Recordings of background atmospheres and incidental noises from all over London. Many form part of a sound grid series recorded at evenly-spaced points across the city, each marking the centre of a square on the map below.
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Above: graphic based on a daytime satellite image courtesy of the Image Science and Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center. Each red grid square is 2.5 miles or 4 kilometers across.
File name: Peckham Rye station arcade
Grid square: Walworth, Brixton, Peckham
Duration: 1:30
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: 28 November 2010
Time of day: Noon
Location: In the small arcade connecting Peckham Rye train station to Rye Lane.
Description: Preacher's voice coming from premises above a shop, footsteps and voices of passersby, rustling of plastic carrier bags, the bass end of music from somewhere.
Technical guff: Head-worn stereo. 2 x Shure WL-183 mics and Edirol R09-HR digital recorder.
Additional notes: None.
File name: Doctors surgery SE11
Grid square: Walworth, Brixton, Peckham
Duration: 3:19
Recorded by: Will Montgomery
Recording date: 2010
Time of day: Not known
Location: A doctors' surgery somewhere in the SE11 postal district.
Description: Doctors' surgery ambience with voices of staff and waiting patients, distant slamming of doors, a brief announcement over a loudspeaker, crying and babbling of infants, occasional coughs.
Technical guff: Not known.
Additional notes: None.
File name: Asda Old Kent Road
Grid square: Walworth, Brixton, Peckham
Duration: 1:00
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: 10 January 2010
Time of day: 4pm
Location: Asda supermarket, Old Kent Road
Description: Loud humming and fainter rattling from chiller cabinets next to the queue for the cigarettes-and-scratchcards counter. One of the cash tills sounds a warning tone when a staff member opens it up to unjam the receipt feed.
Technical guff: Head-worn stereo. 2 x Shure WL-183 mics and Edirol R09-HR digital recorder.
Additional notes: None.
File name: Brixton afternoon
Grid square: Walworth, Brixton, Peckham
Duration: 6:34
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: May 2008
Time of day: 1:30pm
Location: Walking from Brixton Road, along Brixton Station Road, Pope's Road and Electric Avenue.
Description: Market and crowd sounds recorded while walking through central Brixton on a Saturday afternoon.
Technical guff: Head-worn stereo. Sonic Studios DSM-6S/EH mics and PA-3SX preamp. Edirol R09-HR digital recorder.
Additional notes: None.
File name: Brixton Station
Grid square: Walworth, Brixton, Peckham
Duration: 2:22
Recorded by: Matthias Kispert
Recording date: 1999
Time of day: Not known
Location: Entrance to Brixton Undeground station, south London.
Description: "At the time, Brixton station was a kind of micro-melting pot featuring a set of characters who collectively caused tumult and commotion on a daily basis. Some of them were known by names derived from the sounds they contributed to the local soundscape: the Biggie-Biggie man or the Incense man for example. These two were supported by an assortment of preachers from various Baptist and Pentecostal churches, market criers, ticket touts, Underground staff and others. Since the attempt at gentrifying the centre of Brixton things have become a lot less interesting. Leaving the station now, one is not greeted by the lively hustle and bustle, but by the sounds of cars and buses going past." – Matthias Kispert
Technical guff: Not known.
Additional notes: Recording from soundtransit.nl, covered by a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.
File name: Westmoreland Road flea market
Grid square: Walworth, Brixton, Peckham
Duration: 1:55
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: 9 August 2009
Time of day: 12.30pm
Location: Westmoreland Road flea market, off Walworth Road
Description: Traders begin to pack up for the day at Westmoreland Road flea/junk market. Sounds of traders' and customers' voices, tubular-framed stalls being dismantled, and music from a stall selling old cassette tapes.
Technical guff: Head-worn stereo. Sonic Studios DSM-6S/EH mics and PA-3SX preamp, Edirol R09-HR digital recorder.
Additional notes: Post-recording EQ low cut to reduce wind noise.
File name: TQ 3231 7688
Grid square: Walworth, Brixton, Peckham
Duration: 1:00
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: 30 May 2009
Time of day: 6.15pm
Location: OS grid reference TQ 3231 7688. Medlar Street, near junction with Camberwell New Road.
Description: A police car speeds along Camberwell New Road with its siren blaring, a magpie makes its rasping call from a tree, loud music from a passing car, traffic noise, and faint voices in the street.
Technical guff: Head-worn stereo. 2 x Shure WL-183 mics. Edirol R09-HR digital recorder.
Additional notes: Some clipping distortion from the police siren, which was removed via software in WAV format, but has re-appeared more faintly after compression to MP3.
Sound map recordings fall into two kinds, shown by the filenames they're given.
A sound grid recording has a filename beginning with the letters 'TQ', followed by eight digits. These are the Ordnance Survey co-ordinates for where the recording ought to be made. Each is part of a regularly-spaced series of recordings covering London. More about them, including graphics showing the resulting city-wide patterns of sounds, can be found on this page.
Other recordings have more descriptive filenames and these are simply of curious or distinctive sounds heard in different places.