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Author Archives: Steve Bowbrick
Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue
What were the towering achievements of twentieth century American culture? Since you’re asking, I’ll make a case for the moon landings (featured here the other day) and for Rhapsody in Blue. This is the original, acoustic recording from 1924, the … Continue reading
Sound from another world
Yesterday’s NASA audio reminded me of something mindblowing from a few years ago. This is the actual sound (several recordings spliced together in fact) of the Huygens probe dropping through the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan in 2005. At the … Continue reading
“OK, we’re off to a good start, play it cool” – Apollo 11 audio
Turns out there’s a huge archive of raw NASA audio at the Internet Archive. Metadata is incomplete and some audio is missing but it’s all gripping stuff, even the long periods of hum from the ‘high-gain’. And the ultra-laconic language … Continue reading
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Tagged Apollo11, archive, audio, Buzz Aldrin, Houston, landing, moon, NASA, Neil Armstrong, Tranquility Base
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Adam Bowie’s binaural storm
Adam Bowie is a radio industry exec – Head of Strategy & Planning at Absolute Radio – and evidently a sound junkie. He recorded this lovely storm montage using a pair of binaural headphones/microphones and published it on his blog. … Continue reading
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Tagged Adam Bowie, binaural, rain, sound, stereo, storm, thunder, weather. climate
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Pick of the Week – all at once
Another one of mine. All fifteen selections from last week’s Pick of the Week on Radio 4, stacked up and played back at the same time. More detail, including a list of the programmes featured, over on my blog.
Hitchcock-Truffaut – Strangers on a Train
Truffaut interviewed Hitchcock for many hours in 1962 for his book Hitchcock. It’s not easy listening – Truffaut’s English was bad so there’s an intrusive interpreter – but this is genuinely gripping stuff. And the glee and surprise in Truffaut’s … Continue reading
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Tagged Cahiers du Cinema, conversation, director, film, French, history, Hitchcock, interview, movie, nouvelle vague, Truffaut, USA
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A wax cylinder for Independence Day
From WFMU‘s wonderful Free Music Archive, Harry E. Humphrey and the choir boys of St. Ignatius Loyola in New York City with “Our National Song” – a rather haunting mix of stirring spoken word and an elegiac choral version of … Continue reading
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Tagged 1916, 4th of July, archive, Blue Amberol, Edison, Harry E. Humphrey, historic, independence day, recording, St Ignatius Loyola, Star Spangled Banner, USA, wax cylinder
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Vito Acconci – The Bristol Project
Here’s something lovely and strange from NY conceptualist Vito Acconci. A kind of dreamy, uncanny science-fiction/architectural fantasy – like the soundtrack from a 1970s sci-fi movie. You can download the MP3 from the motherlode – Ubuweb, Kenneth Goldsmith‘s wonderful, inexhaustible … Continue reading
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Tagged art, audio, conceptual, New York, UbuWeb, Vito Acconci, WFMU
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Eulogy for a Sound
Something marvellous from Ronan Kelly’s The Curious Ear on RTE 1. Eleven minutes on the Cork coast in memory of the last Irish foghorns, now silent. Made by radio student Jason Murphy, for whom I predict great things. Sign up … Continue reading
Rebel radio from Benghazi
Rebel radio is probably as old as radio. It’s a cliché that the radio station is always the second target during a coup, the President’s residence being first. Although the cellular networks and the ISPs would be more likely now. … Continue reading
