Chance Meets Instrumentation – More New Distant Duos

Chance meets instrumentation, is where you will find a project called Distant Duos. Distant Duos is an ambitious and diligent sound collective of collaborative experimental music and artists.

Distant Duos are not for those who think art (music is this case) has to look, sound, and feel a certain way. If one favors random, experimental methods in creating music, then this bandcamp project should offer some gems. If there’s any bright side to the quarantine that has affected the entire world it would have to be the creative output in the arts. Recorded music in this case. Distant Duos is a project curated by Mary Staubitz and Russ Waterhouse. The gist is they find two people who know each other.

Next, have them compose approximately 5 minutes of sound with the other party in mind. So each of them will not know what the final track will sound like until it is mixed together. I covered this back in May on this very blog. Check it https://meatsheetfanzine.com/distant-duos-collaborative-experimentation-bandcamp-project/

However I feel it needs another look and if the output continues I’d feature it again. It’s great fun. Listen https://distantduos.bandcamp.com/

This is due to an exciting amount of new Duos coming out regularly. As a result this project is filling up nicely with very diverse and experimental sounds. Also the result of the process of making these Duos versus the final tracks are exciting for me.

It is nearly impossible to predict the outcome which would be something that the avant-garde experimental artist might just fall in love with.

So far, I think this is something that would make said avant-garde artists like John Cage or Brian Eno (and the fans of similar artists of course) exuberant to listen. A relevant sidebar : In college I was required to choose a Humanities elective. Experimental dance was all that was left available, the rest were of less interest. I assure you I did not dance but did get to study the work of composers like Phillip Glass who scored a few dance shows, but that is getting off topic.

As a result, I did glean some insight on creativity even though it was not my choice. The audit of various dancers led me to find out about Merce Cunningham and his chance operations. The Duos music seems to remind me of those operations or Eno’s Oblique Strategies (deck of cards). I’m not implying that any three of these are similar save for where they end up taking people. That is the common denominator.

The journey and destination can be different, but the spirit of creativity and turning off the thinking mind remains constant.

Here’s my take on a few random Duo tracks. It would be great to cover most or all the Duos but there are enough on Bandcamp such that it would take me a considerable and long time. That is in order to give each Duo its proper due. So here are a few random discussions about the tracks.

Joshua Burkett and Ma Turner. This is an interesting to me because it literally combines spoken word sounds with organ drones. The way the words act as if they’re on a longer delay ( at least 2 seconds) combined the organ dropping in and out is a nice provocative touch.

Eric Copeland and Josh Diamond. This Duo really stood out because the way it was mixed and the final sound was as if the two artists knew what each other were doing. Now that could be because they are in tune with each other and/ or Russ and Mary’s wizardry. It’s a busy electronic 5 minute jaunt of heavily sequenced tunage. Busy in a very good way in case you are wondering.

David Michael Curry and Bob Fay seem to be ripping on electric six strings. They’re playing along with Russ’s finishing touch is uncanny. They all go together in a way that almost doesn’t seem like it’s a Distant Duo it almost feels like that all three we’re in a room together and in agreement regarding the tracking. The (guitar) tone it’s pretty fucking great. In fact just a peppering of flange. Distorted riffing that would make early Sub Pop bands acknowledge the tonality . There is also a less distorted undercurrent and some screeches squeals and helicopter ish tones that round it out.

Quick words about a few more Distant Duos.
Jessica Goddard and Donny Shaw – A ghostly, trippy start concedes to antiquated super computers like EENIAC gone wild. Busy and rich with bleeps bloops and electronic trickle.

Dan Gilmore and MP Hopkins – Low frequency hums permeated with random semi disembodied (effected) voices, and what seems to be everyday shuffling and plinking noises recorded and or tweaked to be more pronounced than just background noise.
Sev Philips and Erick Van Ficken– The sounds of human screams, various mechanization, ambient noise and echo thrown into a high power blender. If this sounds bad to you, my intent is the opposite. The impending stomp ends but muffled blended screams continue until all that remains is tone similar to one in a hearing test. More brutal than most Duos, love it.
Spencer Herbst and Heath Moerland – With similar intensity but different delivery (as Sev and Erick’s right above), this Duo offers oscillations and spinnings at various high and low frequencies.

Gronks and squeals, pulses, plus a wonderful sound that reminds me of a futon spring opening and closing.

Distorted frequencies you may hear when dialing in a short wave radio. Intense, but equally fun.

Each Duo is like a unique animal. There’s a wealth of material to explore as Mary Staubitz and Russ Waterhouse consistently add Duos to the aforementioned link. There are some standout tracks however even the ones that don’t jump out and into the earphones offer some element of surprise. (there are over 50 Duos and counting). 

The quick Bandcamp paragraph about the artists offer a little insight into their worlds but leave plenty to the imagination. Some of the photos in this piece are directly from each Duo and give you little glimpse into their worlds. Many times the photo adds to their mystique.

This photgraphic and written combo allows me to conjure up my own visual / listening experience.

Here are a few questions and answers from both curator and engineer.

JohnMeat: Aside from us briefly mentioning John Cage in a message/ email , where did the concept for Distant Duos come from?

RussWaterhouse: This would be a better question for Mary, but basically she was trying to keep musicians connected during the pandemic. Mary plays improvised music with a lot of different musicians/combos, and they would normally meet and play in a live setting. She also organized a lot of these shows. When playing live was no longer an option Mary came up with this idea to keep people collaborating and working on music together. I started curating some of the Duos later, when I realized that there were people I knew that Mary didn’t that I would be excited to hear.

JM: Was there any Distant Duo that you were unsure you could combine together successfully? Due to technical stuff or another reason? Were there ones that were more challenging?

RW: Absolutely. Most of the Duos are easy to put together and fall into place, but some require a fair amount of editing and finessing. Several people sent me extra material that I ended up using, because I’m trying to make the best possible sounding track with the material I’m given. Due to technical challenges, one person was only able to send me 90 seconds that they uploaded to Youtube, which I then ripped and time-stretched to match the other track. They’re all different. To be honest, most of the challenges are on the administrative side of things. It’s possible to mix almost anything and make it sound good if you’re creative. That said, some Duos were less successful than others.

JM: (expanding on the last question) In other words does the experimentation aspect help with the workflow?

RW: Not necessarily. The workflow is basically determined by the musicians, and how quickly they send us a track. As soon as we get both tracks for a Duo I do a mix pretty quickly. But things have been moving slower now that people are back to work, etc. Sometimes it takes a while and lot of emails. I spend more time on the mixes now than when we started, because I’ve gotten better at it and I know more about the software I’ve been using, which is Audacity.

Now, a few queries for Mary Staubitz

JM: Where did the concept for Distant Duos come from?

Mary Staubitz: I was trying to figure out band practice! I’m in an improv trio and I thought we could each record 5 minutes remotely and overlap it, since we’re pretty good at listening and predicting each other. Then I immediately thought “What if I got a bunch of people to do that?” I sent out a few messages to see if it was something people would be interested in, and they were, so I ran with it.

JM: Are there any insights you gained or something you learned from the beginning of starting Distant Duos?

MS: Oh I learned a hell of a lot in how not to run a project with this many people involved. Like, don’t write things on scraps of paper, make an attempt at a release schedule, have harder deadlines than “whenever”, haha. Keep a real list instead of scraps of paper. Learn Excel. (I still have not learned Excel)

JM: For the future, is there a Duo you would like to curate? Maybe a wishful one that may not be able to make happen?

MS: Oh I have plenty of those – most of which I’ve made an active attempt to line up, but I’m not going to tell because what if they end up happening after all !

Thanks to Mary and Russ. If you want to hear more you can stay tuned to Distant Duos and follow them on IG. Additionally check out their experimental collaboration they create under their surnames. A different context than Distant Duos and worth some clicks and plays.

Chance meets instrumentation there as well, just with different flavor.

Check out https://staubitzandwaterhouse.bandcamp.com/ . In closing Distant Duos offers me respite from predictability and trite metal (and other genres) that is so common. I do favor regimented structure and songwriting as most do, however I hope fortune does favor the boldness that Distant Duos offers. Stay tuned.