Sound map recording: Yarn shop spinning wheel
Where: Globe Road, Bethnal Green. Description: Squeaking and rattling of a spinning wheel in use. Recordist: Felicity Ford. Duration: 0:14.
Sound map recording: Yarn shop ballwinder
Where: Globe road, Bethnal Green. Description: Creaking sound of a ballwinder, a device for turning a loose ring or 'hank' of yarn into a tight ball. Recordist: Felicity Ford. Duration: 0:14.
Sound map recording: Great Conservatory Syon House
Where: Syon House, Brentford. Description: Visitors walk through the Great Conservatory, jet planes fly overhead bound for Heathrow, a constant hum from a transformer. Recordist: IM Rawes. Duration: 2:46.
Sound map recording: Rooster Mudchute City Farm
Where: Mudchute City Farm, Isle of Dogs. Description: A rooster crows twice at the city farm, birdsong and visitors' voices in background. Recordist: Felicity Ford. Duration: 0:20.
Sound map recording: Grunting pigs Mudchute City Farm
Where: Isle of Dogs. Description: Close-up recording of Gloucester Old Spot pigs grunting and rooting around their sty. Recordist: Felicity Ford. Duration: 1:00.
Blog post: Share and share alike
If you've read the earlier post about William Cheshire’s Sounds Like Leigh-on-Sea sound blog, you’ll maybe have spotted an overlap in the area he’s covering and part of the London Sound Survey’s new Estuary section.
Sound map recording: Bowls at Southend
Where: Southend-on-Sea, Essex. Description: Clacking of bowls, voices of players, a motorbike goes past. Recordist: William Cheshire. Duration: 1:53.
Sound map recording: Belfairs Woods
Where: Belfairs Park, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex. Description: Quiet ambience with the trickling of a brook and birdsong. Recordist: William Cheshire. Duration: 0:42.
Sound action recording: Craven Cottage across the Thames
Category: Social - Football. Description: Crowd chanting and cheering as Fulham play Manchester United at Craven Cottage. Recordist: IM Rawes. Duration: 2:00.
Blog post: Thomas Burke, a man in love with London
London does not care, London does not threaten. London does not comfort. It does not speak, it does not wake. It does not dream.
Blog post: Chausseur du Son
Some time ago, Ian invited me to write a guest post for the London Sound Survey blog. Ian is the sort of guy that it’s very difficult to say 'No' to, so I agreed.
Sound map recording: Gravesend voices
Where: Gravesend High Street. Description: Voices of adults and children out shopping along the pedestrianised part of the high street. Recordist: IM Rawes. Duration: 2:00.
Sound map recording: Tilbury ferry
Where: On the Tilbury-Gravesend ferry. Description: Sounds of the ferry's wash and the ferry coming alongside a quay at Tilbury. Recordist: IM Rawes. Duration: 2:04.
Blog post: Sounds like Leigh-on-Sea
After posting about the last few recordings made for the Thames estuary section, I found that someone else is ahead of the game.
Blog post: Mad about the buoy
More excursions last weekend along the Thames estuary or ‘riviera’, as estate agents might prefer to call it. A few years ago I got a request from some people looking for a recording of the Tilbury Bell, which was something to do with one of the buoys moored in the Thames.
London wildlife recording: Flying ants Rainham
Where: Rainham Marshes. Description: The microphone was held close to the entrance to an ants' nest in a crack in a flood defence wall made of earth. Recordist: IM Rawes. Duration: 1:00.
Sound map recording: Industrial estate with cicadas
Where: Industrial estate in Gravesend. Description: Chirping of cicadas and grasshoppers, distant sound of an electric saw. Recordist: IM Rawes. Duration: 1:00.
Sound action recording: East Tilbury buoy
Category: Officialdom - Nonverbal signals. Description: Wash from a passing motorboat causes the tolling of the bell on a buoy in the Thames at East Tilbury. Recordist: IM Rawes. Duration: 0:23.
Sound action recording: Police training sirens
Category: Officialdom - Nonverbal signals. Description: Police sirens with different tones sound intermittently at a police training establishment. Recordist: IM Rawes. Duration: 1:45.
Blog post: Entente cordiale: Des Coulam's guest post from Paris
It's a great pleasure to have the first-ever guest post on the London Sound Survey, A useful fantasy written by Des Coulam.
Blog post: A useful fantasy
Street recording has fascinated me for longer than I can remember. The fascination is rooted in the attempt to capture that gratuitous, never-ending show for which no ticket is needed.
Blog post: Sounds unreal
Bad news for foley artists in this New Scientist article on advances in computer synthesis of real-world sounds.
Sound map recording: In Selsdon Wood
Where: Selsdon Wood, near Old Farleigh Road. Description: Birdsong, dripping of water off leaves after a brief rain shower, with a flurry of drops as the wind stirs the tops of the trees. Recordist: IM Rawes. Duration: 1:30.
Sound action recording: Music from passing cars
Category: Social - Other events. Description: Friday and Saturday night drivers play music as they cruise along a rat run in south-east London. Recordist: IM Rawes. Duration: 1:11.
Blog post: Jack London among the Cockneys
'The man who had spoken to him was clearly a Cockney, with the clean lines and weakly pretty, almost effeminate, face of the man who has absorbed the sound of Bow Bells with his mother’s milk.'
Blog post: Rebranding exercise
Got fed up with the old London Sound Survey masthead, finding that it looked stranger each time I saw it, like if you say the same word out loud over and over again, it starts to sound unfamiliar and meaningless.
Sound map recording: Summer wind Tottenham Marshes
Where: Tottenham Marshes, north-east London. Description: Grasshoppers rasp all around in tall grass, sound of a blustery wind, distant traffic. Recordist: IM Rawes. Duration: 1:36.
Blog post: A Tottenham soundwalk
Sunday just gone involved a brief talk at the new Sound Fjord sound art gallery in Seven Sisters, followed by a soundwalk which they’d organised up to Tottenham Marshes.
Sound map recording: Under Watermead Way
Where: Beneath Watermead Way dual carriageway, north-east London. Description: Traffic noise and booming of vehicles passing overhead, pigeons roosting coo and flap their wings. Recordist: IM Rawes. Duration: 1:00.
Sound map recording: Stonebridge Lock
Where: On the River Lea at Tottenham Marshes. Description: Unpleasant, discordant squealing as a barge owner works the winding gear on the Stonebridge Lock. Recordist: IM Rawes. Duration: 1:00.
Blog post: Doing anything on World Listening Day?
This coming Sunday, the 18th of July, marks the first World Listening Day. Okay, there’s been a rash of commemorative and consciousness-raising dates recently and I feel drawn to the idea of National Bed Month at least, but World Listening Day ought to appeal to field recordists everywhere.
Sound map recording: Doctors surgery SE11
Where: Somewhere in the SE11 postal district. Description: Doctors' surgery ambience with voices of staff and waiting patients, distant slamming of doors, loudspeaker announcement, crying and babbling of infants, occasional coughs. Recordist: Will Montgomery. Duration: 3:19.
Sound map recording: Seven Sisters indoor market
Where: Inside the market, next to Seven Sisters tube station. Description: Voices of staff and customers at a cafe in the market, voices and recorded music from various stalls and little shop units. Recordist: IM Rawes. Duration: 1:55.
Sound map recording: Marcus Garvey Library Seven Sisters
Where: Marcus Garvey public library, Tottenham Green Centre, Seven Sisters. Description: Library ambience with air conditioning hum, people turning pages of newspapers and books, a man mutters briefly to himself. Recordist: IM Rawes. Duration: 2:00.
Sound map recording: Isle of Grain shore
Where: Isle of Grain, Kent. Description: A tug's engines at the beginning, a seabird cries, constant industrial noise from the docks at Blue Town. Recordist: IM Rawes. Duration: 4:00.
Sound map recording: Abandoned pier Greenhithe.
Where: Swanscombe marshes, Greenhithe, Kent. Description: Water sloshes around underneath an abandoned concrete pier as the tide comes in. Recordist: IM Rawes. Duration: 1:05.
Sound map recording: Dartford clay pigeons
Where: Dartford marshes, Kent. Description: Cracks and pops of guns at a clay pigeon shooting club. Recordist: IM Rawes. Duration: 1:00.
Sound map recording: Bluewater
Where: Bluewater shopping centre, Greenhithe. Description: Shoppers voices and laughter, footsteps, faint music from shop units. Recordist: IM Rawes. Duration: 0:50.
Blog post: New Thames estuary section now added
As promised a week or so ago, there’s a new addition to the soundmaps pages with a section for the Thames estuary.
Blog post: 33 hours to 1984
You might have seen Margaret Noble’s Sound Is Art blog mentioned here before. It’s a collection of marvellous sound oddities and curiosities which are added to all the time.
