Recording of the week: Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949)

This week’s post comes from Steve Cleary, Lead Curator, Literary and Creative Recordings. Above: Image from the 1928 edition of The Sceptred Flute: Songs of India (Dodd, Mead & Company, New York), first published in 1917. Photographer unknown. For this week’s archive selection we present a recording by the Indian…

Recording of the week: Wind in yacht rigging

This week’s post comes from Cheryl Tipp, Wildlife and Environmental Sounds Curator. Wind is usually the bane of a sound recordist’s life. It can ruin an otherwise perfect recording. Thankfully, this recording of Scotland’s Largs Harbour on an overcast September evening is only improved by the gusty weather. An eerie…

Recording of the week: Stockholm 1972: Fifty years on

This week’s selection comes from Andrew Ormsby, Audio Project Cataloguer at the British Library. Above: Smoke coming from a small chimney at H-Fönster factory in Gåseberg, Lysekil Municipality, Sweden, on a foggy day. Photo by W.carter. Used under CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Fifty years ago, in June 1972, a giant…

Recording of the week: Women’s work on the record

This week’s post comes from Myriam Fellous-Sigrist, Data protection and Rights Clearance Officer. Above: Wartime Activities, women picking fruit, Bedfordshire, 1941. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Source: LSE Library. One of the many joys of oral history is learning about unexpected topics. Whether recording an interview or discovering another interviewer’s…

Recording of the week: What does the UK sound like?

This week’s post comes from Steve Cleary, Lead Curator, Literary and Creative Recordings. Above: Paul Cheese in Merthyr Tydfil. Photo copyright © Paul Cheese. This week we are pleased to feature a video from musician Paul Cheese which showcases a singularly unusual creative project. It is a musical piece he…