For this project, I was inspired by the drum machines created by Terrane (link), which use a circular representation of the bar in order to capture non-quantizable lengths of rhythm that are present in non-Western Classical styles of music.
I implemented this circular loop structure into ChucK, which allows me to rotate an entire pattern, or individual elements, clockwise (forward in time) or counter-clockwise (backward in time), leading to a vast array of different interesting rhythmic overlaps.
In particular, I was influenced by the demonstration of a Gnawa groove from Morocco (shown at 0:30 in the video), and borrowed its inner, lilting triplet loop as the core rhythmic pulse of my composition.
I took this core rhythmic pulse and duplicated it, making one iteration completely static, and the other fully customizable, in terms of its timings: I can press 1 or 2 to rotate it counter-clockwise or clockwise (therefore phasing it backward and forward in time), respectively, and I can press q or w, a or s, z or x, to turn each of the pulses individually ccw. or cw., respectively.
The bass line and soundscape are composed to use a subset from the minor pentatonic scale, drawing inspiration from Gnawa music, except the soundscape is procedurally generated from a "wind" value (having been inspired by an Aeolian harp) to produce chords along the pentatonic. The "wind speed" (i.e. how high the notes that are sounded) is adjustable by pressing 9 or 0, to make it slower or quicker, respectively.
The general tempo and volume of the composition can be controlled by j and l, and i and k, respectively.