#16

I started out making drums that were fast and wild to reflect my cat’s fast reflexes and crazy behavior. Eventually the harmony and melody felt a bit emo, which kind of captures my warm feelings for him as he has kept me company for quite a while now. He’s a baller.

5 Likes
#17

Kept it simple. I am extremely grateful for the music. The sounds from synths to glitches, weird bass lines, noises, everything.

5 Likes
#18

4 Likes
#19

I like your image. Winter trees are endlessly photogenic. Spring is overrated.

1 Like
#20

I especially like the pattern it makes against the sky, but yeah.

1 Like
#21

I listened to the playlist with my eyes closed. I was too tired to respond individually but I really enjoyed everyone’s pieces. There is such a nice variety, I never knew what to expect.

3 Likes
#22

I haven’t posted a track in quite a long time, years, in fact, but this theme struck a chord with me so a brief explanation is in order:
On 12/8/19 my girlfriend Nicole suffered a massive stroke. Doctors weren’t sure she’d make it through the night, let alone walk or talk again.
After 10 months of strenuous rehab, Nicole is walking with a quad cane and has begun to respond with monosyllabic answers. For the last 10 months I’ve spent every night listening for her breathing to make sure she wasn’t having a seizure. A few nights ago I was listening to her snoring and realized for the first time in almost a year I was not listening FOR her breathing, but listening TO her breathing. To commemorate that epiphany, I recorded a few minutes of her snoring to listen back to the next morning. That recording became the backing track for the composition attached. It’s my first stab at creating new material in quite some time. This is the first draft. I like it enough to unveil a new project, bee whisperers, to christen it. Ladies and gentlemen, I present bee whisperers.

6 Likes
#23

This one ended up being quite multi-layered. This year I have been trying to make pieces of music for specific friends of mine, which has been a lot of fun and somewhat productive. The ‘thankful’ prompt encouraged me to return to something I’ve had in mind for years, which is making something out of the sound bank from Zelda Majora’s Mask, which a friend sent to me years ago when we lived in the same house and played the game together. The files are a mixture of tiny recognisable samples and bursts of noise, which I believe are longer samples sped up to save space on the N64 cartridge. They sound amazing and chaotic played ‘straight’, in a way that reminded me of cut-up sample-scramble noise records, particularly something like John Weise’s incredible ‘Soft Punk’ album. This prompt (and accompanying deadline) got me to actually realise something with this idea and these sounds.

In the process of working on the material the thanks kept on spiralling! I also thought of high-speed grindcore / noisecore via Sissy Spacek (who I’ve been listening to a lot recently) and another friend. In the end I made a 15-track imaginary 7" EP: an A-side of tiny fast noisy tracks that all start with a grindcore-esque click-click-click-click, and a B-side of one drone-loop piece. All made using only these sound-files from the game cartridge (including all the noise), with no effects other than time / pitch adjustment and layering. It’s very silly in places but I also really like how it sounds.

I need to make some artwork before I upload the whole EP publicly, but here is a three-track excerpt for Disquiet, featuring one micro-track, one medium-sized track, and the longer B-side track, segued together.

Thanks to my friends Jae and Robin, my grindcore friend George, the wonderful game Majora’s Mask, and John Wiese / Sissy Spacek.

PS I’d also be thankful if someone could tell me if this bandcamp link shows as a link, as a playable widget, or not at all, (on computer or phone) as my mileage varies!

5 Likes
#24

I feel like I mention Jim O’Rourke’s bandcamp about every other post at the moment… and I’m comfortable with that! Always a treat when a new Steamroom drops.

This is a really nice drone slice, it has a fair amount of Steamroominess to my ears, and you’ve even replicated the cicadas outside his house that sneak into so many of his pieces! Nice work.

3 Likes
#25

The idea was to do something simple, that constantly changes between traditional and modern. It’s made with Caustic for Android (mix & fx in reaper) and some orchestral SF2 files, I think sonatina. I just liked the trombone…

And I would like to thank Marc Weidenbaum for his generosity with his time and creativity, which challenges me week for week and showed me new ways by just asking for them. :yellow_heart:

6 Likes
#26

Based on a recording I made of clap the carers on my estate during the pandemic of 2020.

appreciation for the real front line I guess.

The first national UK lockdown, aimed at limiting the spread of Covid 19, began in March 2020. The widespread clap for our carers started up at he end of that month taking place every Thursday. People came out of their houses or stood on their balconies and applauded in support of the NHS workers involved in dealing with the front line of the pandemic.
Small loops from the recording take over at the end with added warbling drones produced in the fundamental plug in and a guitar tracks using a freeze pedal.

4 Likes
#27

As I looked at my acoustic I realized all the memories and thankful moments it represents and those yet to be made as my daughter loves messing with it. I’m also thankful for curiosity, experimentation, and the number of people doing “weird” things with sound a music. So I turned on a mic and did this. And then duplicated the track and warped it with some Valhalla effects for good measure, because it isn’t truly one of my tracks if there isn’t weird modulation and reverb on something.

Also thankful to be back in the junto.

5 Likes
#28

I’ve posted my contribution on SoundCloud.
I created it especially to thank Marc for the Junto. Cheers.

5 Likes
#29

My crazy midlife purchase was an old Baldwin SD6 concert grand piano that is shoehorned into my basement, and somewhat neglected. I bought it solely for the bass and sustain, and it’s a joy to play quiet ambient stuff on, backed by household appliances running on 60Hz power. Outside of living beings, I’d have to say that piano and looping (in this case with a Lexicon 300 set to its maximum 5-second delay) are the things I’m overall most thankful for. I mostly work with MIDI, as I don’t like doing anything live, especially in an uneditable loop, as you’re stuck with mistakes, so this is a lesson in living with them.

This live 18-minute recording ended at 11:30pm Monday, and it’s now after midnight on Tuesday. Editing is beyond my available brain power right now, so I submit this as a way-too-long and past-due entry. If I get a chance later I may crop it to just the first few minutes.

A stereo pair of Schoeps microphones was placed underneath the piano, feeding a Sonosax mixer. From there a Boss FV-500L stereo volume pedal feeds an A/D converter, and the Lex 300 gives a 5-second delay with 94% feedback, and connects to a Tascam DR-680 recorder. I ended by turning the delay down to zero.

5 Likes
#30

@wagneric exquisite! I loved how delicate the piano sounds are but still the looping swells with a subversive kind of power underneath :muscle:

@ymeynard that was beautiful, felt like a subtle wind on my face, keeping me alert but floating with it, too… hard to explain… but it’s a nice touch :ok_hand:

@kyletm it sounds like a magical guitar: every little sound it made in that track had an awesome journey to it! and welcome back :raised_hands:

@Zedkah i love the car horns around 1:40, created such a perfect musical moment there, was already focused on the joy of all the clapping then it dropped me into a kind of resonance at that moment… great choices here, and I feel you on the gratitude for the front line :fist:

@hardworking your bandcamp link shows as a playable widget :+1:
i like the track as it is, has a nice progression to it, the airy haze of the droney parts that makes up a large part of it is excellent… i love the feel :clap: :clap:

@calmnesia your track had me hugging the air, those synth sounds i kept trying to grab them and cuddle them and tell them they’re “so kewwwwt!”… at the same time, the emo feel let me know to keep some distance(in a good/respectable way) cuz you don’t wanna f-k with this kitty :heart_eyes_cat:

@johnny.nowhere your track went deep! the sounds had me drawn in from the beginning, but then the progression into the distorted harmonic part was perfect in keeping with this sense of ‘watchfulness’ over the breath which pervades the whole track: when i first hear it, it’s like soaking in a warm bath after being in the cold, then it goes away, and i long for it again, til it comes back after just enough of a sense of absence, and this time i observe the warmth more closely, straight to the end. nice work.

AND I LOVED ALL THE OTHER TRACKS, TOO! BUT I DON’T HAVE THE TIME TO PRAISE THEM ALL IN DETAIL SO THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR AMAZING MUSIC! whoops sorry had the boomer capslock on or something… seriously, though:
Thanks For Being So Talented And Beautiful! :beers:

6 Likes
#31

@RABID thank you for the kind words. Had put the sound making process to rest for awhile but have recently felt the impetus to begin again, therefore I’ve started a new project, bee whisperers, as a new outlet. Your words give me the belief there is hope for this new sound. Already have another couple tracks gestating…

2 Likes
#32

Hey All, Damn 2020 is kicking my ass but still many things to give thanks for. I am thankful for community in its many forms. Each week I attempt something for these 3 online communities. The Disquiet Junto led by the one and only Mr. Marc Weidenbaum. The Naviar Haiku led by the great Marco Sebastiano Alessi. The STBB Forever Beat Battles led by a plethora of pot smoking producers who will make your speakers shake. I give thanks to all those guys for keeping me sane.
The beat battles provided the samples on this and I had to include a switch up. The Haiku provided the following haiku
Magnolia in full bloom…
But waking I find
a chill November morning.
So again thanks to all those guys who make this possible every week and to all you nutters out there playing in the soundbox.

Peace, Hugh

4 Likes
#33

I wrote this short ‘signal’ using 19EDO tuning, with a fair bit of FM8 employed. Over the past 6 weeks I’ve been trying to zero in on a specific & viable workflow for an extended project, limiting myself to mainly a couple of small boxes from a bunch of portable and self-contained gear I’ve accumulated over the past few years. This might be the one, we’ll see.

3 Likes
#34

Thanks! I have to say the ‘Jim-centric cicadas’ were purely accidental, but now I’m very happy they’re there! :wink:

1 Like
#35

Here’s the interview where he mentions the cicadas :slight_smile: :

“I don’t go doing [field recordings] much now because I don’t travel anymore really. If I went around where I live here all I’d get are these same goddamn cicadas everywhere, which is why they’ve been on the last six or seven things I’ve done, ’cause I can’t avoid ‘em.” - https://www.stereogum.com/2007352/jim-orourke-interview-2018/interviews/

2 Likes