Sounds of my City: Urumqi
Left leg, right arm and center ear of s&S Radio (the ROGC) has for the last year and a half been based in the far side of the PRC - in the city of Ürümqi.
Take a few moments & pay a vicarious visit by way of a playlist collection of incidental & ambient sounds that make living in a place like this what it is.
*Another bonus instance of the pigeon flock droning around my 6th floor apartment. With some narration. One bird (or 2?) in the group is fitted with a small whistle device that creates this sound as they fly. You can hear this eerie drone in the sky at random times all over my neighborhood where pigeon keeping is common. Try setting this sound going in tandem with some of the sounds above. It tends to be how my ears experience the neighborhood.
If enjoy this little sonic window to this side of the planet, have questions etc, please leave a comment!
My hope is that others will be inspired to submit small collections of sounds of their cities to be posted in separate playlists - making this area of the site an little travel center in sound. If you’d like to contribute, please send a note through the CONTACT page.
Katyana said,
December 21, 2007 at 1:15 am
The pigeon whistle backpacks are the most amazing sound! Thank you for sharing them. I also love the accent on “Moskovniye Vechera.” A regular in my own shower repertoire, I wonder what he would think of my own accent while singing it. Oooo, electronic birds! I should have listened to all of these gems first, then commented. Great fun! Thank you for the trip to Urumqi for the holidays!
Anne said,
December 22, 2007 at 10:57 am
Hello Katyana!
I hope you’ll have good christmas time
thanks fausto for all these sounds for sure i’ll use and re-use them!! I love very much old diva woman voice in the park and yes the pigeons are really amazing
hum take care of you I’ve just heard the stomacho
don’t drink too much YAK BEER!
Eric Boros said,
February 12, 2008 at 5:12 am
Hey this is great! I see you are still in Urumqi, we’ll be in China soon but I think the closest we’ll get to you will be Xining… Hope you are well. Eric.
poetpiet said,
February 26, 2008 at 11:03 am
hey, here is a dutchman typing, i heard some live coverage collation about chinese company mining in Zambia - looks, i mean, sounds like us whity colonials, or our whity colonials, you know, the ones we let slip and askape a way into regrettably unrestrained adventure, mercantile success and what have you along the lines opposing going native garden cultures and not leaving traumatized desertifyers behind but gently though firmly guiding them into absolute top soulery ward ored oord ort aard gaard. Traffic conductor for rocks turned to compost turned to that ripe and fresh festi food. Comb oddity supremo. You know, the stuff priced out of common man’s market in the ancestral regions of china, that is to say, that island to the east of them, with the aenemia and the miniaturization.
Knute Myhrvold said,
March 7, 2008 at 1:34 am
EXCELLENT! The recordings are wonderful, and the addition of pics and explanatory text is a great addition.
Works well in Internet Explorer and even better in Firefox.
Andreas Bick said,
June 8, 2008 at 2:48 am
Hi Fausto, the recording of the pigeon whistles is fantastic, I guess it is the best you can find around the web. I wrote a post on my blog and put a little excerpt of your recording, hope you’re fine with that:
http://silentlistening.wordpress.com/2008/06/08/chinese-pigeon-whistles/
Are you still living in this area? I enjoyed the Xinjiang recordings of “folk music” as well, very nice quality!
The best and good luck, Andreas