The Serendipity Machine

In the constant blur of my new-ish job, I've been trying to shoehorn some solitude into my days in whatever way possible. Usually what that translates to is putting on headphones before bed and listening to Labradford or Slowdive as I drift off to sleep. I've been trying to find something else though, and during a recent quest to find a new portable field recorder, I came across the Quiet American site and something called The Serendipity Machine.




Aaron Ximm, who is behind the Quiet American site, describes it as "a self-running installation piece. Each Machine produces an ever-changing stream of sounds by autonomously and randomly mixing source clips from a prepared libarary. A clip can be anything from a few seconds to several minutes long; several clips of silence are included. Each Machine is built into an object appropriate to its sound sources; blindfolds or masks are provided to focus the listener on what they are hearing."

I listened to the sample track "Skyway" all the way through, and I recommend the same if you have about 15 minutes to spare. It's really great in headphones, and as he says, in a space where you aren't distracted by anything else (1AM in the dark should get you there quite easily...)