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Field recording · United States

1520 Calif. Ave SW #2

Seattle, King County, Washington, United States of America

A 30-minute field recording by rcarlberg made in Seattle, United States on 27 January 1979, in the evening. Soundscape: sea & waves, streets & traffic and trains & stations.

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1520 Calif. Ave SW #2
29:43
Spectrogram of 1520 Calif. Ave SW #2
Spectrogram of the full recording (time left to right, frequency bottom to top), generated by the Internet Archive.

Tip: press play to see the sound's live frequency spectrum in blue over the waveform.

Recordist's notes

A quiet evening in West Seattle, overlooking Elliott Bay toward downtown. The sounds of human traffic are reflected off the concrete wall surrounding the parking lot beneath my deck, creating moiré patterns in sound. A multitude of sources overlap and blend in surprising ways. This was my first phonographic "field recording," taken off the deck of my West Seattle apartment with my then-new Nakamichi 550 portable cassette recorder. Twenty years later it became the first in a series of Anode Urban Soundscapes, when I traded in the Nak for a Sony MZ-R30 digital MiniDisc recorder and returned to being out standing in the field. The idea came directly from Luc Ferrari's "Presque Rien" (1970). Major elements: * Car, truck and bus traffic * Prop and jet aircraft from Sea-Tac and Boeing airfields * Train horns from Harbor Island (1 mile east) * Ferry horns from the Vashon-Fauntleroy ferry (4 miles south) See also: https://anode1.bandcamp.com/album/auss1-1520-calif-ave-sw

Written by rcarlberg on radio aporee ::: maps.

About the place

Seattle is a city of about 780,995 people in Washington, United States. OttoAnna lists 31 field recordings from here.

Recorded nearby

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Sources & credits