Released by the IDMf Netlabel on February 14th, 2019, Manton’s concept album Don’t Panic was an auditory experiment, creatively demonstrating the journey of the Voyager spacecraft as it left Earth, visited the outer planets, and exited our solar system. While Don’t Panic explored time as an outward, far-reaching concept into space, The Measuring Stick shifts focus inward to how humans perceive time and how rhythm manifests in nature. The two albums are deeply connected. The Measuring Stick is, in many ways, the brother of Don’t Panic, but instead of charting a cosmic voyage, it explores the fundamental experience of musical time itself.
Rhythm isn’t just about beats and repetition; it’s about a constantly shifting internal “measuring stick”...a flexible sense of time that can expand, contract, and realign based on our focus and experience.
Research conducted during the making of this album explores how anticipation and retrospective awareness allow music to unfold in the mind of the listener. Rather than relying on cultural conventions, Joe Manton seeks to uncover universal processes that shape our perception of rhythm.
The thesis presents original theories, including the Rhythm Object Table (ROT) and Groove Superimposition Alignment (GSA), which map how our brains make sense of asynchronous, unpredictable events. To put these ideas into practice, Manton designed custom software (MIDITURDS, PJM, LFOBeats, Swunxing) and composed this 70-minute experimental piece, The Measuring Stick, which challenges listeners to engage with rhythm in new ways.
Ultimately, the research seeks to answer: What is music when stripped of cultural context? How can we train ourselves to hear rhythm in chaotic environments, like nature or pure noise? What new compositional tools can be created to expand our understanding of musical time?
This work is both a theoretical framework and a personal journey, offering a fresh way to think about rhythm, groove, and musical perception.
1. When In Relation to When is Your Head At
2. When You Are Deeply Moved
3. Brewing
4. Conjuring
5. Simmer
6. The Platform
7. Deep Dive
8. Back to Infinity
9. Get Swunxed
10. Recursion
11. Bipedal Hive Mind
GPR007: Manton - The Measuring Stick
Composed by Joe & Nick Manton
Produced and Mixed by Joe Manton
Mastering by Darren Ziesing at Millenium Mastering
Artwork by Joe Manton
Software developed in the making available for Max here: https://linktr.ee/joemanton
Published by Glitchpulse Records
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.glitchpulser.com/news/gpr007-the-measuring-stick-a-study-of-musical-time