Another month, another set of weekly One-Minute Vacations, courtesy of Aaron Ximm‘s quietamerican.org site. Each Monday, more or less, Ximm posts 60-second audio snapshots recorded around the world and contributed by a growing assortment of volunteers. Highlights in July included a thunderstorm caught on tape in northern Italy (MP3) by Joseph Young (“using Soundman OKM binaural microphones and a Sony MZ-N707 minidisc recorder,” he reports) and an extended scene at a temple in Nara, Japan (MP3), courtesy of Ari Noguchi, who writes … well, he describes the scenario at length on Ximm’s site, but it’s probably preferable to listen to it through at least once before having what actually occurred spelled out for you. While the thunderstorm is self-evident, the Nara sequence is not. Both are elegant real-time sound events with the shape, in retrospect, of compositions. (The Nara is also unique in that it’s one and a half minutes in length.) These One-Minute Vacation entries are worth checking out regularly, and Ximm has added a podcast feature for those looking to access them automatically. One thing of interest about the entries is that while they seem to pass so quickly as to evade attention, they last much longer if you watch the seconds tick by on your MP3 player. Of course, better yet to close your eyes and drift away for a minute. More info at quietamerican.org/vacation.html.
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about
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Marc Weidenbaum founded the website Disquiet.com in 1996 at the intersection of sound, art, and technology, and since 2012 has moderated the Disquiet Junto, an active online community of weekly music/sonic projects. He has written for Nature, Boing Boing, The Wire, Pitchfork, and NewMusicBox, among other periodicals. He is the author of the 33 1⁄3 book on Aphex Twin’s classic album Selected Ambient Works Volume II. Read more about his sonic consultancy, teaching, sound art, and work in film, comics, and other media
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Current Activities
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Upcoming
• December 13, 2022: This day marks the 26th anniversary of the founding of Disquiet.com.
• January 6, 2023: This day marked the 11th anniversary of the start of the Disquiet Junto music community. -
Recent
• April 16, 2022: I participated in an online "talk show" by The Big Conversation Space (Niki Korth and Clémence de Montgolfier).
• March 11, 2022: I hosted a panel discussion between Mark Fell, Rian Treanor and James Bradbury in San Francisco as part of the Algorithmic Art Assembly (aaassembly.org) at Gray Area (grayarea.org).
• December 28, 2021: This day marked the 10th (!) anniversary of the Instagr/am/bient compilation.
• January 6, 2021: This day marked the 10th (!) anniversary of the start of the Disquiet Junto music community.
• December 13, 2021: This day marked the 25th (!) anniversary of the start of the Disquiet Junto music community.
• There are entries on the Disquiet Junto in the book The Music Production Cookbook: Ready-made Recipes for the Classroom (Oxford University Press), edited by Adam Patrick Bell. Ethan Hein wrote one, and I did, too.
• A chapter on the Disquiet Junto ("The Disquiet Junto as an Online Community of Practice," by Ethan Hein) appears in the book The Oxford Handbook of Social Media and Music Learning (Oxford University Press), edited by Stephanie Horsley, Janice Waldron, and Kari Veblen. (Details at oup.com.) -
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• My book on Aphex Twin's landmark 1994 album, Selected Ambient Works Vol. II, was published as part of the 33 1/3 series, an imprint of Bloomsbury. It has been translated into Japanese (2019) and Spanish (2018).
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disquiet junto
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Background
Since January 2012, the Disquiet Junto has been an ongoing weekly collaborative music-making community that employs creative constraints as a springboard for creativity. Subscribe to the announcement list (each Thursday), listen to tracks by participants from around the world, read the FAQ, and join in.
Recent Projects -
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• 0562 / Sheep Music / The Assignment: Record something to help someone fall asleep.
• 0561 / Samplelicker / The Assignment: Rework environmental sound recordings with Aphex Twin's new software.
• 0560 / Sonic Disambiguation / The Assignment: Help the Wikimedia Foundation develop a sonic logo.
• 0559 / Yes Exit / The Assignment: Compose your personal entrance and exit cues for conference calls.
• 0558 / Chore Progressions / The Assignment: Use a routine activity as the map of a composition. -
Full Index
And there is a complete list of past projects, 562 consecutive weeks to date. Archives
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