#16

I recorded a track a few weeks ago, when the coronavirus seemed like a vague and very distant threat. I had imagined a kind of quarantined city, where the underbelly of the city snuck out at night and met under the cover of darkness in smoke filled jazz cafes.
I was inspired by the games Grim Fandango and Kentucky Route Zero for the atmosphere after finding this really nice atmospheric granular piano patch on pigments.
I used natural drum samples from the digitakt for the percussion and @Elisa-room237 spoke. The words are a bit corny but are a bit inspired by William Gibson-esque hurried, paranoid & drugged up futuristic metropolis type dialogue.

When I saw this prompt I had an image of this music I’d made, but as a concert in the distant past, at “the beginning” you could say. And I wanted to remix it in a way to give it a distant and vaguely haunted feel. So I slowed it down by about 8bpm, added some ambience and introduction at the beginning to make it feel more like an actual event that took place. Doubled up tracks with some detuning, used a filter to get a lot more in the mids, drowned it in effects.

I don’t think I entirely achieved what I set out for, it sounds different for sure, but a bit too distorted, muffled and overdriven rather than haunted!

@PopGoblin I love it when the beat kicks in on this, really wasn’t expecting that at all :smiley:

9 Likes
#17

I had an idea to use an older song with an unlikely combination of instruments, but the result sounds like a Gotan Project tune.

I’d experimented with a couple of Latin-themed MIDI files, but this was the one that impressed my son the most.

Although he danced vigorously in the living room, my son refused an invitation to be recorded on video.

So I turned to the Internet Archive and found Sheree’s Tiger Dance worked okay.

5 Likes
#18

My inspiration was the thought of standing in front of the telephone pole imagining the lives of those that were at a concert advertised by a poster that is now gone leaving only small impressions of itself. I tried to create something that reflected that, honoring their experience and their lives.

I think that with the current Coronavirus pandemic causing widespread fear and anxiety, it is important to remember our humanity and remember to value those close to us and also those that aren’t. I didn’t want to do a direct reference to current events in my track, but perhaps a nod to things that bring us together as humans and remind us what it means to live.

Technical things. I used a manipulated guitar sample as a the base of the song. Two notes back and forth, lots of reverb and some filtering. I then used the recorded track and a couple other samples to create some textured drones via stretching and filtering to add mood and atmosphere. Five tracks in all, trying to keep things simple and direct.

8 Likes
#19

The first, obvious and maybe too literal idea that came to mind when reading the email about this weeks "urban moss” project was an audio collage, a collection of pop songs smeared and layered one on top of the other representing the music of all bands who’s posters were placed on this poll. When I read the email I had a live set open in front of me that I had been working on the previous day which included, among other things, an instance of “Arcade” from Output as well as tracks receiving the audio of my Elektron Digitakt. I decided to work from that set but the clear pulse and rhythm that was suggested felt at first contrary to what this “collage” might sound like until I saw this pulse as simply a backdrop - the unstoppable, persistent passing of time. The elements that are non rhythmic came from various sources including but not limited to bits and pieces of “Outlawed” from my friend Gabe Hascall’s forthcoming record “Thousands of Thorns”, and a recording of my daughter singing Tom Waites’ “The Briar and the Rose” when she was 3 which I processed beyond recognition. As the piece took shape I began to imagine the emptiness and loneliness of this poll that once served as a conduit not only for electrical signals but for direct human communication. The music that those fliers represented, degraded, distorted and washed out by the sun, wind and rain remain now, in the subconscious of this inanimate being, a king of haunting, a reminder only of the frailties and fallibility of memory.

5 Likes
#20

https://soundcloud.com/ohm-research/mach-disquiet0428

Photo courtesy of yoyo dy.

Inspired by the documentary “We Call it Techno” and the 10 day tour of Germany I did in 1996 with Mark Gage of Vapourspace performing his Cusp album.

The core audio for this piece is from the first integrated synthesizer I have bought in over 25 years - an Arturia Microfreak, using the noise oscillator.

2 Likes
#22

As I’m sure is the case for a lot of folks, last week was…well, hectic. I was interstate for work and getting home to Adelaide on Friday the 13th (heh, heh) was a tad stressful. My employer (CSIRO) had gone into partial lockdown with the threat posed by Covid-19, and aiming to get us home before imposed travel restrictions came into effect was a bit intense. That, and staying safe on the flight back.

I’m ok. Very tired and feeling a little under the weather, but ok. I’m in self-isolation from work for the next week or two and working from out of my studio.

So, in order to get my mind off this stuff I’m glad there are things like the weekly Junto to refocus my energies. <3

I ran an AM radio station (oldies 50/60’s stuff) through my Eurorack setup, with its signal largely affected by a filter and a 4MS DLD. I wanted to emulate a couple of long tape loops that could be added/subtracted to. In addition, a sequencer created a random pattern of tones. I did several takes of this, so as to create layers of radio and tones.

Over this, I added some synth and piano, intuitively following cues I heard from the patterns in the radio and tone layers. An iphone recording of water flowing closes out the track.

I like challenges like this that have a poetic association with accumulated (and decayed) memory. I think my experiences of being in between mental and physical spaces this past week certainly had an effect on how I approached this too.

8 Likes
#23

Sorry if this is coming up twice in this topic. I believe I posted it in the wrong place the first time around. It was late and I was a bit out of it…

The first, obvious and maybe too literal idea that came to mind when reading the email about this weeks "urban moss” project was an audio collage, a collection of pop songs smeared and layered one on top of the other representing the music of all bands who’s posters were placed on this poll. When I read the email I had a live set open in front of me that I had been working on the previous day which included, among other things, an instance of “Arcade” from Output as well as tracks receiving the audio of my Elektron Digitakt. I decided to work from that set but the clear pulse and rhythm that was suggested felt at first contrary to what this “collage” might sound like until I saw this pulse as simply a backdrop - the unstoppable, persistent passing of time. The elements that are non rhythmic came from various sources including but not limited to bits and pieces of “Outlawed” from my friend Gabe Hascall’s forthcoming record “Thousands of Thorns”, and a recording of my daughter singing Tom Waites’ “The Briar and the Rose” when she was 3 which I processed beyond recognition. As the piece took shape I began to imagine the emptiness and loneliness of this poll that once served as a conduit not only for electrical signals but for direct human communication. The music that those fliers represented, degraded, distorted and washed out by the sun, wind and rain remain now, in the subconscious of this inanimate being, a king of haunting, a reminder only of the frailties and fallibility of memory.

2 Likes
#24

This week’s project inspired me to create a series of jam sessions where I sample and mangle my old tracks. The idea was to layer the old me and jam on it with the new me.

Here is the first one in the series:

5 Likes
#25

@WhiteNoise What a beautiful concept, and so gorgeously executed. I especially loved the suspended sonic buzz around 3m40s and how it juxtaposed with the frantic action of the left monitor screen. Thank you for sharing this!!

3 Likes
#26

Something from long ago that makes me nostalgic for a simpler apocalypse. I can’t rightly say why this is appropriate to the assignment, but it reminds me of a lot of styles of music from concerts that I attended since the 60s… all mashed up.

Just what it sounds like… drum loops, synths, samples, and freak out guitars. Recorded to 16 track tape. I just happen to know that it was on the day of the NYC Marathon in 1994.

7 Likes
#27

One thing that fascinates me is the incessant, eerie hum of telephone and power lines. There’s some transcendental about the sound as it hovers above. While making this piece, I wanted to accentuated that eeriness, as well as creating a sense of “almost-music” - you can just make out a melody is playing somewhere, but it slips in and out of your grasp. Much like a memory.

Layer 1: Sound of humming power line, slowed 800%.
Layer 2: Layer 1 converted into MIDI + Greatly Rewarding VST
Layer 3: Layer 1 converted into MIDI + Bowed Metal VST
Layer 4: Sound of humming power line, original speed.

5 Likes
#28

I was a little pressed for time this week. Here are three drum parts taken from songs by a couple of bands I saw in the mid '80s and one from 1994. I sample a short drum part each and used Ableton to convert them to MIDI. From there a put them through various drum instruments, Eventide Blackhole and Spring reverbs. There’s a filter sweep on each of the tracks each with a different period. I wanted to evoke the feeling of time having passed but with echoes of those concerts ever-present.

5 Likes
#29

When I moved to the UK I went straight to Camden. I rented a flat 2 doors up from the Dublin Castle, a pub where you could see 3 bands a night for £5, every night. I moved out after 2 years, completely exhausted. Camden is dirty, smells of piss and vomit, and is always teeming with tourists who arrive just as excited as I did, for an afternoon of drinking cheap cider by the canal and buying overpriced “punk” memorabilia. I still love it.

You hear a very slowed down old tape (don’t know if Jared Foldy is around, his modded tape recorders are ace) chopped up by Compass and a Count to 5.

6 Likes
#30

What a beautiful thought, and true. You took me straight back to one of the great unsung voices of American poetry, Weldon Kees, and his unforgettable lines:

All day the phone rings. It could be Robinson
Calling. It never rings when he is here.

You can hear Weldon Kees read the full poem at

And, just to bring us full circle to this week’s San Francisco prompt, Kees’ car was found abandoned on the Golden Gate Bridge in 1955. He was never seen again. (Although, I believe, he had emptied his bank account. I like to think that he went to live in Mexico.)

6 Likes
#31

Very Nice. One of my favorites. Brooding.
What are “Compass” and “Count to 5”?

1 Like
#32

the sound came out more pylon-like than telephone pole hence the title. it’s also a nod to christ.'s pylonesque

i recorded the hiss of my soundcard, amplified and tempo stretched that
underneath i had a couple of things from iris 2

4 Likes
#33

Thank you :slight_smile:

Compass is a function sequencer which runs on Norns: Compass
Count to 5 is an incredible looper pedal: https://mtlasm.blogspot.com/p/count-to.html

2 Likes
#34

Hey peeps, I had a big experimental process but a lot didn’t work out so in the end just came out with this reasonably straightforward sample-based piece, including samples from intros to live performances by miles davis/parliament/animal collective/squarepusher/spacemen 3/meat puppets/captain beefheart/cannonball adderly/grateful dead/velvets/fugs - tho hopefully so drenched or obscure won’t piss no algos off… here’s what I wrote:

“I decided to get the old volca sampler out for this one. Been too long. So the intro is 30 secs of 10 different live tracks all playing at the same time, gradually swamped in reverb (Oril river (it’s free!)) and then I took little, fairly obscure snippets from those tracks, loaded them into the sampler, and played around. At first I was fiddling around with a sequencer I’d made (in pure data) but it wasn’t quite working out. In the end I just sat in the sun on the front step and used all 10 of the volca’s memory slots to make a simple composition using its own sequencer. Then I performed it a couple of times until I got a take I was ok with, added the same reverb (though it dips out in the middle) et voila. I wanted to make something kind of melancholy, originally, what with the idea of all those past events layered and increasingly distant/forgotten - but it came out kind of upbeat… that’s fine I suppose, just not what I expected, but time has its benefits too, I guess :wink: Hope you enjoy listening.”

Peace n’ good 'elfs

3 Likes
#35

The story: DJ Krakenkraft came repeatedly to the Disquiet Junto Club, and like most berlin school musicians he played the same sequences and mellotronic pads every year …

The approach: Four tracks (seq 1+2, drums, pads) were redirected to multiple tracks with different and chained combinations of LFOs and delays, which destroyed the sounds. I imagined a concert poster that every year was simply stuck over the weathered, partly torn off poster from the previous year.

2 Likes
#36

The ghost of chords, the long tail of echoes, the inherent mystery in collaged sonic textures, all merging to create the timelessness of sound.

4 Likes