Complexification Junto

The Disquiet Junto is an open group for musicians based on weekly projects that involve some kind of rule or constraint. I’ve been part of it since the start in 2012, when the first assignment was “Please record the sound of an ice cube rattling in a glass, and make something of it.” The Junto is run by Marc Weidenbaum of Disquiet.com. It is named after Benjamin Franklin’s “club for mutual improvement”, and modelled on the OULIPO group who use creative constraints. Each Thursday or Friday an assignment is set, and the music has to be uploaded to SoundCloud by the following Monday night. Participants are encouraged to describe their approaches and to give feedback on each others music.

This week’s project is based on my and Sun Hammer’s Complexification project, which was released recently on the Entr’acte label. Un-mastered versions of the two most complex tracks from the album, 10GB and 10SH, are available to download. The assignment is to pick one and make it more complex. This is the stage at which our project stopped because it was difficult and it was taking too long to make the next piece. A Junto project only has a few days, so it’s quite a challenge. By Friday night, 10 tracks had been uploaded to the group.

It’s nice that the Complexification project is part of the Junto, because both Sun Hammer and I learned a lot from taking part in the group and applied it to that project. We used musical composition and audio processing techniques that we’d developed in the Junto. We also borrowed the Junto’s practice of documenting our aims, approaches and methods. It’s also good to be able to expand the project this way, and hear how different musicians approach the subject of musical complexity.

If you want to take part, the rules for this project are listed below. Get the full details at Disquiet.com: http://disquiet.com/2015/08/06/disquiet0188-complexcomplex/

Step 1: Pick one of the two tracks at the following URL: https://goo.gl/tN4Oit.

Step 2: Modify that one track in any way, using as much or little of it as you like, to make a new piece that sounds “more complex” than the original. You may add other sounds. (Note: You are free to use any definition or measure of “complexity.” You should be sure to describe your process and how it “increases” the complexity of the original track.)

Step 3: Upload your completed track to the Disquiet Junto group on SoundCloud.

Step 4: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Deadline: This assignment was made in the afternoon, California time, on Thursday, August 6, 2015, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, August 10, 2015.