Disquiet Junto Project 0447: Listen Ahead

disquiet · July 23, 2020, 3:09pm

Disquiet Junto Project 0447: Listen Ahead
The Assignment: Make some music for the near future.

Step 1: Imagine what the world will be like in six months, what your world will be like six months from today.

Step 2: Make some music that reflects what you imagined in Step 1. You might make music about that time, or music that responds to that time. In some manner, make music for the near future.

Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0447” (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 “disquiet0447” (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-0447-listen-ahead/

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, July 27, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, July 23, 2020.

Length: The length is up to you. The future can feel a long ways away, but the music needn’t be long.

Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0447” 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: It is always 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 447th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Listen Ahead (The Assignment: Make some music for the near future), at:

https://disquiet.com/0447/

Climate

The winter is wet in Europe and annoyingly unpleasant. People get the common cold very easily, which further dilutes the meaning of any COVID-19 statistics. Testing is bad, results are unreliable and tampered with anyway.

On the other hand, Canada and the Eastern US see another sudden harsh winter attack. That’s unfortunate after another round of wildfires in California just a three months back. The silver lining is that it forces school and factory shutdowns. Just like the 7.5 Richter earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area in January.

Political situation

In the US, since Donald Trump got re-elected, radical-right thinking will become increasingly mainstream. The BLM protests are long gone, no long-lasting change seems to have surfaced. Well, maybe the acceptance of militarized federal agents on the streets.

Schools got reopened in September with most poor kids resuming education, while many rich kids switching to professional homeschooling in small groups. Things work out better than feared, although a school here and there gets quarantined due to a local outbreak.

In Poland where I live the populist government increases ties of the country to the Catholic Church. Tensions in the EU against Poland and Hungary rise. Taxes became higher, prices in stores got up, but most of the population cheer for new “free money” programs announced by the government.

Belarus is being invaded by Russia while the world is largely indifferent to it, apart from some meaningless condemnations. This causes unease in Eastern Poland which further pushes the nationalist agenda forward.

Wealth

Inexplicably, the US stock market is soaring. After Trump’s re-election and despite the COVID-related chaos companies are doing quite well. The printing machine keeps successfully wallpapering money over the dry rot. The dollar is kept artificially high while the yuan artificially low.

It’s great to be rich in this climate, Tesla even released the long-anticipated Cybertruck. It’s increasingly difficult to be poor though and there’s rising signs of desperation. After a group invaded the house of a famous Silicon Valley executive, the rich started openly militarizing their surroundings.

Online Chaos

Google announces GMail got successfully infiltrated back in December and an undisclosed amount of user data has been leaked. This leads to massive online chaos with people losing access to various accounts that were linked to their @gmail.com address. The attack is suspected to be linked with the Equifax data breach back in 2017.

Again, the rich are insured and sue themselves out of trouble. Many poor people lose their savings or their identities get stolen to open credit card accounts or take loans. Some lose houses and other property, there’s some media coverage but no government-level action. There’s some short-lived Google boycott but it dies out as people realize they cannot live without their Android phones, Google Maps, and YouTube. Somehow Facebook is blamed for the problem but their stock price still goes up.

And yet, stubbornly, lives go on.

American Guillotines Inc.

G#, 144 BPM, 7/8. Bass is a Novation Circuit Mono Station. Guitar is a Yamaha Revstar RS620 overdriven by KORG OD-S. The synth lead is a pair of Moog Mother-32s. This could use some vocals.

unden · July 24, 2020, 2:51pm

An improvisation on my Korg piano running through two Roland Space echoes - asking our world leaders to please press the emergency STOP button - and for all of you who just loves a bit of piano improvisations!

Main Players:
Korg Stage Vintage SV-1
Roland Space Echo -RE-201
Roland Space Echo RE-150

Recorded with a Zoom Q2n.

Watch video of performance here:

disquiet · July 24, 2020, 3:02pm

The project playlist is now rolling:

Glitcher · July 24, 2020, 3:54pm

In six months time I hope the energy of people and the world will have more movement. To reflect that, this piece has a loop of six notes and field recordings of peaceful times spent outside. It’s been fun to create something less dark and more lively

The bird call at the very beginning and near the end is a Rook and the chirping in the middle is a yellow wagtail. Crow in the track title refers to both the Rook and the Monome Crow module.

I also hope to continue with synth diy and making music that blends field recordings with electronic music.

Music made with field recordings, Monome Norns and the awake script, Grid, Monome crow into E350. Also Novation Circuit.

earthborn.visions · July 24, 2020, 4:20pm

It’s been a while… I think disquiet0303 was the last project that I took part in!

Here’s my track for the ‘near future’ - fairly gloomy from the outside but a faint glimmer of voices rising from underneath.

With the exception of Arturia’s Solina the track was made with my rediscovered Novation K Station (which I’d not used for years) and lots of hardware FX

PaulBeaudoin · July 24, 2020, 5:15pm

A Prophecy of Dystopia is my contribution to the Listen Ahead (Disquiet Junto 0447) project. This dark soundtrack suggests a radiation filled landscape with PPE covered humans scavaging for remnants of society. In the background a public service announcement informs you on how to help children grow healthy and is accompanied with “happy and positive” music. Broken brass chords punctuate the landscape as static fills public and private spaces. There is no safety. Desolate. Burned. A sound of the future. Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.

“We no longer know, for example, how long the future will be.” John Cage

Inspired by visualization and working with tools by Native Instruments and a public domain sound source from the Prelinger Archive in an mostly intuitive manner. Best heard using high quality headphones/earbuds. Thank you for taking the time to listen. Comments and feedback are always welcome.

abalone · July 24, 2020, 6:16pm

digital folk for the near future
got this mic from house of chrome
not super fancy, just old and future looking
mostly I like that on the badge it says “american microphone co, inc los angeles calif.”
the size is good for learning live coding/streaming with tidal
and our younger son said 'I like the hum!
(1940’s mics are not quiet)
I hope to keep making music through the static…
(we, k-blamo
played a show with poet gloria alvarez, where
she introduced us as 'que blamo
I kinda dug it because it’s not even really spanglish for 'what do I blame?)

petrusmajor · July 24, 2020, 6:34pm

My first thought was: the world in the eyes of Colonel Douglas Mortimer (For a Few Dollars More).

sevenism · July 24, 2020, 8:24pm

melodica drone: paulstretched a couple of times and
the left channel pitched down gradually by 1%

was thinking about different scales of change: small changes on a planet level to large changes on an individual level

DeDe · July 24, 2020, 10:31pm

The present is dark and weird, the future is unwritten. But it looks hard.So I decided to make and angry, aggressive take on my previous week “feel good” track.

I guess this is the third and last take on this experimental arpeggios. I still prefer the first one…

Guitars and electric bass by DD, Paris, July 25th 2020.

A third version of my “Milky Way Sea” track, previous here:
https://soundcloud.com/daniel-diaz/the-milky-way-sea
https://soundcloud.com/daniel-diaz/the-son-of-the-milky-way-sea

Photo by Casey Horner

abalone · July 25, 2020, 5:53am

cool sounds

unden · July 25, 2020, 9:36am

I really love this week’s picture. At first it looks like a cute, futuristic, slightly melancholic, blue robot.

DeDe · July 25, 2020, 10:09am

wow, I still think it is a futuristic blue robot!
Cute and melancholic indeed. Wally-e meet Marvin.

What’s that actually?

After being experienced with the awesome Japanese toilets I would bid for some kind Russian fancy WC?
Or a new Tesla WC?
Noi, it looks more western europe (old futuristic) than Tesla.

unden · July 25, 2020, 10:15am

I’m pretty sure it’s a pair of those stationary binoculars you find at lookouts, that you need to put a coin in (at least used to).

DeDe · July 25, 2020, 10:26am

Ah! ok. So you have to get close and closer and stick your eyes looking straight into the robot’s eyes? That’s creepy. I pass.

SussMusik · July 25, 2020, 3:04pm

The near future is determined by how we respond to current state. Suss Müsik imagines this transition as one of turbulence and restraint, best described by Galway Kinnell in his poem entitled “Wait.”

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven’t they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait.
Don’t go too early.
You’re tired. But everyone’s tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

Thank you to Wm. Wolfgang Allen of Egret Zero for co-composing this piece, and to David Toub for the inspiration.