my fun

March 4, 2012

This was my contribution to the latest Disquiet Junto project.

Disquiet Junto Project 0009: Cross-Species Collaboration

Instructions:

Deadline: Monday, March 5, at 11:59pm wherever you are.

Plan: The ninth Junto project is a shared-sample project, though participants have some choice in the source material. Each participant will produce a single track that combines a source recording of bird song and a source recording of acoustic guitar. Four samples are provided: two guitar, two bird song. You will select one of the two guitar samples and one of the two bird-song samples. You will employ only those two samples in the production of your track. You can do whatever you want with those two samples (process, contort, edit, etc.). The goal is to explore the very different origins of these sounds: one human, one avian.

These are the two options for the guitar sample:

www.freesound.org/people/UncleSigmund/sounds/30266/

www.freesound.org/people/UncleSigmund/sounds/40866/

These are the two options for the bird-song sample:

www.freesound.org/people/reinsamba/sounds/14909/

www.freesound.org/people/reinsamba/sounds/32480/

My Fun: This is All I Had Time For
The Land Of

Not a whole lot of information accompanies the cheekily titled This Is All I Had Time For from My Fun (Justin Hardison), who continues his long-standing relationship with The Land Of with this thirty-nine-minute outing. Originally featured as part of his sound journal during the past few years, the six settings were created using field recordings, electronics, and vinyl records.

It begins strongly with “Long Distance,” a dozen minutes of long, flowing trails of ambient-drone textures that might just as easily have been brought to life by Stephan Mathieu as Hardison. Real-world clatterings advance and recede within a grainy mix that mutates consistently with the material at times presented as a smooth, soothing shimmer and at other moments as a rough-hewn mass of sandpapery textures.The ten-minute “The Sea, the Sea” shows Hardison’s as adept as any other producer at crafting an ambient-drone setting that’s equally transporting and immersive. Field recordings figure prominently in “Unwind,” as stormy rumble, whirrs, and creaks suggest the act of someone fixing a motor outside—until, that is, celestial splashes of harp swirls and pianos add an additional accompaniment to the real-world soundtrack. “Saturday” likewise draws upon field recordings to evoke the impression of a lazy weekend morning spent listening to Chinese classical music and working noisily on various projects of one kind or another.

Though a title such as “Car Alarm Birds” hints at the source material used in a typical My Fun piece, the originating elements are often camouflaged by the extensive processing transformations Hardison applies, resulting in settings that retain traces of their origins but also are far removed from them. In this case as well as on past The Land Of releases like Sonorine (2007) andCamaraderie (2010), This Is All I Had Time For makes good on the label’s credo to explore “ the beauty and detail of everyday sounds.”

March 2012

Source textura.org