I am Dan Quinn and Gunung.org is the home of my various projects. I offer my expertise on a freelance basis as a consultant, researcher, advisor, mentor and composer. A list of some of my more notable previous projects, publications and creative works is available here.
Aside from helping clients with decision-making and creativity, I am involved in several long-term projects:
As Co-Founder of the Gunung Bagging non-profit initiative – since 2009 the most comprehensive online guide to the mountains and volcanoes of Indonesia, Malaysia and Timor-Leste (East Timor). My 2014 project ‘Making Tracks’ was supported by the Royal Geographical Society with a Neville Shulman Challenge Award. In 2021 I wrote ‘Gunung Nusantara‘, a guidebook to 100 of Indonesia’s finest hikes as an ‘introduction’ to the topic. In 2022 I gave talks on “Exploring the Mountains and Volcanoes of Java” for the Anglo-Indonesian Society and the British Embassy in Jakarta. A second book covering 50 mountains in Malaysia entitled ‘Exploring Malaysia’s Mountains‘ was published in October 2024. In 2025, the project is expanding to cover the whole of Southeast Asia.
As Custodian and Coordinator for the pioneering World Ribus (the singular form ‘ribu’ is pronounced ree-boo) database of the approximately 7150 mountains on Earth with a topographic prominence of 1000 metres or more. In other words, a list of the 7150 most prominent mountains on our planet. This is a bit like the famous list of 3000ft-high Scottish mountains called the Munros, but covering the entire planet and using more objective criteria. This project began in 2019 and officially launched in late November 2024 with the publication of a book, ‘The Relative Mountains of Earth: The Ribus‘, via Pedantic Press. A smaller team is now researching Ribus on the Moon, also known as Lunar Ribus, and Ribus on Mars, also known as Martian Ribus.
As Artistic Director of One More Grain – an avant-rock group founded in 2006 in London and which has released 6 albums showcasing a huge array of styles, instrumentation, concepts and techniques, the most recent being ‘Modern Music‘ (2023) which was the last in a trilogy of albums begun in 2022 with ‘Beans on Toast with Pythagoras‘. Many of our works have been met with considerable critical acclaim including Album of the Week in the Sunday Times and national and international airplay including BBC Radio 1, 3 and 6Music. Alongside the studio albums we have released remixes, including using Artificial Intelligence, and an Indonesian gamelan interpretation of works by Iwan Gunawan and his Ensemble. Prior to founding One More Grain, I managed an Edinburgh-based record label called Suilven Recordings (2003-2006) and I occasionally release solo works such as 2016’s ‘I, Sun‘ which was recorded in the Outer Hebrides.