TR808 drum machine and piano on a cassette tape loop in reverse drifts in and out of sync with wurly and waves of synth. a reminder to sometimes let ourselves drift in the ocean of time, this episode of synthquest, a return from a hiatus, invites you to lose track of it all.
welcome to synthquest: relaxing, ambient soundscapes, 100% improvised, unedited, live and of the moment. meditation music for music lovers and an ambient music anti-show! put on your sleep mask, sit in meditation, settle into shavasana, embark on your evening walk, draw yourself a bath, and get ready for synthquest!
i’ve always been incredibly bad at keeping track of time. whereas other people seem to have a sense of gravity binding them to the time of day, I am out here just floating haphazardly around it — 15 minutes late to everything, completely unaware of how long it’s been since I’ve seen a certain friend or eaten my most recent meal.
perhaps, dear synthquest listeners, you’ve also noticed that quite some time has passed between episodes.
frequently, my sense of time seems totally out of sync with the world around me, which often moves at a pace that just feels inconceivable to me. to me, time is like an ocean — a swirling, reverberous pool of everything I ever have and ever will experience.
i wonder though what it would be like to go instead by feeling, to embrace following my own erroneous-to-current-standards internal compass of time passing. where I would sometimes I let the world go on in its buzzing without me while I while away in slow, hazy days of staring out the window, meandering in the garden, growing lighter, younger. collecting myself, rewinding back into myself, like a cassette tape in reverse.
dear synthquest listeners, i hope you give yourself permission to get a bit lost in the passing of time.
and thank you for your patience for this episode after a long hiatus. while i can't promise to not get lost in the ocean of time again, i am working hard to bank some episodes so that the show can continue to come out while I make my way out of it
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i highly recommend listening to synthquest through headphones. i'll also suggest settling into someplace comfortable to listen, or listening during a bath, massage, on a walk, while you make dinner — basically wherever you go or whatever you do to relax and decompress.
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about jen starsinic
synthquest is created by Jen Starsinic, a music artist, multi-instrumentalist, and community organizer from Harrisburg, PA currently living in Nashville, TN. In addition to her creative work, she is the co-founder and artistic director of Girls Write Nashville, a nonprofit organization providing music mentorship and creative community to youth artists, whose works as been featured on NPR's Here & Now and is a winner of the Lewis Prize for Music. Said of her last studio release, EP Bad Actor —"there is a blissful aura that surrounds Starsinic’s sound, making for one of 2020’s must-hear albums."
about synthquest
synthquest is recorded live and livestreamed on Twitch currently on Monday and Wednesdays at 9pm CT/10pm ET/2am GMT. It is 100% improvised and unedited.
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One thing that can be said about me is that I’ve always been incredibly bad at keeping track of time. Whereas other people seem to have a sense of gravity binding them to the time of day, I am out here just floating haphazardly around it — 15 minutes late to everything, completely unaware of how long it’s been since I’ve seen a certain friend or eaten my most recent meal.
Perhaps, dear synthquest listeners, you’ve also noticed that quite some time has passed between episodes. In my mind, I’ve delayed the next episode for one two week period, over and over, in an unknown amount of repetitions.
Frequently, my sense of time seems totally out of sync with the world around me, which often moves at a pace that just feels inconceivable to me. Like the world and everyone in it is just buzzing about at triple speed and I’m slow motion, frozen in the center of it all as it whirls around me.
To me, time is like an ocean — a swirling, reverberous pool of everything I ever have and ever will experience.
Sometimes lining up the events of my life in the grid of the artificial calendar system helps me process everything that's happened.
Like when I looked at the calendar and realized it has actually been 15 weeks since the last synthquest episode.
I wonder though what it would be like to go instead by feeling, to embrace following my own erroneous-to-current-standards internal compass of time passing. Where time actually is measured by what happens within it. Family deaths, global pandemics, the first year full-time in my own business, stretch out for eons, covering an expanse in which I age, grow wisened, heavier. Where rainy days contain more time than sunny ones.
Where I would sometimes I let the world go on in its buzzing without me while I while away in slow, hazy days of staring out the window, meandering in the garden, growing lighter, younger. Collecting myself, rewinding back into myself, like a cassette tape in reverse.
This piece centers around a tape loop that I cut from a demo I had made on my old 4 track that I stole from the basement of my childhood home circa 2000.
Touching it, I remember using it to practice the basics of ins and outs, setting levels. Recording my simple songs or a rhythm track to practice along to. Shut away in my childhood bedroom in Pennsylvania.
Touching it, here I am 20 years later in my first ever real, professional level home project studio. Same person, same buttons, everything else different. Like a portal between old and new, a cross current in the ocean of time where a new wave overlaps a deep current, a wormhole between nearby spirals in my own space-time continuum.
Creating this piece, I realized that the thing I love about tape is being able to hear time passing, the white noise of the circular but steady passing of time. It’s so beautifully emphasized in tape loopsin particular and that white noise comes across so beautifully in my extremely dirty and hold 40 year old tape machine.
The main tape loop is juxtaposed with a separate, autonomous, non-synced, grid-like, extremely diligent digital loop. Sometimes the two loops are briefly in sync, and then slowly cycle out of phase. Clashing some moments, matching the next.
Dear synthquest listeners, thank you so much for your patience for this episode. I can’t promise that I won’t get sucked into the swirling ocean of time and business again, but I am going to work really hard to bank some episodes so that the show can still come out regularly while I find my way back.
If this show has become a companion to your evening walks, sleep, meditation or what have you, I do not want to leave you high and dry again.
However, I hope that for the next 40 or so minutes, you give yourself permission to get a bit lost in the passing of time.
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Hi, and welcome to synthquest. For anyone new tuning in, I am your host and performer, Jen Starsinic. synthquest is a weekly improvised ambient soundscape that i record during a livestream every week. on twitch.tv/jenstarsinic. You can go to my website at jenstarsinic.com for the schedule and to sign up for my email list for notifications. You can also follow me on instagram and twitter @jenstarsinic.
Because synthquest is an improvisation recorded live, you will hear me finding sounds and probably making some mistakes. It’s all part of the fun of being in the moment together.
I also recommend that you listen to synthquest through external speakers or headphones, so if you’re just listening through your phone speaker right now, maybe hit pause for a second if you can to grab a pair of headphones or something. (If not, that’s fine)
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I hope you all enjoy episode 13, music for passing time.