Disquiet Junto Project 0436: Planetary Headspace
The Assignment: Share a recording of your local environment to create a communal soundscape.

This project is a collaboration with the artist and experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats.

Step 1: Make a field recording, indoors or outdoors. Your recording may be of any length. If you make your recording outdoors, be attentive to sounds of nature that are now more audible due to restrictions on human activity during the pandemic. If you are under strict quarantine and cannot go outside, create your soundscape indoors, capturing the domestic sounds that you consider characteristic of your current circumstances.

Step 2: Upload your recording per the standard Junto instructions below.

Step 3: Download field recordings by other Junto members. Play the downloaded tracks in one ear, leaving your other ear open to hear the sounds in your midst. As you listen to the stereo soundscapes, your hearing will be extended, situating you in acoustic environments that you’ll share with other participants.

6 AM Ducks in the Rain was recorded on the balcony of my condo overlooking Lake of the Ozarks (Missouri, USA) using my Zoom H1 placed on a picnic table covered with a tablecloth. I’ve edited out a couple of noticeable clicks that always seem to show up in my Zoom recordings that sound like they come from the device itself as it adjusts to a change in temperature. That’s my theory, anyway. The steady rain on the metal roofs of covered docks below creates the white noise that makes up most of the recording. The mic also picked up the sound of some ducks conversing nearby, possibly the mother duck who is sitting on a nest of eggs that is visible four floors below the balcony. Near the end of the recording our cat Koko appears and inquires about what I’m doing.

More on this 436th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Disquiet Junto Project 0436: Planetary Headspace — The Assignment: Share a recording of your local environment to create a communal soundscape — at:

https://disquiet.com/0436/

This project is a collaboration with the artist and experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats.

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0436-planetary-headspace/

There’s also a Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.

6 AM Ducks In The Rain Disquiet0436

My 33 1/3 series book about the Aphex Twin album <i>Selected Ambient Works Volume II</i> was published in 2014. The book was one of the top 5 bestselling titles for the calendar year, and in 2015 was ranked by Pitchfork as one of the "33 best" of the 100-plus books in the 33 1/3 series. It has subsequently been translated into Japanese (2019) and Spanish (2018)

Since 2012 I have moderated the Disquiet Junto group, which began on SoundCloud. More at disquiet.com/junto. 

I've written for Nature, Pitchfork, The Wire, Down Beat, Boing Boing, NewMusicBox, Red Bull Music Academy, Art Practical, the website of The Atlantic, and many other publications. 

I've exhibited sound art at galleries in Los Angeles (Crewest), Manhattan (apex art), and Dubai (DUTAC), and I had a audio-visual installation at the San Jose Museum of Art as part of its 45th anniversary.

And since 1996 I've run the website Disquiet.com about the intersection of sound, art, and technology.

Influences: Brian Eno, Robert Rich, Jon Hassell, Robert Fripp, Steve Roach, Dead Can Dance, Bill Laswell, Michael Brook

Even after listening to it for twenty years now, I am still amazed each time I put on my headphones and cue up Eno & Byrne's "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts".

Free downloads at archive.org http://archive.org/details/intentional-neglect-music

6 AM Ducks In The Rain Disquiet0436

Another Neglected Hobby