This Junto Profile is part of an ongoing series of short Q&As that provide some background on various individuals who participate regularly in the online Disquiet Junto music community.
What’s your name? My name is Ángel Luis Martínez.
Spirit Turnpike is my project that I’d like to see perform as a full band someday. I use Professor MTZ (first word is derived from my “day” job) on recordings where my main contribution is mixing other artists’ work.
My first band, and which exists to this day, is The Arawax. It’s where I gained deep confidence and understanding of the bass guitar through folk, punk, and many other influences. We have done concerts together that were fun and well-received.
Currently, I also collaborate with New Haven Improvisers Collective.
Where are you located? I grew up in Brooklyn — specifically in Williamsburg and the adjoining areas in Bed-Stuy. While I played a little guitar, tape recorders and a Casio SK-1 sampling keyboard were at the center of my sonic adventures. The sampler also has a synthesizer function to make more sounds. This was the 1980s, so I made mixtapes from radio and TV programs, my own voice, and occasional noodlings on instruments, enjoying especially sampled weirdness from loops. I still have many of those cassettes, so now I sometimes think what, if anything, I can make from them.
What is your musical activity? I have played bass guitar and bass ukulele and sang with The Arawax since 2016, mashing up folk, rock, punk, funk, etc. We have performed in Queens and Philadelphia. I learned a lot about bass playing, especially the high notes so I could hear myself when we practiced.
In 2022, I began to attend the monthly free improvisation workshop series of the New Haven Improvisers Collective (NHIC) at the legendary Never Ending Books in that city. Its openness and dedication to making new music was welcoming and intriguing. In 2023, we began doing monthly showcases as well, many of which have been turned into live recordings. Each month there’s a new one on Bandcamp, except in June & July.
In 2023, I came to Bandcamp and released my music-poem “Non Fungible Tchotchkes,” my answer to the religion of crypto, just as the NFT craze was losing steam. It was part of a 4-track EP with different mixes, including one of me just reciting the poem. Occasionally, though, I find a report that tells me some relevance remains in the piece.
Soon on Substack, I encountered the Labelabel project by Miter (Ryan Stubbs), who produced Salon du Monde, Fremont, a three-part video variety show. I created a video for “Non Fungible Tchotchkes.” It was edited to appear on Episode 2 and as a coda on Episode 3. I was amazed how well that turned out, and it featured a lot of great artists who came together because we were all on Substack.
So how did I find Disquiet Junto? Not long after joining NHIC, I did a search for experimental jazz on the Internet Archive, and learned about Orchestra Eclettica Sincretista. It was through OES maestro Marco Lucchi’s postings that I heard some of his Disquiet contributions, and joined last June.
What is one good musical habit? I make sure I am ready to record ideas that arise. Sometimes I get an idea for a rhythm, a melody, or even song lyrics. I would record these short pieces — even and often for me only seconds long — to make sure I don’t forget how the music sounded to me. Even a phone voice recorder can be useful to make sure ideas are not forgotten.
What are your online locations? Besides Substack and Bandcamp, I pay more attention now to SoundCloud largely because of the Disquiet Junto. National and International Beat Poetry Society’s social media have been great for sharing writings and music. But I have found that email is a great place to share online.
What was a particularly meaningful Junto project? I had long wanted to do a lullaby — and in Spanish — so disquiet0655, Soothing Sounds II, was definitely a meaningful treasure!
“Al Mar, Mi Piratita” (To the Sea, My Little Pirate) was a deep and amazing pleasure for me. I’ve received a lot of acclaim for the piece. And the bonus was when we continued the following week with all our remixes — lullabies for adults, dig? I wasn’t expecting the attention I got for remixing my piece, and that just added to all the memories made possible with the prompt to make soothing sounds!
Are there connections you can draw between writing poetry and making music? Poetry is musical in the sense that the sounds a poet makes is key to understanding the meaning of a poem or even a verse. Musicians and poets choose sounds (represented by words or tones (or atonal sounds) to convey a message, an idea, a feeling, or an attitude.
Both poetry and music can be and are improvised. It’s another set of exercises for poets to consider how to put one word after another, and for musicians to consider how to put one sound after another.
Can you talk a bit more about that music habit of catching ideas as they arise? For example, do the raw recordings generally get replaced with more formal recordings, or do they sometimes become part of the final piece? For the OES collaboration a soliloquy — and some conversations, I was searching for recordings for what I can rework. Instead, I found a forgotten recording of me doing harmonium sounds on a Casio SA-47 (with preset South Asian instrumental sounds) and figured that would work with his track run in reverse. I was pleased with the result.
On Disquiet, “The Tree as the Eye in the Forest” began this way and I largely kept that way, including me moving about at the end. Also, tracks like “Aquidneck” and “Loud Work in Progress” were my own field recordings done by the phone recorder and mixed into the final track.
That said, there are a lot more recordings that I believe may be inspiring for the “formal recordings” later. And I am grateful that I can have them in rough form as a beginning.
