junklight: Recent Episodes
junklight
Update: All my music is now Creative Commons licensed. This means if you want to use it in a video or an app then go for it. All I ask is that you credit me and link back here to my soundcloud (http://soundcloud.com/junklight). It would also be cool if you could let me know you've used it.
I love listening to music. I love making music
I love technology, but only as a means to an end when it comes to music making.
I'm after music that has life not music that is perfectly constructed
Here is my music
The other night, some what strangely for me., I awoke from a dream not knowing what it was about but instead filled with a strange sense of emptiness. I don't remember much of the dream but part of it took part in a field , filled with ceramic tiles. `the field was marked out in park of some kind. One of those dreams that leave you unsettled - so I made this,
a track for this weeks Disquiet Junto https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0741-balance-beam/74223
another piece for Disquiet Junto https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0707-chain-of-practice/72525
Another entry in the disquiet junto oeuvre. More details (including my notes on this track) at https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0705-book-start/72385
This is for the latest disquiet junto https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0704-right-on-cumulus/72333a sound track to the Cory Arcangel installation Super Mario CloudsIt's meant to be 8 bit music - I couldn't dedicate the time to learning actual 8 bit trackers or whatever so I made a generative Max patch in the spirit of 8 bit music - there is only one sound source playing at any one time and the sound is degraded to 8 bit. Kind of playing with the chiptune idea of chords as arpeggios too there is another big influence here but I'll let you spot that for yourselves
This weeks Disquiet Junto asks us to abuse software to make music. I was going to pass on this one quite honestly - there has been lots of interesting work in this field - using data files as audio etc etc. but then, and I’m not quite sure why, a project in an electronics magazine from when I was a child came to mind. In the project they created (an incredibly lofi) video by using electro-mechanical scanning of a light resistor. Seeing video as an analog signal then prompted this. I’ve got a Max/Jitter patch collecting video. The video is split into 4 pieces - each piece is treated as a wavetable and the volume of it is modulated by taking the video segment using the average of each column from left to right scanned at quite a low frequency. A few parameters here and there let me turn it into music rather than noise and there is a reverb and a bit of delay in there for good measure. And then I recorded an improvisation on the whole setup. I’m still not quite sure it counts - surely using Max/MSP to make music is its entire reason for existing! But perhaps it’s ok since ALL the audio signal is generated by a video camera……
first outing for my "groove" case https://modulargrid.net/e/racks/view/2430896After quite a long hiatus this year - mostly just lack of time in which to make music sadly - back to exploring the groove as a concept. (& if you like this can I recommend https://junklight.bandcamp.com/album/until-the-apocalypse-comes :-) )
More Angel Heart than burning fires but there you go.....https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0666-beauty-and-the-beast/
getting back in the saddle making some music.playing with new synths - ID700 , chroma and sax
back on my Relabi based nonsense.Nearly, but not quite technofor the people who actually listen.......
In all these moments. Time stopped. Couldn’t understand. The clock not moving. All aswirl. now we leave. We take ourselves out. Outside. And into the maelstrom. Holding hands together. Making sure we don’t loose each other and all the time we look and analyse. But how will we know. Indeed. How will we know. And can you even see it. Look my friend look. And in the midst of it you must stop. Stop I say. Stop. These moments. Between the movements of the hands. Stopped as they are. These moments are for hiding in. For living in. For making a home. Not a house. A home. A foundation. A foundation for the towers. Those glittering towers never achieved(after the Hafler Trio)
got all my hardware plugged back in again, had a nap and couldn't resist kind of like the contrasts in this - chilled out but also jarring
recorded for Disquiet Juntohttps://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0621-the-leftovers/64999Taken from a collection of improvisations using this https://www.modulargrid.net/e/racks/view/2110722it took on an unexpected life of its own when I started doing the junto project......
this is a "side quest" piece of music. My experimentation on something else reminded me of Mille Plateaux, glitch music and clicks and cuts and I put this together
look, I've needed to get this sax thing out of my system for a while so hard luck......
what do you mean it's not a pop song - it's three minutes long what more do you want!!!!!
working on something larger but this little piece came together out of the ideas I was working on
short improvisation with modular & piano and pedals - just trying to let the music flow and not letting thinking get in the way
Meditative and Generative and somehow encompassing recent obsessions including old school frippertronics, frequencies and chaotic generative systems not to mention a nice dress
I've alway loved Earth & Dylan Carlsons playing, inspired by that and things like Wooden Shjips primarily make noise modular - my pseudo shared system plus Strega and 0_Coast - also using Screen Violence by OBNE
a fresh chapter and new understanding on the subject of the absent detective.......(oh rain by the brilliant _blank who is my go to for rain samples https://archive.org/details/aporee_23718_27569)
a pastoral meditation. Getting myself back into this "actually making music & not just tinkering with tools" thing
this weeks Disquiet is to make 200bpm ambient - who could resist a challenge like that
Not really sure if it is either gabber or ambient but it is at 220 bpm!
I'm sure in the right state of mind this could take you places!
following a prompt
Step 1: Think about stereo for a moment.
Step 2: Now think about it a bit more — specifically, think less about using stereo as a means to give a sense of a physical space to a recording, and more about using stereo as a compositional tool.
Step 3: Record a piece of music in which you engage with stereo based on the ideas you formulated in Step 1 and Step 2.
Another Disquiet piece
"Make some drone music from nothing other than the sound of your own voice. You can manipulate and layer your voice, but please add no other instrumentation."
I'll post a blog post about it later or tomorrow....and put the link here
not the usual - messing about with my new studio additions and playing with the iOS apps Autony and Cality
A little improvisation that came together while organising my latest music studio setup
A quiet hymn for the waking of the land
(made with this wonderful sample https://www.pianobook.co.uk/packs/the-quiet-choir/ )
A piece made for https://disquiet.com
read more at https://junklight.com/new-blog-1/2022/5/13/dancer-on-the-plateau
(bone scan in the image by Brad Short https://sketchfab.com/dbshort)
more private music to help keep the nonsense at bay
(you may have briefly seen an earlier different version of this upload - I uploading the wrong file. cabbage)
Increasingly I'm finding music an escape. Gone are the grand concepts and plans - I just sit down and play as often as I can, letting the sound take me where it will. Beauty in the maelstrom, silence in the noise.
I've had an idea for a project - based almost entirely on a track title - for a little while. For it I want something that kind of evokes 1930's Alexandria. this is almost certainly NOT it but has a lot of what I was looking for
I found the bass while just messing about with the morphagene and this little track came about all on its own
I think the bass sound is something I recorded from the 0-c0ast - the lead sound certainly is an the "piano" is the Argon8
This is a "plunderphonics" track where it was made over the top of another piece of music and then the original piece of music was removed leaving only my stuff .
In this case the track was a Sophie Ellis Bextor track
Another visit to the absent detective for Disquiet Junto
This weeks instructions were to use a recording of typing as the rhythmic basis of a track. For some reason despite not having taken part for sometime this grabbed my imagination.
Most of the track apart from the solo is a supercollider program. Using machine listening to derive the timing from my typing. Despite my original intentions being very different the combination of typing and the patterns somehow got me in a blade runner/noir kind of mood and I leaned right into that. Indulgent but sod it
If you are wondering what I'm typing it is this nonsense - I didn't want to have too big gaps between lines so I just kept typing. I think we can all agree it is complete bollocks:
"The door swung open. It hadn’t been locked
I cautiously went in. The place was in disarray, chairs tipped over, rubbish everywhere. One window slightly open.
I surveyed the scene - was the occupant just a very messy person or had the place been turned over. I was never to find out.
I heard a noise outside and before I had chance to react a woman came bursting through the door.
“Ah there you are” she started
She was kind of out of place, well dressed, a nice dress, furs. Classy - not like this dive
“Look I’ve been phoning all week. I simply must know how you are getting one”
“I’m not who you think I am” I said
She stopped and looked at me
“And who do I think you are?”
“well…”
“God man - focus. Now look about the case - I need to see some progress. Not you dithering about here in this office. Get out there. Get some work done. I’m paying you enough”
And with that she left "
Another visit to the absent detective for Disquiet Junto
This weeks instructions were to use a recording of typing as the rhythmic basis of a track. For some reason despite not having taken part for sometime this grabbed my imagination.
Most of the track apart from the solo is a supercollider program. Using machine listening to derive the timing from my typing. Despite my original intentions being very different the combination of typing and the patterns somehow got me in a blade runner/noir kind of mood and I leaned right into that. Indulgent but sod it
If you are wondering what I'm typing it is this nonsense - I didn't want to have too big gaps between lines so I just kept typing. I think we can all agree it is complete bollocks:
"The door swung open. It hadn’t been locked
I cautiously went in. The place was in disarray, chairs tipped over, rubbish everywhere. One window slightly open.
I surveyed the scene - was the occupant just a very messy person or had the place been turned over. I was never to find out.
I heard a noise outside and before I had chance to react a woman came bursting through the door.
“Ah there you are” she started
She was kind of out of place, well dressed, a nice dress, furs. Classy - not like this dive
“Look I’ve been phoning all week. I simply must know how you are getting one”
“I’m not who you think I am” I said
She stopped and looked at me
“And who do I think you are?”
“well…”
“God man - focus. Now look about the case - I need to see some progress. Not you dithering about here in this office. Get out there. Get some work done. I’m paying you enough”
And with that she left "
My fingers don't get on with the guitar fretboard - not nimble or flexible enough. Despite that I love the sounds of it as an instrument and one thing I'm particularly fond of is finger style guitar playing.
in all my years of making electronic music I've never really found any decent emulation of it - most guitar stuff for producers is sample based anyway. As I've become more fluent in Supercollider I realised it would be an ideal way to build an emulation I could use in the way I wanted to with much more control than sample based approaches
And having got it working here is a little piece I put together with it. It's kind of pattern based so the tonality is a bit odd in once place but that led to the title and I kind of like it (since the title also has other relevance)
I kind of like this but it doesn't really fit with any of the larger projects I'm working on so putting it here
As far as I know this was also made for the Dark Outside
not sure if I sent this one or if it was just in reserve
The voice is the wonderful Melissa Harrison talking about rain
Another Dark outside piece. This one is one of those improvisations that come out of nowhere. I'd recorded a ton of bits & pieces which I was going to work into something and then at the end of the day just sat down in front of the modular & synths I had set up and just played this as is. & fortunately for me I was recording at the time....
late night music thinking of better times in lockdown......
Recorded for the Dark Outside this is part of a project I conceived just before a several month creative "drought" where I completely any drive to make music.
The text is generated with GPT-2 a machine learning algorithm that was trained on a vast corpus of text drawn from the internet. To my mind this is the ultimate cultural sampler as the next step after sampling verbatim sections of audio and video - this is synthesising something new from textual samples. Interestingly the text had to be edited to remove sections were the algorithm veered off into less savoury content that was getting fairly racist.
I have some further material along these lines and may consider putting together a release - probably not under the 'junklight' name but rather something new....
There is just one step: Throw off the shackles of A440 and make a piece of music in your favorite alternate tuning.
Drone & frequencies
This week sounds from around the world - check out other sounds with the same tag.
This is from my backyard just now
Step 1: Make a field recording, indoors or outdoors. Your recording may be of any length. If you make your recording outdoors, be attentive to sounds of nature that are now more audible due to restrictions on human activity during the pandemic. If you are under strict quarantine and cannot go outside, create your soundscape indoors, capturing the domestic sounds that you consider characteristic of your current circumstances.
Step 2: Upload your recording per the standard Junto instructions below.
Step 3: 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.
The Disquiet Junto is fairly freeform this week. This is about lots of things but there is a reason I make music rather than writing them down these days........
this was a live stream but forgot to switch scenes to the one of me playing. D'oh
Will have another go with the same setup and see if I can get a good video.
But I really liked the music so posting it
rain recorded by _blank https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22_blank+%5Bat%5D+null66913%22
A further installment in the Disquiet solitary ensembles.
I used this track as a basis https://soundcloud.com/petejahn/crowds-disquiet0429?in=disquiet/sets/disquiet-junto-project-0429
Step 1: This week’s Disquiet Junto project is the second in a sequence intended to encourage and reward asynchronous collaboration. This week you will be adding music to a pre-existing track, which you will source from the previous week’s Junto project (disquiet.com/0429 4). Note that you aren’t creating a duet — you’re creating the second third of what will eventually be a trio. Keep this in mind. Leave space for what is yet to come.
Step 2: The plan is for you to record a short and original piece of music, on any instrumentation of your choice, as a complement to the pre-existing track. First, however, you must select the piece of music to which you will be adding your own music. There are tracks by 66 musicians in all to choose from, 64 as part of this playlist:
https://soundcloud.com/disquiet/sets/disquiet-junto-project-0429 11
Count as the 65th this track from Jason Richardson:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0429-solitary-ensembles/30277/9/
And count as the 66th this track from Samarobryn:
https://samarobryn.bandcamp.com/track/sui-generis-disquiet-0429 2
To select a track, you can listen through all that and choose one, or you can use a random number generator to select a number from 1 to 66, the first 64 being numbered in the above SoundCloud playlist, and 65 being Richardson’s and the 66th being Samarobryn’s.
Note: It’s fine if more than one person uses the same original track as the basis for their piece.
Also note: Be sure to look back at the discussion on Lines to see if any additional material related to your track is available, such as source code or MIDI data or video, which some of the tracks include:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0429-solitary-ensembles/
Step 3: Record a short piece of music, roughly the length of the piece of music you selected in Step 2. Your track should complement the piece from Step 2, and leave room for an eventual third piece of music. When composing and recording your part, do not alter the original piece of music at all, except to pan the original fully to the left if it hasn’t been panned left already. In your finished audio track, your part should be panned fully to the right. To be clear: the track you upload won’t be your piece of music alone; it will be a combination of the track from Step 2 and yours.
The Assignment: Record the first third of a trio that others will complete.
Step 1: 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.
Step 2: The plan is for you to record a short and original piece of music, on any instrumentation of your choice. Conceive it as something that leaves room for something else — other instruments, other people — to join in.
Step 3: Record a short piece of music, roughly two to three minutes in length, as described in Step 2. When done, if possible, pan the audio so that your piece is solely in the left side of the stereo spectrum.
Step 4: Also, and this is important, be sure, when done, to make your track downloadable, because it will be used by someone else in the next Disquiet Junto project.
For Disquiet Junto. instructions were
"Step 1: Airplanes are noisy places, especially when at 35,000 feet. Consider the noise, especially the dense white noise, experienced by an airline passenger.
Step 2: Record a short piece of music that is intended to blend in with the industrial drone of modern air flight."
Another project for Disquiet Junto.
Based on samples from Patricia Wolf's Celluar Chorus - income ways this could be seen as a performance of that piece - although it does diverge a little from the original concept in not being played on mobile phones!
The original https://www.cellularchorus.com
Inspired by (& the title ‘borrowed’ from) the brilliant & disturbing England by Tim Etchells
Made for the 2019 Heard in the Dark in Epping Forest.
I was, perhaps understandably, in a reflective mood in early 2019 when I made this and it is a "travelogue" from the site of the first Heard in the Dark I went to, to Epping Forest , taking in a random and eclectic collection of memories on the way.......
"He knew about sound recorded in the grooves of stone - ambient sound captured inadvertently. What would the sound of the streets sound like if you played them back somehow? "
This project is the second of three that are being done in collaboration with Musikfestival Bern, which will be held in Switzerland from September 11 through 15. For this reason, a German translation is provided below. We are working at the invitation of Tobias Reber, an early Junto participant, who is in charge of the educational activities of the festival. Select recordings resulting from these three Disquiet Junto projects will be played publicly as part of the Rauschlabor Schützenmatte (musikfestivalbern.ch 2) or broadcast on the festival’s radio show, Radio Antenne (radioantenne.ch). If you don’t want your recording to be used in this way, please note so wherever you post it.
Step 1: Familiarize yourself with the German word “rauschen,” the theme for this year’s festival. Understand that “rauschen” is noise in the sense of white noise, waterfall noise, background noise, static, wind in trees, rain, etc. The blurred, diffuse, continuous kind of noise, not short individual non-tonal sounds.
Step 2: Provided are several recordings capturing the sounds of the empty performance space for the festival. Access them at the following URL and listen to them:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jy7ou2ssdvl8til/Bern%20Audio.zip 22
Step 3: Create a piece of sonic art intended to be played back in the festival performance space utilizing only the source audio.
In Hookland they know not to answer the telephone in remote phoneboxes on lonely moors......
Another Disquiet piece
thinking about the melting ice sheets
the instructions this week were:
Step 1: Familiarize yourself with the German word “rauschen.” Understand that “rauschen” is noise in the sense of white noise, waterfall noise, background noise, static, wind in trees, rain, etc. The blurred, diffuse, continuous kind of noise, not short individual non-tonal sounds.
Step 2: Consider that the word “rauschen” is half of the family name of the late artist Robert Rauschenberg, who was famed for his collages.
Step 3: Record several “rauschen” noises and make a sonic collage of them.
been meaning to post this for a bit - made it for something else but it didn't get used.
channeling the 80s in as un-ironic "I've just got a drum machine and a sampler" way as possible for disquiet0397
Step 1: It’s 808 Day today, August 8, the start of the latest Junto project. Let’s make it last through Monday.
Step 2: Make music with or about or somehow in the spirit of the Roland TR-808.
disquiet0396
The Assignment: Make music with by humming a song and then processing the humming.
Step 1: Record yourself humming an original tune.
Step 2: Edit that recording, using only the hum as source audio (adding effects/processing as you see fit), to create a completed track.
Sadly I can't sing and it turns out my humming is pretty rubbish too. Still - that's the whole point of these assignments- out of your comfort zone and into the fire. I felt that too much processing
The Assignment: Make music with (samples of) the biggest guitar in the southern hemisphere.
This project was proposed by Jason Richarson. There’s just one step:
Step 1: The biggest guitar in the southern hemisphere is in Narrandera, Australia. Junto member Jason Richardson recorded a wide range of samples of the guitar and made them available under a Creative Commons license. Now it’s time for you to play this guitar. Get the samples at big-guitar.com/download
(see below for the assignment)
the sound of gulls and crows from my bedroom window
I recorded and deleted numerous attempts for this - non seemed quite 'alien' enough or to be truly playing with the birds as opposed to just imposing my nonsense upon them. I've no idea if I've achieved it with this but at least it seems in roughly the right direction.
Disquiet Junto Project 0394: You & Me The Assignment: Accompany the music made by a species other than your own. This is a project for World Listening Day.
Step 1: Think of an animal you would like to accompany. It may be one in your possession, like a household cat, dog, or bird, or perhaps it might be one for which you’ll need to locate a recorded example.
Step 2: Acquire audio of the animal you selected in Step 1, either by making a recording or locating one.
Step 3: Create a new piece of music by playing along with the audio acquired in Step 2. In the final mix, you and the animal you accompany should be heard at equal levels of prominence (of course, you may also trade off).
Dear Mr Williamson,
Greetings from the, alas, long forgotten embassy of Razrainia. Thank you for your kind enquiry about our national anthem. I hope you find the enclosed tape satisfactory for your needs. We don’t often play it now for few of us know it any more. Sometimes one or two of us elders gather together on a hot summers night in one of the halls we used to use so freely during the day and play it quietly so as not to wake our guests.
Regarding your question - no we never were invaded. I think perhaps we were just too polite. As visitors came to love our country we made room for them to stay without a fuss, letting them make their own improvements, withdrawing into forgotten rooms, using the crawl spaces, quietly doing the dishes and laundry until our guests seemed to forget we were there. We didn’t like to draw attention to ourselves, they all seemed to be having such fun and getting on with things. There aren’t many of us left anymore of course and perhaps that’s for the best.
I look forward to meeting up with you again one day
Regards
Alexadra
We spent the afternoon at John Ruskin's house at Coniston - the wonderful Brantwood. Ruskin's desire for fairness in society seems particularly apt at the moment since we are rolling back a lot of the changes he advocated for but never saw in his lifetime. Also thinking about his sometimes fragile mental health and his drive to explore the world. A fascinating man (and one no doubt with many flaws & of course was very much the privileged white of his age)
I'd like to do some more stuff based on him - have an idea for an installation but that needs time which is in short supply at the moment....
Some of the reverb on this is an IR I recorded on my phone in Ruskin's Ice House - need to take proper gear back and make a higher quality recording but it's a really interesting space
Thinking about memory and identity and how as we get older we start to "haunt" ourselves
They say in the village that in the blazing heat of summer, under the fire of the midday sun, they hold dances on the neatly manicured lawns of the "big house". The guests, who are never seen to arrive or leave, dressed in sumptuous finery. The music wild & intoxicating.
a piece for a place I like called Boredale Hause - a meeting place and a landscape that feels full of stories - just day to day stuff, comings and goings.
sounds created with noise for Disquiet Junto disquiet0386
Lots more information here https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0386-new-colors/22726
This is the only known recording of Mrs Ethel Cartwright performing on what the unknown recordist dubbed the “Ethelphone” in their notes. Said notes describe the Ethelphone as being “an unholy collection of fragments of household cleaning implements played by Mrs Cartwright with far more enthusiasm than skill through an ancient reel to reel tape recorder powered by a car battery”
Cartwright and her husband Sidney lived almost all of their lives on an isolated farm that only had the most basic amenities. Mrs Cartwright however had a passion for music that apparently remained a source of friction between the couple for a lot of their married lives. She had a collection of very poor quality tapes recorded with a microphone from a battery powered radio. When visited by the recordist who made this tape she expressed an enthusiasm for a show presented by “Mister John Peel”. Her husband seemed irritated by this and had to be persuaded to go and do some work on the farm by the recordist so that his muttering and grumbling didn’t spoil the recording.
A couple of years after this recording life on the farm came to a tragic end. Mrs Cartwright turned up at a neighbouring farm disheveled and distressed. She said only “call police. Tell ‘em to go to the farm”. She accepted a cup of tea from her Neighbour but wouldn’t say anything more. Something she continued through the subsequent trial and her imprisonment. Life in prison didn’t suit Mrs Cartwright and she passed away in her sleep a few short months into sentence.
Disquiet Junto Project 0385: Audubonus Instrumentum
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0385-audubonus-instrumentum/
Disquiet Junto Project 0384: Breath Beat The Assignment: Explore breath as a resource for rhythm.
Just one step this week:
Step 1: Record yourself breathing, and make that the pulse of a piece of music.
Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: Include “disquiet0384” (no spaces or quotation marks) in the name of your track.
Step 2: If your audio-hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to also include the project tag “disquiet0384” (no spaces or quotation marks). If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to subsequent location of tracks for the creation a project playlist.
Step 3: Upload your track. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your track.
Step 4: Post your track in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0384-breath-beat/ 4
Disquiet Junto Project 0383: Interstellar Ambience The Assignment: Record the sound of an apartment on a large interstellar ship.
Step 1: The goal is to record an artificial rendering of background ambient sound. The inspiration is, if you’re familiar with them, those YouTube videos in which people have stitched together loops of ambience extracted from movies like Blade Runner , anime like Ghost in a Shell , and TV shows like Star Trek . The issue to consider is that many (though not all) of those YouTube future-ambience videos consist of short tight loops that repeat for hours, which isn’t how actual ambient sound generally proceeds. There are elements to a given place’s soundscape that ebb and flow, shift and morph, as time proceeds, and many of the YouTube sci-fi film-ambience videos lack that quality.
Step 2: Create and record the sound of a future interior space, specifically an apartment on a large interstellar ship. Make the recording fairly long, half an hour if possible. Imagine it will be played on loop for a longer period of time. (The word “apartment” is being used instead of “compartment” to make it clear this is a personal space.)
Bonus Option: You needn’t create your work as a fixed recording. If you have the means to code a generative system, that is certainly an option.
Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: Include “disquiet0383” (no spaces or quotation marks) in the name of your track.
Step 2: If your audio-hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to also include the project tag “disquiet0383” (no spaces or quotation marks). If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to subsequent location of tracks for the creation a project playlist.
Step 3: Upload your track. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your track.
Step 4: Post your track in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:
https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0383-interstellar-ambience/ 1
Step 5: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.
Step 6: If posting on social media, please consider using the hashtag #disquietjunto so fellow participants are more likely to locate your communication.
Step 7: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.
Made for https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0382-understanding-mcluhan/21929
see that thread for more details
Utterly different from the last couple of things I posted of course....
I was experimenting with my digitakt and the modular which is at the core of this. Then I remembered I'd bought Cypher 2 and not really played with it much so I got the seaboard out and somehow this emerged
Dubby spacey and back in Klaus Shulze kind of territory to my ears
Robin Rimbaud posted a morphagene reel this morning and asked people to make music with it
so I did!
https://twitter.com/robinrimbaud/status/1120738839046303744
Inspired by this entertaining work by "look mum no computer" :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YD18Zw2wKk
I really liked the idea of loads of arbitrary synths making the notes. So I made a generic synth voice in supercollider so each note has a different patch setting effectively.
This is the short version - I have a thirty minute one :-)
In one or two of the feral churches ideas stolen from the pylon people had taken root and bred their own mythology
The start of a "pointed stick" series of pieces.
Primarily made with my eurorack with the goal of learning recent additions and some of my older modules better
I'll see how frequent I can make them - doubt I'll manage every day (which would be ideal) but at least a couple a week
thinking about "stuff" :-) & still 'mining' the field recordings I made on in hospital too.
also getting my music making setup up and running again having moved house.
I had an operation this morning & wanted to capture the sense of distant fragile calm I'm feeling after the general anaesthetic right now........
another thing I just made
Bit noisier this one and I had a bit of a revelation about something while playing it!
Turned out a little bit to upbeat for Hookland but was heading in that direction....
(track notes - digitakt, flow motion, repro-5)
channeling the books a bit on this one (although it is a long time since I listened to them)
They say if you stand on the shore on a quiet day you might be lucky and hear distant hymns to the King-Under-the-Sea
just an idea I had......
ideally this would be played by a group of people on a load of different instruments but there is just me and bedtime was beckoning......
messing about thinking about 'groove'. A bit "jaunty" from my tastes quite frankly - but I quite like some elements of it........
just downloaded the Christian Henson Model A sample and couldn't resist making this
https://www.spitfireaudio.com/editorial/features/christians-grand-piano-gets-felted/
After hearing lots of interesting pieces for piano day I wanted to make something of my own. Featuring Christian Hensons triple felt piano
Morecambe bay is an endless source of inspiration. A constantly changing landscape shifting between water and sand under ever moving light and clouds.
I guess the Farfisa was on a whole load of records from my teens. Either way it has become one of my go to instruments at the moment. love it.
The Organelle is playing a little sequence on the Braids patch made by 'thetechnobear' https://patchstorage.com/brds-mpe/ a port of the Mutable Braids eurorack module
seriously - how should I know where this stuff comes from? and why in the middle of racing around like a blue arsed fly I should feel the urge to make this track in the spaces between driving children about, cooking tea, washing dishes and answering emails......
A long atmospheric ambient piece inspired by abandoned rural mine workings at hodge close
A very short soundtrack for an instagram video https://www.instagram.com/p/Be1A3hlluwl/?taken-by=junklight
playing with the arturia Farfisa, a visit to a converted old cinema that was echoing (knowingly or not) Bioshock and listening to some John Foxx - somehow out of all those - this came out!
Another ambient soundtrack piece. The 'noises' actually come from field recordings of london....
I notice that Soundcloud is still in business. Resuming posting bits and pieces for people to use in videos and that kind of thing.
A little ambient, soundtracky kind of piece.
I have come across an extraordinary collection of tapes full of recordings from the churches of hookland and what seems like audio commentary by their collector, one Reverend Winterjoy.
From the accompanying notes for this track:
"in the corner, seemingly ignored by the congregation , a rag taggle collection of specimens as you ever did see, a figure played what looked like some kind of stringed instrument. I couldn't see that clearly in the gloom of the church but they appeared to have long black hair and a long black cassock type affair. But what attracted my attention was the music - in the flickering light of the church it seemed to call out inviting who knows what. I managed to unobtrusively record one of the pieces presented here."
A short piece I made for an instagram upload (https://www.instagram.com/p/BaCX6g0lp2j/?taken-by=junklight) - I might make a longer version of this, it feels like it needs a second more expansive section....
I was in the mood for making something filmic over the weekend. You can see me recording this live here: https://youtu.be/ILmDLReh5CY
This track was made for the Electronic Oddities podcast https://www.mixcloud.com/DrExistenz/electronic-oddities-61-nineties-to-noughties/ via the Electronic Music Philosophy Facebook group.
Here's what I said about it:
This one was particularly interesting for me since I don't play the guitar at all. I could never get my fingers around the fretboard - and it turns out still can't. I spent an evening messing about with sounds in Logic - seeing what different effects could do. The following evening I switched to Ableton because it turns out that playing all but the most simple riffs is beyond me. With the guitar laid on it's back on my desk and using the tuner plugin to find notes I recorded a number of what you might generously call riffs. I then approached it from more of a sound collage perspective. As I played with the sounds I found myself making sounds that reminded me of music I've long loved from the likes of Cocteau Twins and Dif Juz (I was absolutely obsessed with 4ad for a few years buying everything they released on release day no matter what. Which sometimes turned out brilliantly - I bought 'Come on Pilgrim' the day it was released). I must admit I had to cheat for the main lead - it's sampled from one of the riffs into Simpler so I could play something more interesting... The piece also turned out to have a conceptual framework - I watched a documentary about Leigh Bowery - his living of his life as art had resonances with my love of Coil - and I wanted to reflect that somehow - his art and the music he liked aren't my thing at all however so I was looking for a mix of glitter and darkness - not sure if I found it but it works for me. The harsh notes at the end are (randomly) a brief homage to Beefheart and the use of metal picks. The title is what Bowery asked his friends to tell people after his death.
Sometimes it's nice just to play without thinking of muti-tracks and the technique of Frippertronics lets you make lots of sound doing just that......
A friend suggested I looked at writing library music. Made one track this morning. However the second track seems to have turned into 'accidental Tangerine Dream'......
Mika Vainio was a massive influence and so shocked and saddened to hear of his death today.
Making music seemed better than making words so made this little track - restricted myself to my modular. Using the seaboard to drive the DPO via expert sleepers FH-1
You can see me recording this piece here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04AGT-AgonI
this just came together while I was trying out different sounds for another track I'm working on. Basically recorded it so I can throw it away and get on with the main piece I'm working on......
Been listening to too many demos of Spitfire sample libraries that I can't afford......
Made for the Electronic Oddities podcast which you can hear here (https://www.mixcloud.com/DrExistenz/electronic-oddities-35-single-sound-source-challenge/) - highly recommended - lot of good stuff in that podcast. I find myself in good company
Not quite sure where this came from. Was trying to add guitar to a track which I was experimenting with that wasn't really working. The guitar part didn't work with it either but had something about it so I deleted the rest (always best to be ruthless with stuff that isn't working) and let it become this.
Robert Fripp talks about being "open to the music". And in that spirit I idly sat in front of my modular and built, and then played, the sequences that are at the core of this piece. No idea where it came from at all - it doesn't fit with any of the other stuff I'm making right now but I quite like it.
Messing about with sequencer-less sequencing (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUql7UC8Rns) and came up with this - keyboard is my XTk
Remembering all those that went "over the top" on both sides and how very young they were.
Inspired by #wearehere https://becausewearehere.co.uk/we-are-here-gallery/
Been listening to the Zoviet France podcast 'A Duck in a Tree' a lot recently and realised I'd not made any dark ambient for ages
A proper moody ambient track
Not much uploaded recently because I'm working on a couple of albums. But this track wasn't the right mood for either.
Kind of going for a fusion kind of feel on this one
Possibly veering into 'homage' rather than just showing my influences - but sod it - I love this kind of music
Self propelled modular rhythm section and Monark
Another track from what I'm beginning to see as a distinct music project - based around, xberlin school style sequencers (give or take) and woodwind leads. The project is tentatively called 'secret sky' after the first track I wrote in this style (which you can find in my soundcloud)
This one also borrows from the Fripp/Belew alternate notes technique in the interlocked sequences.
This piece is in three related parts (have resisted naming them separately prog style)
The core of the piece is a modular "complex oscillator" kind of patch. Lead sounds are all alchemy which I'm getting to quite like
East coast/west coast. All sorts going on in this one. Based around a slightly unstable sequencer patch
Some epic dark ambient - only got my laptop today so reaktor blocks to the rescue.
Listen on good speakers or headphones - as ever quite a wide frequency range is at play.
Inspired by ideas from DivKids latest monthly modular https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8byYyB2HVc
This is the third track in a row drawn from the same basic patch - this time sequencer controlled and a few more VCAs thrown into the mix. Time to take it down now anyway.
It's a mix of west and east coast in terms of technique but focused a lot more on west coast kind of sounds
I sensed that there was more to be gotten from the modular patch I used incredibly sparingly in this mornings track ('After All'). Instead of playing it this time I added LFOs and modulation and gave it a life of it's own, threw clouds into the mix and this track started to emerge, almost unbidden. I followed it where it wanted to take me and this is the end result.
I'm working on some music intended for album releases but felt like just making something this morning and here it is!
The moog mother 32 makes for a wonderful double bass sound - make sure you listen on decent speakers.
iSpark and the modular synced and playing them both at the same time. Then the insistent melody line was added after using Monark
I sat down to make some music this morning with no particular intention in mind and this came out!
Our neighbour died of cancer a couple of weeks ago. As far as I could tell she was about my age and it happened pretty quickly. I didn't know her well but I liked talking to her and she brought apples and herbs round from her garden from time to time.
This is music for quiet contemplation. Elegies and requiems often seem to be all drama and big emotions. I wanted to make something gentle for quiet thinking about those who have gone now.
The core of this track is a modular patch that I was using to generate a rhythmic ambient 'background' for track for the ambient album I'm now working on. However fiddling with the settings revealed this other sound - swirly background noises with a self perpetuating bass beat (Maths and the MMG modulating each other basically. The beat is Maths end of cycle on channel 4 hitting the accent input on the MMG. The Maths channel is triggered by the output of the MMG.). I used the Moog mother 32 to add a bass line and the strings and piano sound seemed to compliment it .
One of those unexpected tracks that just emerge while doing something else!
Harsh percussive electronics - not my usual stuff at all. I've recorded a number of versions of this over the last week and a half - I like it too much to discard it but very wary of how jarring it is compared to most of the stuff I make.
Title appropriated from M John Harrison as they frequently are https://ambientehotel.wordpress.com/page/4/
messing about with beats, bass lines and synths
a special shout out to Michael Hetrick on the Native Instruments user library for making a lot of the blocks used in this https://www.native-instruments.com/en/reaktor-community/reaktor-user-library/all/all/all/283428/
I'm not sure if I'm a fan of the alchemy synth or not so I figured the best way to get to know it is to make a track with it. It does some nice stuff but I'm not sure it will ever be a 'goto' synth
Dubby modular. Based around a reaktor blocks patch I didn't quite have control over so it gets a little chaotic at times. But I quite like that
iPad only track made on my travels. Has an accompanying video too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PV-iEE3838
Atmospheric piano in a noisy ambient setting
I'm now licensing my stuff on soundcloud with a creative commons license (I'll be updating all my earlier tracks in due course too) so if you want to use anything I've made in film or an app then feel free as long as you credit me and link to my soundcloud
I made a reaktor blocks patch which is the centre of the track. After I made the patch the rest of it just fell into shape - not quite what I expected and not my usual style
Just found this rooting around on my disk looking for something else. Was investigating that Eno shimmer production technique he does
Dark modular textures. This is a reaktor blocks patch performed on the knobs of my lpd8
Ideally play on a decent sound system (with great bass) and play very loud
it all started with wandering around my garden hitting things with a bit of wood.......