release that one later in the year!"I expect it's going to be a while before those futures feel possible again!
In the meantime, I wonder if my opportunity to record a sense of the anxiety of visiting the supermarket has passed.
This week I'm surprised how quickly people have returned to what was normal, as I navigated the groups conversing in the aisles.
I also noticed the regular messages about social-distancing that would interrupt the in-store music have stopped.
It's both a relief and a cause for concern that so many in my community have moved on from practising the measures designed to limit the spread of Covid-19.
Maybe it's denial?
SING!
Some time ago I challenged myself to record an album with vocals.
It's taken a while to get comfortable with the idea of sharing it, but that distance has let me observe there's a wide variety of styles among the tracks.
I'm grateful to US music educator and blogger Ethan Hein for remixing 'Prime' which was recorded for a Disquiet Junto project, as well as producer Laura "DJ Pnutz" Bolokoski for her amazing remix of the track 'Alright'.
I also found inspiration in the writing of Alicia Boyd and Ash Bond, and appreciated getting the perspectives of David Graham, Ian Joyce and Dan "Long Distance" Larkin.
Other tracks were responses to Naviar Records' haiku prompts, including 'Ghostly Melody' which was composed from my senryu poems.
The video for that song was recorded at Leeton's swimming pool and will be part of an online art exhibition organised by Dubbo-based artist Kim Goldsmith next month.
The album SING ends with an electro-metal hybrid which was written after reading a front page article in Griffith's The Area News (but then exaggerated).
As someone who loves music and writing, I had to give songwriting a go.
Disquiet Junto 0434 Beat Kit
The Disquiet Junto follows up on the kits of samples developed by the community last week, with the instruction to create music with beats crafted by fellow participants.
I've taken samples by Ausgesuchtestenohren and mode.analogue to remix my track 'Alright' with their sounds.
Immersion
It's been a few years since I last visited and I leave with so many great photographs and recordings, they appear in Junto and Naviar projects for years afterwards.
For now I'll have to make do with music.
naviarhaiku328 – flowering fields
Then I remembered I've been meaning to try composing using Elektroplanton, the Nintendo DS game from 2005 designed by Toshio Iwai.
I liked the idea of using the colourful leaves to evoke autumn and to expand the boundaries of my music-making.
The soundtrack you hear is a result of taking that performance and using it as MIDI information through a couple of VST synths.
I chose sounds that reminded me of insects circling.
Disquiet Junto 0433 Kit Bits
I've exported a dozen sounds from my recording of Spinks Park for the Junto to use.
You can download audio (7mb aif file) and video (21mb mov file), both single files containing the 12 tones.
naviarhaiku327 – meandering through the city
My 110th video for Naviar's haiku prompts.
Disquiet Junto 0432 Ensembles (Remix)
Listening back over last week's Junto tracks, there were so many wonderful collaborations.
However, I had it in mind that I was going to take a traditional approach to remixing and add drums.
After all, most of what I've done for these trios has been drums.
This week I've revisited my 707 recordings from last week and used them with another of Krakenkraft's tracks.
'Threat' started as bass drones from Matt Davis Music, then Krakenkraft extended those and gave it that title, before Ausgesuchtestenohren added a "pulsating, noisy synth layer as the third one."
My contribution has been to sidechain the bass to the kick and create a dirty techno track.
The bass required a lot of attention and I've EQ'd it back a bit to squeeze in the kick.
Disquiet Junto 0431 Solitary Ensembles x 3
For the Disquiet Junto this week I've joined Krakenkraft and DeDe for the 'Virtual Berlin School Trio,' adding a 707 drum part.
I'd considered joining this track last week, but the flac file was an extra step in the recording process which discouraged me.
Ambient relay
Recently I joined an "ambient relay," where each participant contributed to two tracks.
This asynchronous collaboration crossed the finish line today and is now on Bandcamp.
I've been involved with various relays and appreciate they all have different approaches.
At first I thought we'd only be listening to the contribution of the person ahead of us, then realised that was an assumption from other processes.
You can see in this graphic how the process was designed for each participant to build on the previous collaborator.
I find myself a bit irritated that some of the more textural sounds sit in the foreground of the mix, but enjoyed the prompt to develop new work and explore a different practice.
This asynchronous collaboration crossed the finish line today and is now on Bandcamp.
I've been involved with various relays and appreciate they all have different approaches.
At first I thought we'd only be listening to the contribution of the person ahead of us, then realised that was an assumption from other processes.
I find myself a bit irritated that some of the more textural sounds sit in the foreground of the mix, but enjoyed the prompt to develop new work and explore a different practice.
naviarhaiku325 – true tranquillity
Sounds from the global lockdown
I've contributed to a couple of Cities and Memory's projects this year
Recently they published #StayHomeSounds and I shared a recording from my porch.
It features galahs rousing at dawn and the song of the pied butcherbirds who visit around the start of autumn and spring.
When I posted the link on a local Facebook page, I got this nice comment.
It features galahs rousing at dawn and the song of the pied butcherbirds who visit around the start of autumn and spring.
When I posted the link on a local Facebook page, I got this nice comment.
Disquiet Junto 0430 Solitary Ensembles x 2 (slight return)
I've tried joining another Junto trio, this time Morgulbee's 'Anti - Viral Blues' with a drum part.
My timing slips a bit, which is a shame because I really enjoyed the techno feels for this song.
Guess it needed a drum machine.
Disquiet Junto 0429 Solitary Ensembles
This week’s Junto project is the first in a sequence intended to invite, encourage, and reward collaboration. You will be recording something with the understanding that it will remain unfinished for the time being.
For the Junto I've revisited drums recorded earlier this year because I find that instrument to be the way I start many tracks.
You can download the audio or video for the Junto collaboration.
Disquiet Junto 0428 Urban Moss
The Disquiet Junto this week asks for "a short piece of music that pays tribute to the accumulated echoes of past concerts promoted here over the years."
I thought it would be fun to work with an older track using an unlikely variety of instruments.
The track is 'Histamor' and the result sounds a bit like Gotan Project.
For a quick video I've used https://archive.org/details/ShereeTigerD
Disquiet Junto 0427 Music 4 Airplanes
The Disquiet Junto instructions this week are to "Record a short piece of music that is intended to blend in with the industrial drone of modern air flight."
It gave me an idea to revisit an older track and update it with an Eno-style ambient treatment.
The track 'Remove Borders' was a response to a Naviar haiku a few years ago and, while I like the chords, the guitar seemed to become a bit grating.
I've called it 'Aviatrix' because it's International Womens Day.
naviarhaiku320 – the last kite
The idea of the light being reflected led me to double the feedback part in the song.
Disquiet Junto 0425 Crop Score
The Disquiet Junto this week asks participants to "Consider the idea of a crop circle as a graphically notated musical composition."
The cymbals got a walloping, so much so that I broke a drumstick.
Then I recorded a MIDI guitar part and ran it through a couple of synths, aiming for something celestial.
naviarhaiku319 – Memories of spring
As the rains continued this week, I was reminded that the spring break for showers has been pushed back into summer.
It's been feeling a bit tropical with the resulting humidity and I was sweating profusely when I recorded this piece.
At the time I was amusing myself between takes for the Disquiet Junto project, but the arrival of an unregistered motorcycle wanting to use the footbridge ended my recording session.
The haiku's line "Always present" seemed appropriate for the feeling that one can't escape the noise of motorised vehicles.
Layered Air
After finishing my Disquiet Junto track this week, I applied the technique shared by Brian Crabtree in project 223 and layered all the takes -- including the interruption at the end.
Disquiet Junto 0424 Fluctuating Rhythm
The Disquiet Junto this week was proposed by Jonathon Keats, who instructed "employing nature as your conductor."
I settled on a simple chord progression, since I planned to layer the recordings afterwards.
For the location I settled on a nearby water view, showing an irrigation channel.
I worked from the feeling of the breeze on my face, since I couldn't look away from my picking hand for long.
naviarhaiku318 – in the beach breeze
Disquiet Junto 0423 Hold Noise
The Disquiet Junto this week asks for "a short piece of music intended to sound just as garbled as the hold music on a modern phone call. Think of this as “hold noise.”"
I started recording a piece, then realised this week was more about the treatment than the composition.
So I turned to a piece of ukulele that was recorded recently and garbled it using a few plug-ins.
naviarhaiku317 – not heard my breath
Then I began looking at the ukulele chord chart to see what would go with it, when I found a different chord progression that I couldn't stop thinking about.
Before long I was drafting lyrics inspired by the haiku to suit the chords, but I haven't recorded them because I don't have enough time to develop this song right now.
The result is a bit messy and I've tried to add energy with dynamics.
Disquiet Junto 0422 Chapter Cascade
The Disquiet Junto instructions this week focus on brevity:
Compose a piece of music made of up lots of very short bursts. You will have an A line and a B line, which will be tonally and aesthetically distinct from each other. These will alternate back and forth for however long you desire. Consider a length of about a second, or less, for each sliver of sound. And then finally at the very end, have the A and B lines combine.
I jammed on a few ideas, then revisited the instructions and realised I was going in the wrong direction.
Although, to be fair, I don't think there's a wrong way to Junto.
Earlier today I'd recorded my son playing the drums and had attempted to match up a couple of loops.
One is in 6/8, while the other is 4/4; and one had higher fidelity sound as I'd plugged in the VideoMic.
So I turned to these recordings and it's a thrill to collaborate with a family member on a Junto, which doesn't happen very often.
I added distortion, as well as different EQs and compressors to each part.
The parts are each a bit longer than a second and share the same fill, but I liked the constraint of using drums for the composition.
And I also liked not having to worry about recording because it's scorching hot today.
naviarhaiku316 – a dark corridor
Dunno, something about the dark corridor rolling at night.
Disquiet Junto 0420 Luna Tick
The Junto this week asks for "music that proceeds according to the phases of the moon, in celebration of Lunar New Year."
I spent a day exploring chord progressions, before deciding I wanted something that seemed obviously like an orbit.
Michael Schenker on avoiding writer’s block
I play and discover. You have to imagine a kid in a sandbox. You’re just having fun. You’re not expecting anything; you’re not looking for anything. You’re not following a trend; you don’t do something that needs to be similar to something else. It is actually from within yourself, which is endless. It’s like a kaleidoscope—you shake it and you have a bunch of new ways of doing things. So I think this block only happens to people who expect something, or who want something or are chasing something or who are trying to write something that sells or whatever. If you don’t look at all of these aspects, if you’re just having fun with notes, it doesn’t happen.
[…]
I call it “play and discover” rather than “practicing.” It’s like treasure hunting—you try and find a piece of gold but you enjoy the journey of looking for things along the way. You find something and then you capture that in a special place. And we use it later for making an album. And so that’s what I kept doing.I was always looking within myself for the next discovery.
naviarhaiku314 – Buoyantly we go
This week Naviar Records are celebrating six years of sharing haikus and inspiring music.
I've taken the opportunity to record a chord progression that's been haunting me on the ukulele: Em and B7.
This is my 102nd video in response to the Naviar Records prompts.
P.S. Just noticed the video of the bass is out of sync. Not sure I can be bothered fixing it.
Disquiet Junto 0419 Dischoir
The Junto this week involves making music from vocal samples of held syllables by members.
I began by singing a few notes, with a view to figuring out their pitch and substituting my voice with samples.
Then, after a few takes, I thought I'd layer up my singing and hear how it sounded.
Of course, by then it already sounded how I thought it should sound.
So I gave myself the day to clear my head, then returned and found samples to accompany my singing.
It was an interesting process working through the voices and I learned a few things.
The first was that I like the sound of my own voice.
The second was that composing with vocal samples requires allowing space for breathing.
The third was that I found pitch-correction did weird things and I didn't like it.
Disquiet Junto 0418 Ice-Nine
Directions for the first Junto of the year are to “Record the sound of ice in a glass and make something of it.”
It’s one of the more challenging Disquiet projects.
The high-pitched transients are difficult to manipulate and it’s usually the hottest day of the year here in the Antipodes.
I’ve made a few percussive rhythms over the years and increasingly I look for ways to make the ice cubes more harmonically interesting.
A few years ago I recorded around a dozen and half of my out-laws’ glasses, which have served me well for this project.
This year I offered those for Junto participants to use in their productions.
For a little while I wasn’t sure how to approach this assignment in 2020.
I had the drums that I’d recorded last year, when it was cooler — which is why I’m wearing a vest in the video.
On Saturday, when the temperature climbed to a new January record of 46C in Leeton, I got the idea to use the glasses to outline a progression.
So I found snippets that seemed to suggest a key, then added a transient shaping effect and de-essers to try and soften them, as well as tape-style delay and Eos reverb.
On Sunday I jammed with the bass until I found the notes that seemed to give the right shape.
Since it was a bit cooler, I put the shirt on that I’d been wearing when I recorded the drums.
I picked a fretless bass because the glasses weren’t really in tune, then afterwards I ended up adding pitch-correction to the samples to be sure they would mix.
Finally, I switched between drum recordings to give more variety to the song.
You can hear the kick drum comes in after a couple of bars, which was recorded using a bass speaker in front of the kit and then pitched down an octave for a fat thump.
Later on you can hear the drums shift, losing treble as I switched to the audio recorded through the Rode VideoMic on the camera.
Elsewhere the drums were recorded through a Rode NT-4 stereo mic, which I also used to record the ice in the glasses back in 2017.
Listening back to the track now, I wonder if I should've added another loop.
Anyway, there's always next year.
It's good to have had the project to occupy some of the weekend, rather than being absorbed with the news of the bushfires.
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