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.
Filename: Pymmes Brook Tanners End
Duration: 1:00
Grid square: Palmers Green, Edmonton, Tottenham
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: 6 January 2012
Time of day: 1pm
Location: Tanners End Lane, Edmonton, north London.
Description: Loud rushing of Pymme's Brook as it passes beneath Tanners End Lane, passing traffic on Silver Street, faint birdsong.
Technical guff: Headworn stereo. 2 x DPA 2006C mics, Sound Devices MixPre-D preamp, Sony PCM M10 recorder.
Additional notes: None.
Filename: New River Palmers Green
Duration: 1:00
Grid square: Palmers Green, Edmonton, Tottenham
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: 3 September 2011
Time of day: 3.40pm
Location: Immediately north of Oakthorpe Road, Palmers Green, north London.
Description: Traffic, children play outside a small mosque, birdsong, airplane drone, in a back garden a mastiff begins barking.
Technical guff: Headworn stereo. 2 x DPA 2006C mics, Sound Devices MixPre-D preamp, Sony PCM M10 recorder.
Additional notes: None.
Filename: Pymmes Brook Bowes Park
Duration: 1:00
Grid square: Palmers Green, Edmonton, Tottenham
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: 3 September 2011
Time of day: 3.25pm
Location: Bowes Park north of Bowes Road, north London.
Description: Water rushes from a drain into Pymme's Brook as it emerges from a tunnel beneath a railway line, faint birdsong.
Technical guff: Headworn stereo. 2 x DPA 2006C mics, Sound Devices MixPre-D preamp, Sony PCM M10 recorder.
Additional notes: None.
Filename: Wood Green Shopping City
Duration: 1:30
Grid square: Palmers Green, Edmonton, Tottenham
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: 27 August 2011
Time of day: 4pm
Location: Inside Wood Green Shopping City, north London.
Description: Sounds recorded while wandering around the ground floor of the shopping centre with adults' and children's voices, music from concealed speakers overhead, louder and busier ambience towards the end.
Technical guff: Headworn stereo. 2 x MM-HLSO/Sennheiser MKE-2 mics, Sony PCM M10 recorder.
Additional notes: None.
Filename: TQ 3231 9205
Duration: 1:00
Grid square: Palmers Green, Tottenham
Recorded by: IM Rawes
Recording date: 20 March 2009
Time of day: 4.45pm
Location: OS reference 3231 9205. End of Queensland Avenue, a residential street, around 400 feet due west of the grid point, which falls inside a fenced-off area of overgrown land.
Description: A sparrow chirps close by throughout, faint sounds of activity in the street: a child's voice, hammering, and less distinct noises. Steady traffic noise from the North Circular and the A10, about a quarter of a mile away.
Technical guff: Head-worn stereo. 2 x Shure WL-183 mics. Olympus LS-10 digital recorder.
Additional notes: None.
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.