Departure Store (disquiet0043-dazzledmachine) Track

For this week's Junto, the goal was to take pre-existing field recordings and to turn them into something else. The pre-existing field recordings are the audio produced by Disquiet Junto members for projects 0037 and 0038. Here are the two I used:

Ascension: Macy's Escalator [disquiet0037-asrealasitgets1] by Super Miracle Dream Team

Post [disquiet0037-asrealasitgets1] by Lem Herlihy

The field recordings in question are documents of retail spaces, such department stores. We were told to rework the audio from one or more of the field recordings to achieve something inspired by the following description: "There was the continuous roar of the machine at work, of customers crowding into the departments, dazzled by the merchandise, then propelled towards the cash-desk. And it was all regulated and organized with the remorselessness of a machine: the vast horde of women were as if caught in the wheels of an inevitable force." The quote comes from the novel Au Bonheur des Dames, or The Ladies' Paradise, by Émile Zola, originally published in 1883.

I found the more rhythmically and texturally interesting elements in the two recordings, mostly sounds of escalators and a forklift backing up. Some muzak also found its way in. I used my entire bag of Ableton tricks to impose beats and tonality.

This Disquiet Junto project was done in association with the exhibit As Real as It Gets, organized by Rob Walker at the gallery Apex Art in Manhattan (November 15 - December 22, 2012):

http://apexart.org/exhibitions/walker.php/

More on this 43rd Disquiet Junto project at:

http://disquiet.com/2012/10/25/disquiet0043-dazzledmachine/

More details on the Disquiet Junto at:
http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/info