London Sound Survey - Sound Map Website

Looking for inspiration for Broken Bottles and found a website called SoundSurvey.org.uk . This site is excellent; it's got tonnes of recordings of sounds all over London, even set out in a handy grid pattern (click me). I thought I'd check out Brockley, as its where I'm moving to very soon, and lo and behold, Matthias Kispert, the man from D-Fuse (took my class for a module in my first year at uni, don't you know) has put a recording on there of the Greenwich foot tunnel, which sounds amazing, tonnes of reverb, and the guy in the recording doing the spooky ghost vocals is a real hoot.

Also, the "Historical" section of the website has some really interesting descriptions and references to sounds that have been documented in literature dating back from the 1st Century B.C. up until the 20th Century.

There are different descriptions all categorised in to sections based on such criteria as "Ambient", "Economic" and "Political".

One of the descriptions that I found really interesting was this:

Period referred to: 1940s
Sound category: Ambient > Plague, war and disaster
Title of work: Tribune
Type of publication: Newspaper
Author: George Orwell
Year of publication: 1944
Page/volume number: 'As I Please', 7 July 1944

A V-1 rocket flies overhead in a sketch by George Orwell

Life in the civilized world.
(The family are at tea.)
Zoom-zoom-zoom!
‘Is there an alert on?’
‘No, it’s all clear.’
‘I thought there was an alert on.’
Zoom-zoom-zoom!
‘There’s another of those things coming!’
‘It’s all right, it’s miles away.’
Zoom-zoom-ZOOM!
‘Look out, here it comes! Under the table, quick!’
Zoom-zoom-zoom!
‘It’s all right, it’s getting fainter.’
Zoom-zoom-ZOOM!
‘It’s coming back!’
‘They seem to kind of circle round and come back again. They’ve got something on their tails that makes them do it. Like a torpedo.’
ZOOM-ZOOM-ZOOM!
‘Christ! It’s right overhead!’
Dead silence.
‘Now get right underneath. Keep your head well down. What a mercy baby isn’t here!’
‘Look at the cat! He’s frightened too.’
‘Of course animals know. They can feel the vibrations.’
BOOM!
‘It’s all right, I told you it was miles away.’
(Tea continues.)

Brill'.