Open the Window: soundscapes from South London to the World

For the third Christmas Eve in succession, Hither Green-based experimental/improvisational music label Linear Obsessional has released a compilation based on inviting submissions in line with a chosen theme. This year's premise was simple: 'open your window and record two minutes of what you can hear. Interacting with it live if you wish, or editing and processing the recordings later. From this concept has emerged this 85 track, 2 hour 50 minute compilation of extraordinary recordings from all over the world'.

There are many remarkable recordings on this global smorgasbord of soundscapes,  includes several recorded in South London:

Richard Sanderson - Playing - Hither Green features the Linear Obsessional founder playing melodeon over the sounds of children playing outside.

Anthony Osborne - The Story Of A Panic - Ladywell includes some rather scary sounding crows.

Steven Ball - Go From My Window - New Cross - the traditional folk song sung over the sound of the New Cross rain.

Phil Julian - 3 November 2015 - South Norwood - the familar South London sonic sweep of birdsong and airplanes.

Argument Club - Shipping Forecast - Lewisham - traffic noise and radio sounds.

Chris Jones - Drill_Byt - Peckham - processed drill noise.

Sean Dower - Taxi Argument - Bermondsey - the title says it all.

Neil Gordon​-​Orr - Gellatly Road 1940​/​1915 - New Cross - traffic, drone and the names of people killed in the street in World War Two - 'Gellatly Road is a short but busy street in London SE14. 75 years ago, bombs were landing on it. Recalling memories of those terrible times, the sound of today's traffic - usually annoying -appears vaguely heroic: the victory of the everyday over terror and horror'.

Steve Scutt - Somehow Window - Camberwell

Clare and Arthur Wood - Bedtime Background With Oompa Loompa Song- Lewisham




You can download the album, with  62 page booklet, at Linear Obsessional