#7

This is a listening companion to The Little Prince. I didn’t really make a loop for each chapter, more like for different sections of the book. The song should end after the dark part and the bell (at around 2:20). The would correspond to the end of the book. Instead I added an extra section trying to answer the question “What if Small Prince had sublimed with the Gzilt?”.

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#8

https://soundcloud.com/suss-musik/domum-disquiet0320

The Wind in the Willows is a classic children’s novel written in 1908 by Kenneth Grahame, following the adventures of four animals (Mole, Rat, Toad and Badger) in various capers. The book timeless message of wit, wisdom and whimsy has entertained readers of all ages for generations.

Suss Müsik assigned each character a voice or phrase, then composed a series of loops in different lengths to represent each chapter’s setting: a zither to represent the hidden mysteries of the Wild Wood, syncopated percussion for Toad’s ongoing fascination with motorcars, etc. We took some artistic license with transitions between chapters.

For those who wish to follow the narrative, a synopsis of each chapter is represented below with cue points:

0:00 - Chapter 1. “The River Bank.” Mole leaves his underground home and discovers Rat paddling down the river in a boat, expressing his curiosity of the world above ground.

00:10 - Chapter 2. “The Open Road.” Rat takes Mole to meet Toad, and the three embark on a romantic journey across the countryside. Toad pursues an excessive compulsion to recklessly drive several expensive motorcars.

00:38 - Chapter 3. “The Wild Wood.” Mole and Rat get lost in the Wild Wood in the midst of a snowstorm. Cold, hungry and terrified, the two accidentally come upon Badger’s front door.

01:07 - Chapter 4. “Mr. Badger.” Badger invites Mole and Rat into his home, where they rest for a few days and discuss what to do about Toad’s mercurial behavior and dangerous driving habits.

01:39 - Chapter 5. “Dulce Domum.” Rat and Mole are traveling when Mole’s instincts cause him to suddenly realize they are walking directly above his underground home.

02:04 - Chapter 6. “Mr. Toad.” Badger, Rat and Mole attempt to speak sense to Toad, but he responds childishly and refuses to listen. Toad eventually steals and crashes an automobile, is arrested and sentenced to twenty years in jail.

02:39 - Chapter 7. “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.” While searching for Otter’s missing son, Mole and Rat set out on the river and hear strange music. They come upon the deity Pan who sings them a song as the sun rises, which they immediately forget.

03:25 - Chapter 8. “Toad’s Adventures.” The jailer’s daughter takes pity on a miserable Toad and helps him escape from prison. He convinces a train engineer to let him board, only he is forced to evacuate when the train is pursued by police.

03:57 - Chapter 9. “Wayfarers All.” Rat becomes restless and enters a dreamy state in which he hears the call of the sea. Mole takes it upon himself to bring Rat back to his senses.

05:03 - Chapter 10. “The Further Adventures of Toad.” Toad insults a washerwoman, steals her horse, swindles a peddler, steals yet another car and crashes it into the river. The current takes Toad downstream where Rat plucks him to safety.

05:31 - Chapter 11. “Like Summer Tempests Came His Tears.” Toad discovers that his mansion has been taken over by his enemies. Mole, Rat and Badger develop a plan to sneak into Toad Hall through a secret passageway.

05:56 - Chapter 12. “The Return of Ulysses.” Toad Hall is reclaimed, and Toad learns that his arrogance has been the cause of his troubles. The characters celebrate and live out their days peacefully along the riverside.

The piece is titled Domum, which is Latin for “home” and echoes Grahame’s theme of returning to where you belong.

6 Likes
#9

This is a strong piece of music, even outside the boundaries of the project brief.

2 Likes
#10

https://soundcloud.com/total_energy/warhol-disquiet0320

The book I chose is The Andy Warhol Diaries, which continues to fascinate me after nearly 30 years. Since there are no chapters, I chose to divide my song into two parts, representing the 70s (Watergate, disco) and the 80s (Reagan, AIDS and Warhols death in 1987), during which the Diaries take place.

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#11

Thank you - yeah I’m now wondering whether I should extend each of the sections with some variations and release it. I would be a nice compliment to my album of music inspired by Ballard’s High Rise

1 Like
#12

The playlist is rolling:

https://soundcloud.com/disquiet/sets/disquiet-junto-project-0320

2 Likes
#13

Hey All,I will let you guess the title of my book. It is very easy to guess. I had given this book to my son for Christmas so I decided to use that one. This author had a big influence on me at that age (12). I was thinking like each short story was a separate episode of a TV show and this was the opening credits theme for each one. When I am doing music I often think visually- maybe from MTV overdose as a kid. I would do 6 tracks and then do a live mix using a crossfader to morph between. I then mixed the 3 combo tracks live. I usually like to mix live. I much prefer to let my hands work than use a mouse and I hate looking at a linear screen so i usually stay in ableton’s session mode. I used mainly retro synth plugins and delay to get what I hoped was an 80’s science fiction feel.

Peace, Hugh

6 Likes
#14

Ill(ustrated) Man. Love this collection.

3 Likes
#15

Although a book titled Ill Man (or even I’ll Man) sounds intriguing as well.

4 Likes
#16

https://soundcloud.com/glsmyth/forms-of-japan-disquiet0320

The book I am reading at the moment, Forms Of Japan, is by one of my favorite contemporary photographers, Michael Kenna. The images speak to the heart and soul of Japan in a way that allows the viewer to feel the emotional connections. The book is in five sections, Sea, Land, Trees, Spirit and Sky.

Forms Of Japan was written for Flute, Alto Flute, Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Gong and Marimba.

The score can be found at http://bit.ly/2oeALvW

4 Likes
#17

https://soundcloud.com/ohm-research/meta4-disquiet-0320

Inspired by Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis

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#18

Good luck to whoever picks War & Peace.

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#19

We considered The Idiot by Dostoyevsky.

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#20

In Search of Lost Time? Anyone?

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#21

Read it in high school - Crikey, that was circa 1967.

2 Likes
#22

https://soundcloud.com/cboulter/feburary-17th-2018-disquiet0320

Enjoyed this one a lot. Given a high chapter count (I only did the first 20) the focus was very much on having a workable process in order to keep to the timeframe.

To make things absolutely clear, my contribution should not be considered in any way a soundtrack to, or in any way worthy of my chosen book. Rather, taking 20 chapters as cues to create sections of a linear piece of sound. I took each chapter, read it, wrote a quick impression of emotion/theme, and then used that to create music with various synth modules, field recordings, sounds from Freesound.org under non-attributable cc licensing, and a cheap kalimba I bought online. I’ve also chosen to have some of the chapters blend and overlap, which is probably cheating.

The book I’ve chosen in ‘In Watermelon Sugar’, written by the American author Richard Brautigan in 1968. I’d recommend checking it out, don’t let this piece put you off!

3 Likes
#23

Sounds great and cinematic.

2 Likes
#24

This is wonderful! I don’t know the book, but maybe I will look it up now :slight_smile:

1 Like
#25

Threaded

https://soundcloud.com/jamesbritt/disquiet0320-threaded-james-britt

My first reaction was thinking that almost any book I picked would have, oh a dozen or more chapters. And there was no way I’m making that many short pieces.

So I didn’t pick a book. Consider this the background music for a book not yet read, or not yet written: In a parallel world there is a Disquiet Junto, but for writing. “Here’s a piece of sectioned music. Write the book that goes with this music.”

What stood out in the guidelines was the idea that, while each section should be loopable, they should also nicely flow.

I had the idea then to create a series of compatible riffs/chords/whatever, in a sequence:

  1. Create a loop 1
  2. Create a loop 2 that works well with loop 1
  3. Create a loop 3 that works well with loop 2
  4. …
  5. Create a new loop n+1 that works well with loop n

In practice I was not quite so exact; I have a few loops that were all created against a common prior loop.

I numbered loops as they were created, and assembled the results in Renoise. I ended up with 16 sections by pairing numerically adjacent loops.

So much for my fears of “too many chapters to cover.”

The loops follow this section pattern:

1 2
  2 3
    3 4
    ...
        14 15
           15 16 
1             16

When played from Renoise the entire piece is loopable; the last sections flows back to the first section. For this release I twiddled the end and used a fade out.

Renoise has a track effect called “maYbe” that allows for random triggering of notes. I used this for some whooshing/buzzing ambient sounds. Should you loop any of the sections that ambient-ish stuff would change on each pass.

I’ve written a Renoise tool called Loop Composer that could be used to define loop durations for each section of the piece. If I get extra ambitious I will release the Renoise file along with a Loop Composer script.

I don’t know where the title came from. I might have been thinking about how books are constructed, with pages (often) sewn in, and the way the patterns in the piece thread their way through.

James

4 Likes
#26

https://soundcloud.com/swhic/tofudisquiet0320

I’m reading the book of tofu. The book is written under the influence of
zen practice and shows the importance of the process vs result.
Haven’t finished the book which has 19 chapters which I read back and forth…
This composition is probably unfinished as I’ve decided to stay with the process of recording and mixing three loops…:slight_smile:

4 Likes