A Soundtrack for a City

2022-01-30

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The last violet seller in Piccadilly Circus, the Canvey Island Oil refinery, the bascule chamber of Tower Bridge, the song of The Muffin Man. In the twelve years before his early death in 2021, Ian Rawes engaged in a Quixotic endeavour to capture - and collect - the sound of London. With over 2000 field recordings, historical audio pieces, sound maps, writings and images, The London Sound Survey he created is an idiosyncratic but wonderful...

The last violet seller in Piccadilly Circus, the Canvey Island Oil refinery, the bascule chamber of Tower Bridge, the song of The Muffin Man. In the twelve years before his early death in 2021, Ian Rawes engaged in a Quixotic endeavour to capture - and collect - the sound of London.

With over 2000 field recordings, historical audio pieces, sound maps, writings and images, The London Sound Survey he created is an idiosyncratic but wonderfully accessible, evocative and often arresting series of sonic snapshots that aim to track a changing city.

Tony Herrington of The Wire magazine comes to the Bureau to remember Ian and celebrate his work. We hear various selections from the Sound Survey and talk counterculture, field-recording, bells, anarcho-punk activism - and of course, independent music publishing, along the way.

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The London Sound Survey Website

Tony's obituary for Ian

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