The patchwork hum of lockdown

Mar 18, 2021, 09:55 AM

One of the unexpected urban soundscapes of the Covid-19 lockdowns has been previously-unheard or unnoticed sounds that had been hidden by the drones of continuous traffic noise emerging into focus. Sometimes they're beautiful sounds like birdsong, and at other times you realise the drone of the city is actual composed of multiple layers of drones at different frequencies and volumes making up that patchwork urban drone. 

On this occasion, the pulsing drone from a box on the street (telecoms? air conditioning? who knows?) is the dominant sound all of a sudden, so we recorded it along with several moments of passing life during the third lockdown in the UK.

Recorded by Cities and Memory.

Part of the StayHomeSounds project to map and reimagine the sounds of the Covid-19 lockdowns.