Exigency Standby (disquiet0568) by Daniel Burke.


companion video to this piece here:
https://youtu.be/AZ9ML_AtLr4

More on this 568th weekly Disquiet Junto project – Slumber Mill (The Assignment: Make music inspired by a key chord from sleep research) – at: disquiet.com/0568/

Thanks to Glitcher for proposing this project.

More on the Disquiet Junto at: disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here: tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-pr…-0568-slumber-mill/

This assignment was right up my alley having spent many years making music that probably has inspired plenty of bad dreams. The last years have brought a desire to explore and make other forms of music than the linear dark ambient or disturbing that I have tended to fall back on. Even if the music is providing a higher vibration I would still like there to be an otherworldly element, something unknown, exploratory, and abstract living there. I am more interested now to sometimes create forms of music that are higher energy, and bring hopefulness to spirit while retaining some elements of mystery, altered states, and stimulation. It seems a real challenge for me to make something positive that does not succumb to cliché, that isn’t cloying or contrived.
The piece was conceived as a dream sequence beginning in that drifting half sleep after a good day perhaps, nap time , which is always so conducive to dream. Visions of angelic choirs welcoming from the mundane normality that is the usual daily bread. Slowly morphing into something a bit more sinister, UNKNOWN territory, a bit tenuous, a bit uncomfortable, bad carnival acid. Snippets of semi-familiar voices and scenes but not in any form known in ordinary waking states. Both abrupt and transitional changes rapid and slow. Not too blatantly nightmare but more deeply disturbing as juxtaposed absurdities & emotions come and go. Finally, A rescuing voice of hope shines through pulling consciousness back toward peace, and resolve. Familiar melodies bring us fully back and ready to start again renewed.

By the the time the composition was fleshed out no surprise that I have spent more time in the nightmare than the remedy, but it is what it is. At least the intro is uplifting. And true to (my) form even the rescue has some melancholy there. The best I could do.

Technical:
Worked up a few chord progressions in 3 sections using the app Suggester starting with the C6/9. Playing around with different chords and voicings and borrowing from other keys so there is not an exact tonal center. Transferred the midi file to Ableton. Used the 3 sections to inform the basic overall structure, the hopeful angelic section as induction, more challenging chords later used near the end of the nightmare, & the final coda arising from the C69 at the end. Brought in a number of field recordings, including street scenes in San Miguel, Mexico, institutional spaces with people milling about recorded at a museum in Brussels, Chicago symphony orchestra tuning up then the DAT tape that was subsequently demagnetized, a thunderstorm….to be used during the nightmare. Ended up dropping some of them into Simpler to get smooth crossfades and good continuity. Cut & paste, extend, and process as usual. Love that convolution reverb.

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