The Ipod isn't just for music...
After an aside from the randomiser thread earlier I have downloaded and listened to some recordings of Numbers Stations - http://www.archive.org/details/ird059 - eerie voices reading mechanically generated lists of numbers for spies to decode interspersed with short snippets of music or other sounds. Fascinating stuff and it got me googling like mad to find more interesting sounds and downloadable audio. It seems Wikipedia haven't really got a handle on this yet and it's all spread around and difficult to find.
There's quite a bit here although it's a bit random (for some reason there's a whole section for Grateful Dead concert recordings)- http://www.archive.org/details/audio
Librivox is a great project in which lots of people in the US have recorded books whose copyright has lapsed and they've put them up on the web for anyone to download and listen to. Obviously everyone has an American accent and they don't all have the passion and annunciation that Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter has but there's a lot of great stuff (Dickens, Austen, Twain etc) and it's all free.
http://librivox.org/
Here's an interesting article with download links to some pretty bizarre recordings - check out the Russian exorcism if you want to be really freaked out or listen to Jimmy Jones ordering his followers to poison themselves.
http://listverse.com/bizarre/top-10-incredible-recordings/
There's a frankly incredible amount of stuff available at the American Folklife Centre which is part of the Library of Congress. Check out the extensive collection of interviews with Black southerners in the 1930s and 40s talking about their memories of slavery. There's also a lot of feild recordings from the Lomaxes and others.
http://www.loc.gov/folklife/onlinecollections.html
There's a few sites maintained by enthusiasts like http://www.haigpit.com/page73.html which is an oral history project with recordings of people talking about mining in the Lake District and this one http://www.steamsounds.org.uk/ which has downloadable sounds of trains (is this what trainspotters listen to on their Ipods?).
Any other sources of audio gems out there?
- More from Niks.
- Login or register to post comments
The Sounds of Hell one. . .
is incredible. And I've discovered that if you play it backwards, you can hear a male voice singing the words "I read the news today, oh boy."
Good find, Niks. I love this sort of stuff. (Florence Nightingale sounded very relaxed, didn't she.)
Speeches
There's an iTunes one I found which is great speeches from history - the Kennedy inauguration one ("Ask not what your country can do for you" etc) and the Martin Luther King "I have had a dream". Some pretty goose bump inducing stuff there.
Fascinating Stuff
Great find, cheers for these links. I recommend listening to Florence Foster Jenkins on the top ten incredible recordings link;she's terrible!
Ubuweb
www.ubu.com
A maHOOsive archive of all things avant-garde, including audio of James Joyce, Beckett, various Dada and Fluxus types, Burroughs and the beats, you name it....
Librivox
I tried using Librivox a while ago - The Importance Of Being Earnest. I couldn't listen for more than a couple of minutes, as the american accents simply did not fit the characters. All credit to them for putting so much time and effort into this project, but Algernon and co. CANNOT be read with American accents! This is just a personal hang up, and I do not mean to critiscise the creators, but Wilde in American is simply wrong to my mind.
Agreed
Yeah some of it is a bit annoying but then I guess they are American and it is their accent so what can they do? Until we get our arses in gear over here in Blighty there's not much choice unless you want to pay for a service like Audible which charges about £8 a book. Still The Twain stuff works well.
Oh, good grief
Please tell me the the ad for Jim Jones ringtones on the right of the page isn't advertising exactly what it says?
Hey thanks for these links !
Love this stuff esp the oral history!