3m33s

3m33s is an ongoing and organically evolving compilation of drones all the same length. Coming from yours truly, friends and whoever wants to submit a track really.

If you purchase or donate money for the compilation, you get upcoming / yet unreleased tracks as bonus material. The compilation is 33 tracks total and all funds generated from your purchase will entirely be used to create a new artist collective / label. Your generosity is something we are incredibly grateful for.

If you are interested in submitting a track, it must be 3 minutes 33 seconds in length, something you consider to be drone and do not mind lending to this compilation under the CC by SA common creative licence. The track title will be the date of its release in the following format: YYYY.MM.DD and your bio and artist photo will be displayed on the track page.

3m33s is a very simple premise: I put out an open call for submissions asking fellow artists, friends and the world at large to make a drone of 3 minutes 33 seconds and lend it to a compilation that I would host and promote in order to raise some funds for an upcoming label / artist collective start up.

And come together, this world did! In less than two weeks I received more than enough submissions to fill up a first volume of the compilation (33 tracks each) and donations so far allowed us to ensure 2 years of hosting for the label's website.

Release of the compilation is handled a little differently than the usual, even though all tracks are in and selected at this point only one new track per day is made publicly available. The goal being to provide each contributing artist with an equal window of exposure. However, when someone donates or purchases the compilation, all upcoming / yet unreleased tracks come in as bonus material!

The influences behind the format are many, but I would like to cite two as show of gratitude: Marc Weidenbaum with his disquiet Junto community project, demonstating week after week how constraints and defined parameters can drive creativity. And then Futuresequence with their humongous compilations (of which I've been a proud contributor) allowing newcomers to sit alongside household names.

3m33s is yet another living example of connectivity as community, showing how furiously fast the world can now rally behind an idea, a project, a concept and help it crystallize into something concrete. Some may say the virtual world has uprooted the grass but I claim it's only spreading it to other pastures which we have yet only faintly discovered.

Contrary to your run of the mill kickstarter / indiegogo campaign there is no fixed defined goal for this fundraiser. The reason behind that is simple: we'll make due with whatever we end up with. Yet, the more the better, obviously. 3.33$ is not even enough for a pint of beer here in Montreal! And we all know the world is measured in pints of beer.

There are already 6 of us in the artist collective (to make this into more of a funraiser, one name will be revealed for every 100$ in contributions received) and we're looking towards a March 3rd official launch date.

As many may already know releases, especially beautiful ones, do not spring from the ground. They require effort, dedication, tools and unfortunately some cold hard cash. Nobody is delusional enough to pretend we're gonna be the next Ghostly, else we'd be on kickstarter asking for quadrillions of dollars. But we're a bunch of honest individuals starting from the ground up and quite humbly asking for everyone's help.

As such, 3m33s will keep organically evolving through new artists submissions, new listeners and the word being spread out into pastures yet unknown both virtual and real. And that is how you can help.

participation: Pleq, Maps and Diagrams, Porya Hatami and thirty others...  

• 3m33s (2013) - 320 Kbps

Ask for download link in comments.