A synthesizer company’s firmware tests become an album
/ By Marc Weidenbaum
Developer of the ADDAC series of synthesizer modules, André Gonçalves has released an album, Offbeats, that displays some of the potential of the company’s ADDAC406 Clock Bender. The ten tracks, just numbered one through ten, display various ways that pulses and time signatures can become vibrant little ecosystems, from the muggy realms of “Offbeat VII” to the hypnotically phased percussion of “Offbeat III” to sci-fi techno-environment of the closing track.
This module introduces a unique approach to rhythm, it can add complexity to any pattern by superimposing extremely odd divisions creating syncopation and rhythmic complexity. It provides extensive possibilities for rhythmic creation, transforming static rhythmic patterns into dynamic and complex rhythmic layering enhancing the rhythmic foundation set by the primary clock. It allows users to explore and generate rhythms in previously unattainable ways.
Gonçalves explains on the album’s Bandcamp page that the material was recorded “throughout several sessions while testing its Firmware.”
On Sundays I try to at least quickly note some of my favorite listening from the week prior — things I would later regret having not written about in more depth, so better to share here briefly than not at all.
▰ Beautiful live session with lightly glitched and always shimmering piano samples from Andrew Tasselmyer. Watching him at work is always a pleasure.
▰ There is little I enjoy as much as I do music that combines more recognizable musical elements with field recordings and found sound, which is what Natalia Spiner is up to on her quiet new album, Dolmen (on the label Puddle). She’s from Buenos Aires. The label is in Berlin.
▰ Daniel Lanois continues the slow steady drip in advance of the full release of his forthcoming album, Belladonna Nocturne, due out June 19. This time it’s “Warp Sustain,” the title providing a useful description of how the melting grungy guitar evaporates as the track unfolds.
The Assignment: Write outdoors hold music for a single-lane tunnel entrance delay.
/ By Marc Weidenbaum
Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto music community, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have five days to record and upload a track in response to the project instructions.
Membership in the Junto is open: just join and participate. (A SoundCloud account is helpful but not required.) There’s no pressure to do every project. The Junto is weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when your time and interest align.
Disquiet Junto Project 0753: 5 Minute Wait The Assignment: Write outdoors hold music for a single-lane tunnel entrance delay.
Perhaps you’ve experienced the pleasures of a single-lane, two-way tunnel yourself. They way they are usually situated is that there is a signal for when you can go through, and for when you can’t. Traffic proceeds in one direction, leaving enough time at the end of the cycle for all vehicles to pass. Then after a pause, the direction changes. At the tunnel where this project’s cover photo was shot, the phase for each direction is five minutes, and at each end there is a warning sign about the wait. The sign reads “5 Minute Red Light.”
Now, imagine you were commissioned to write “outdoors hold music” for the delay experienced by drivers at either end of the tunnel. Consider the circumstances of the delay for automobile drivers and their passengers. Now, record a five-minute piece that fulfills that creative brief.
Bonus if you record the track in a manner that reproduces the sense of it being heard outdoors — and, perhaps better yet, from inside a parked vehicle.
Note: Cover photo shot at the Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin County, California.
Tasks Upon Completion:
Label: Include “disquiet0753” (no spaces/quotes) in the name of your track.
Upload: A person participating in the Disquiet Junto should post only one track per weekly project (SoundCloud account preferred but not required). If on occasion you feel inspired to post more than one track (whether to a single account or across multiple accounts), you should clarify which is the “main” rendition for consideration by fellow members and (if on SoundCloud) for inclusion in the SoundCloud playlist.
License: It’s preferred (but not required) to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., an attribution Creative Commons license).
Please Include When Posting Your Track:
More on the 753rd weekly Disquiet Junto project, 5 Minute Wait — The Assignment: Write outdoors hold music for a single-lane tunnel entrance delay — disquiet.com/0753.
Gary Peters is the author of two books, both published by the University of Chicago, on improvisation, Improvising Improvisation: From Out of Philosophy, Music, Dance, and Literature and The Philosophy of Improvisation. In this short solo improvisation, he lets the music do the explaining. The piece, simply titled “Gentle Pedal Steel Improvisation,” moves from a slow, old-timey opening through a more modern exploration of tentative scales and ambiguous atmospheres, as if shifting from Oliver Wallace to John Zorn, or from Les Paul to Bill Frisell, in a few elegant minutes. It’s a lovely, thoughtful live performance, one I had playing on loop for quite a while. More of Peters’ music at garypeters.bandcamp.com.
The New York venue Roulette’s YouTube channel keeps posting one amazing performance video after another. A recent one is the live score to a film, The Great Flood by Bill Morrison, performed by the tight little trio of Bill Frisell (guitar), Luke Bergman (bass), and Tim Angulo (drums). The production takes as its topic the catastrophic 1927 flooding of Mississippi River. While the threesome perform there are short segments on the flood itself, the immediate aftermath, the resulting migration, and other interrelated factors. It was followed the second night with live scores to two other Morrison films, and two from Buster Keaton, The High Sign and One Week. More at the Roulette website on night one and night two, May 23 and 24 of this year.
