GPR007 - Manton - The Measuring Stick: A Study of Musical Time

Glitchpulser Releases
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​Out NOW!​

​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.
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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.
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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.

Track List

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
Credits

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
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Whoa missed this somehow! We should put a static player with the latest releases on this site…

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I usually pin the topic as a banner, but forgot this time. I’m not sure if we can embed a player on the site. Still haven’t had time to figure that one out.

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I’m gonna escalate this Admin Support ticket to the “when you can get to it” Defcon level haha

RE: Your release

I’m loving what I’m hearing on the preview tracks! Gonna need to really listen to them. They played in the background while I was working on other things. I already know this is gonna be good. Can’t wait to be fully Swunxed. :wobblebass:

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Thanks Wayne,

Although I participated in the composing of this album, full credit goes to my brother Joe for the final production. Much like the opposite happened for Don’t Panic. We’ve even used some of the same sampled sections on each album and made something different with it.

Although some of it may sound organic, like crickets, frogs, or birds etc, everything you hear on this album is made with a hardware synth. Nothing was recorded with a microphone.

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that’s so cool! you and your bro are like Disclosure or Odesza or Chemical Brothers or something. Wait are the chemical brothers actually brothers?

Jodesza Nickslosure

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@Manton Congrats on the release man!

I haven’t had a chance to listen yet, but I’m gonna throw it on today while i work. :slight_smile:

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Thanks! Curious to know what you think. It’s pretty esoteric haha

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Started writing all of this over a week ago, and just couldn’t finish it, lol

Finally got a chance to sit down and give this a listen. Took me a bit longer than I intended, but it’s hard to find moments where I have time to really listen and not be distracted by other things and I wanted to give myself and this album that opportunity.

I’m not good at writing reviews I don’t think, so I’ll just spill my thoughts however they come to me:

This is a hyper-dense, complex and ambitious project, that i can best akin to something like a mindfulness meditation. As in, it felt like an observation of ones mind as life moves and flows.

Themes and sounds are only present for a moment, and then we move on to something new, and this all happens in a completely unrestrained way. Nothing is being gate-kept, but rather, all things are allowed to pass into focus, observers, and then discarded.

This give the whole album a feeling of true freedom. Nothing is disallowed, and I think that makes it really unique, dynamic, exciting, and fulfilling to immerse yourself in.

To me, The Measuring Stick is a standout piece of work from our @Manton. It is unrestrained, uncompromising and pure sonic experience, more akin to noise, avant-garde, and Musique Concrète than it’s contemporaries of electronic music and IDM. It encourages you to push your expectations of what music can be and challenge your perceptions of sound.

@Manton, You have outdone yourself with this. Congrats on the release and excellent work!

I would highly encourage other forum members to try and find some alone time to experience this work. Put on a nice pair of headphones, turn off your fucking phone, relax, and let The Measuring Stick take you on a journey.

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Thanks for writing all this @Guy_Wachtel. And thanks for listening. We really appreciate it. This is such a great little review and I think is true to the intent of the album. I do want to reiterate as I’ve mentioned above, this is all my brother. My involvement was only in jam sessions used in the making of it. I had no influence over the end result.

Glad you enjoyed it and hope others can take the time to do the same.

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Oh yeah! I read that and then just spaced it. lol

Tell your brother he did a fantastic job. :slight_smile:

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