Junto Project 0276: 808 Blockchain Beats [repost]

Someone suggested that Suss Müsik repost our contributions to the weekly Disquiet Junto projects, because they enjoy reading the explanations of the tracks. While you’re reading the original post, make sure you check out the other contributors’ works as well.

“I’m not just singing,” The great Mick Jagger said to an interviewer who suggested, at 70 years of age, that maybe Jagger was a little too old to be dancing the way he does onstage. “I want to do a performance, as well, so that’s waving my arms and running around. I hear the music and just can’t help dancing.”

Mick Jagger might be the most illustrative lead singer in rock and roll history. Perhaps the least engaged vocalist of all time is a relatively unknown Californian named Su Tissue, lead singer of an obscure 80’s outfit called Suburban Lawns. Dressed like a schoolteacher and looking decidedly uncomfortable, Su Tissue (real name McLane) didn’t have what you’d call stage presence. Her singing was something of an acquired taste as well, resembling a weird mix of Yoko Ono, Deborah Evans-Stickland of the Flying Lizards, and someone who’s just returned from having a root canal. Naturally, the Lawns were a brilliant slice of New Wave art-rock.

What does this have to do with Blockchain? Suss Müsik has no idea. We do know something about the 808’s “systemic cooperation” with our understanding of rhythm. As individual sounds, the 808 doesn’t exactly embed the urge to shake one’s booty to the ground. Once assembled into a recognizable beat, however, all disassociation evaporates as the synthetic beats are decentralized, distributed, indirectly coordinated.

For this effort, Suss Müsik considered the strange, wonderful aesthetic of Su Tissue in the context of Bitcoin. (Hey, somebody has to.) The 808 rhythm was purposely antiseptic. Two phrases were played on piano to roughly match the 808 sequence: syncopated yet awkwardly immobile. We kept the BPM as close to 88 as we could, although to our ears it might be a bit slower than that. There’s a fuzzy bass in there someplace.

The piece is titled Dosimetry, which is the measurement and assessment of ion radiation dosage on the human body. The SU-E-T-808 is a improved sequential booster for treating cancers of the head and neck.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *