Disquiet Junto Project 0437: Echo Relocation

#1

Please set your tracks from last week (“Planetary Headspace”) to download, if you’re so inclined, because this week’s project will be building on last week’s.

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Disquiet Junto Project 0437: Echo Relocation
The Assignment: Record someone else’s field recording of their environment playing within your own.

This project is a collaboration with the artist and experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats.

Step 1: Select one or more of the field recordings submitted to the Junto last week. There is a playlist of nearly 50 at

https://soundcloud.com/disquiet/sets/disquiet-junto-project-0436

And a couple more sprinkled through the discussion at

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0436-planetary-headspace/

Step 2: Play the track(s) in your own environment, indoors or outside, situating other people’s acoustic environments in your living space.

Step 3: Record the confluence of near and distant sounds.

Step 4: Share your new field recording for others to play and record in their own living environments.

Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0437” (no spaces or quotation marks) in the name of your tracks.

Step 2: If your audio-hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to also include the project tag “disquiet0437” (no spaces or quotation marks). If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to subsequent location of tracks for the creation of a project playlist.

Step 3: Upload your tracks. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your tracks.

Step 4: Post your tracks in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0437-echo-relocation/

Step 5: Annotate your tracks 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.

Additional Details:

Deadline: This project’s deadline is Monday, May 18, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, May 14, 2020.

Length: The length is up to you. Let nature take its course.

Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0437” in the title of the tracks, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.

Upload: When participating in this project, be sure to include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto. Photos, video, and lists of equipment are always appreciated.

Download: Given the nature of this particular project sequence, it is best to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution, allowing for derivatives).

For context, when posting the track online, please be sure to include this following information:

More on this 437th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Disquiet Junto Project 0437: Echo Relocation — The Assignment: Record someone else’s field recording of their environment playing within your own — at:

https://disquiet.com/0437/

This project is a collaboration with the artist and experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats.

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0437-echo-relocation/

There’s also a Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.

4 Likes
#2

The project is now live. Thanks again, @JonathonKeats, for the collaboration, and everyone who’s been participating.

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#3

I chose “aoao” by Ohm Research using a random number generator. My environment is indoors with the windows closed and the air conditioner on, which is pretty uninteresting unless I’m playing a good record. At first, I thought of recording myself practicing the piano, since that is a daily sound in my apartment. Then, after thinking about it for a while, I decided to recreate the sound of being in the basement of a music building walking down the hall outside of practice rooms.

I used some MIDI transcriptions from IMSLP.org and created “mistakes” with some MIDI note randomization.

Credits

5 Likes
#4

Pianos have been a theme for me this week, so I’ve used @name_constant’s recording of a neighbour playing that instrument.

Recorded using my Rode VideoMic, soon after first light in my Leeton backyard.

9 Likes
#5

Like @Paul_Reiners, I also used a random number generator to choose an existing track from the list. Thus fate decreed that I use the recording by @malarki recorded eight inches above his ground and combine his peaceful sounds of drizzle, birds and the occasional vehicle with the sounds of the exact same things over here in my spot. Ironically, we’ve had a long-ish spring dry spell with no precipitation (except a bit of freak snow a few weeks ago). So, yeah: Fate.

P.S. I was glad this was the next assignment - I was really hoping last week that we’d get to do some intra-planetary soundscapes this week…

4 Likes
#6

I used the sample from @malarkimusic
Malarkimusic – Eight-inches-above-the-ground-next-to-the-roof-disquiet0436
I then played a section of it on the Push2 in Live with Sampler. I used a loop with effects to then relayer over the sample and blended with a Tascam sample from Denver on a street next to a train yard. 5/15/2020

4 Likes
#7

I’d like to call this a “Voyage Around My Home” Suite, partially inspired by the recent, oddly pertinent Cabinet article/post The Interior’s Frontier by Boaz Levin. First I tried to stage a sort of soundwalk through my house with different field recordings playing in different rooms, but the handling noises/microphonics ruined it. I guess I need shock mounts, or steadier hands. So instead I layered together several of the downloadable tracks (in order of appearance):
@rrizzi’s Sirene May 6th 2020 At Noon
@banabila’s Sounds Outside
@zoundsabar’s Neary Boardwalk Ride
@tristan_louth_robins’s Carrickalinga Creek Replenished
@junklight’s Field Recording - My Backyard - Late Afternoon - 8 May 2020
and played this mix on my living room speakers, and recorded there, with our local frog+bird chorus coming in through the open windows and Another Neglected Hobby’s Saturday Morning Boat Traffic playing in another room. During the third set of sirens, I slowly faded in @bassling’s Galahs in still another room. Then on a whim I switched out the “Boat Traffic” for @mode.analogue’s submission right near the end. In post I made a small cut around 2.5-3.5kHz to try to calm down the frogs a bit, and tweaked the stereo balance.

Thanks everyone for your contributions! This was fun. I too had suspected/hoped this past week that this would be the next project.

8 Likes
#8

My thought here was to select several of the recordings and play each from its own speaker in an unusual space. The space I chose was my attic. This isn’t a finished space and only has a small amount of floors (and thick insulation on the unfinished parts) and AC/heating ducts everywhere. I picked four recordings to use, in particular those by @tristan_louth_robins, @Gretchen_Jude, @ideaofnorth & @zoundsabar.

I identified the longest one and padded all the rest with silence at the beginning to make files of equal length. I converted each to mono and for one pair made them hard panned stereo. I placed 4 speakers around my recording (Zoom H5 with H6 mic capsule) which was on a tripod. The speakers were a stereo pair of computer speakers, another mono speaker intended to use with a phone, and a tablet with its speakers pointed appropriately. I started the recorder then hit play on the 3 devices.

The recording is trimmed and had a little fade in and out added. Additionally there were some bursts of noise presumably related to the mobile phone which I also removed. No EQ, effects or anything else were applied.

In retrospect the attic was an interesting physical space but not that interesting acoustically as the insulation and ducts everywhere make it quite dry. Additionally since one recording was quite a lot longer than the others it is playing alone for about 4 minutes. If I were to do it again I’d probably try and do a mix and time shift/fade in and out the parts to get a more coherent and tighter result then export stems and play in my chosen space.

5 Likes
#9

That’s a fun result. I really like the idea of having a soundwalk at home.

1 Like
#10

https://soundcloud.com/another-neglected-hobby/mixed-frogs-and-ducks-disquiet0437

MIXED FROGS AND DUCKS

I had planned on recording later in the day on Saturday when I anticipate recreational boat traffic, personal watercraft traffic and other human activity will be high, but when I got up this morning the sounds of the tree frogs was particularly strong, so I changed my plan. Since it was early and I live in a condominium I couldn’t play another recording while making my own, so I opted to record and mix the tracks later. I recorded the local tree frogs, along with the sounds of some ducks squabbling nearby, and mixed my recording with GL Smyth’s “Frogs at the pond (disquiet0436)” https://soundcloud.com/glsmyth/frogs-at-the-pond-disquiet0436

5 Likes
#11

cool. thank you. i like how your sound collage turned out. it’s hard to tell that this is not just a simple recording of your own sonic environment. and that coherence makes it appear very natural…….great job!:slight_smile:

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#12

Nice interactions between the different pieces!

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#13

Nice recording and nice video. Sounds like a nice place to wake up!

2 Likes
#14


I took a section of @wasabicube’s early morning birdsong recording and blended it with the sounds of me making coffee. As the birds chirp away, I grind the fresh coffee beans, heat the water in the electric kettle, and pour it into the Aeropress (inverted method) to brew for a few minutes. The birds continue to sing as I perform a few kitchen chores while waiting for the brew to complete. Finally I press the coffee and take a sip as the birdsong continues.

3 Likes
#15

Crow birds warnings

Made by re-recording “Emergency Warning System Test With Birdsong - disquiet0436” by @morgulbee this morning as played through speakers in my garage studio, with the garage door open. At the start you can hear me move away from the recorder to the computer to push play. At the end I let it run for another 1:18 before returning to stop the recorder.

In my recording you can hear crows, birds and nearby construction overlay the recording described by Alan Bland as “The recording starts with a barely audible spoken announcement “This is a warning system test”, overwhelmed by sounds of birds, dog walkers and local automobile traffic. After a short delay, the sirens rise in pitch and seem to play sustained chords for a few minutes. The birds continue chittering, unconcerned by the sirens in the distance. After the sirens drop, the final spoken announcement “This is a warning system test” is repeated a number of times as the test ends. The test lasts nearly five minutes.”

There are some interesting interactions and some chaotic ones between the recorded world and the re-recorded world.

4 Likes
#16


I played and recorded @karst’s budapest zero four hundred [disquiet0436] in my environment for 4 minutes and 33 seconds.

2 Likes
#17

I used SonicSplendor’s “Mikesell balcony 20200509 (5 am)” (I couldn’t find the user name here but if someone can point me to it, I’ll edit and @ them) and played it through a long cardboard tube (approx 3m long) using a bluetooth speaker, this created a long drone to accompany the sounds in the garden which have definitely increased in variety in the last week - birdsong, a conversation in the carpark at the back of our flat, scaffolding being taken down and other sounds. Here’s a not great picture of the setup:

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And here is the recording:

Again using internal microphones on Zoom H4N.

5 Likes
#18

Enjoyed seeing all the other submissions so far with far more creative interpretations than mine of this week’s task!

Randomly selected the piece Another-neglected-hobby – Saturday-morning-boat-traffic-disquiet0436 by @another-neglected-hobby from the disquiet0436 playlist.

Played it through my phone speakers in the same place I recorded my 0436 submission - which worked well enough for me as the listener, but on the recording, unsurprisingly the levels don’t quite match up.

2 Likes
#19

The playlist is rolling. If your track is missing, let me know. Thanks.

2 Likes
#20

https://soundcloud.com/ohm-research/ako-wpaulreiners-disquiet0437

1 Like