A vicarious world journey, one audio clip at time

Quiet American, a personal website of visual and digital sound projects collected by Aaron Ximm, features a collaboration called one-minute vacations, which showcases field recordings from people around the world.

“One-minute vacations are unedited recordings of somewhere, somewhen. Sixty seconds of something else. Sixty seconds to be someone else.”

Each week, Aaron uploads a new audio clip from somewhere around the world. “The goal,” he says, “is to transport the listener, if only for a moment, somewhere else.” He’s been collecting these snippets for over four years, each week posting a new sound from a new location — places like Valladolid, Mexico’s San Servacio Cathedral [1.3mb .mp3], or a county fair in Lebanon, Pennsylvania [1.4mb .mp3].

The project is actively seeking contributions, if you have the right equipment and are in the right place – “a place you just had to be, could never be again, forget you always are.”

The entire archives can be purchased on CDR (with the proceeds going to an unnamed charity).

So grab some headphones and head over to Quiet America’s One-minute vacations for an auditory journey taking you to new locales each week. Well worth the bookmark.