The Sound of the Underpasses

I have created a just over eight minute long sound piece out of several different recordings of music and singing in the underpasses which I have recorded over the last three months. It can be accessed here.

It is audio only at this stage, although some of this sound will find its way into my final slideshow on this project (in a further edit). But I thought I give you the chance to listen to these sounds and music independently as well (and as a slightly longer version that will find its entry into my slideshow). It starts off with the hourly signal that comes from the clock on the Independence Square (it is genuinely that over-modulated in reality, I tried several different recordings but every time it sounds that bad, well, I guess it comes from pretty old loudspeakers – but I thought it to be pretty iconic and therefore I included it despite the poor quality).

It then blends into two traditional Ukrainian songs… a more pensive and melancholic start… The next pieces are a traditional Russian line dance (Частушки) and an accordion piece touchingly performed by an elderly couple. The sound piece finishes off with a more ‘cheerful’ Russian prisoner song (Мурка), performed by a five-member band that sounds like a big band and that blew me away in terms of vibrancy and skill.

Well, listen for yourself. Best enjoyed with headphones or good loudspeakers. Hope you’ll like it as much as I do as this music has grown on me over the last quarter of a year.