disquiet0041-dirtyminimalism, minimal Kaboodle Sound
Death Minimal (Drum version) [disquiet0041-dirtyminimalism]

Created for the Disquiet Junto.

Assignment:

"For this Disquiet Junto project, the constraint is a matter of terminology. This week we're exploring how the concept of "genre" can itself serve as a restraint, and we'll accomplish this by pushing back at genre conventions.

"The project instructions are straightforward: Record an original piece of music that you feel belongs within the genre of "minimalism" — but that also, you feel, sounds "dirty" in some considerable way.

"The idea we're pushing at here is that most of the time, when one sees the word "minimalism" employed in regard to art and music, there's an understanding that it involves an almost clinical aesthetic. The sole exception on any regular basis would be certain realms of droning death metal — examples of which would certainly be welcome in this week's Junto. This week we're going to push minimalism out of its comfort zone.

"Restrictions: You can use any source material, any instrumentation, except the human voice. "

Method:

I was originally going for 'minimal death metal' on this, but I don't think I achieved it. I certainly made a noise, though.

I was inspired by hearing the Velvet Underground, John Cale and Lou Reed on BBC 6 Music. In particular, hearing John Cale talk about his production work and then remembering Lester Bangs' review of Nico's 'The Marble Index', where he describes Cale's production of the album as "He built a cathedral for a woman in hell." That was also the vibe I was going for.

In addition, I'm reading a book about Futurism at the moment, and Luigi Russolo's The Art of Noises was at the back of my mind, too.

I made a very simple beat on my Korg N364 workstation, out of drum instruments I'd made myself, and fed the output of it into a KP3 Kaoss Pad. I connected a Kaossilator Pro (on 'Distorted Guitar' setting) to two mini KP Kaoss pads (both on different settings of 'Fuzz Distortion'), and fed this signal to a variety of guitar footpedals, which went into a Behringer Bass Amp. I fiddled around with the pedals until I got a sound I was reasonably happy with. One of the pedals was a Behringer Feedback/Distortion pedal, which I used on and off.

I recorded one track of the repetitive beats from the N364 keyboard, and another track with me playing the Kaossilator Pro through the effects pedals. The beats were played as a pattern, and the Kaossilator played live while listening back to the beats through the Zoom H4n on MTR mode (the tracks were recorded separately).

Lastly, I swapped the Kaossilator for a modified and mangled Tanglewood guitar (cheap Chinese Strat copy), which I played through the same effects pedals, using an E-Bow and a slide. I recorded two takes of this, again, 'playing' more or less in time with the beats... I was going to play with feedback through the bass amp, too, but it was midnight, and I thought I might wake my children or the neighbours...

All four tracks were recorded one by one on a Zoom H4n, then mixed in Audacity. I ended up with a version with drums and one with just guitar.

I couldn't decide which version I preferred, so I posted them both.

(The guitar-only mix is here: soundcloud.com/djkaboodle/deat...imal-guitar-mix).

Title inspired partially by Metallica's 'Death Magnetic'.

Just realised that I was also subliminally inspired by westyreflector's feedback track from last week's Junto assignment: soundcloud.com/thereflectors/arc-welded

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Track image adapted from this one:

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil...llSchaedel3.png

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More details on the Disquiet Junto at:

Disquiet Junto