Sometimes you really have to search in order to find sounds that are unique to any one place, geographical sonic signatures. It seems that every city looks and sounds very similar now, which is, of course, very sad.

The bustling city of Seoul is one of the worlds largest cities and with that comes traffic, lots of traffic. The one thing that’s most notable is the lack of Police car sirens, I didn’t hear one whilst I was there. I have to say that I felt the safest I’ve ever felt, whilst exploring any city in the world, and I wonder how much of this was due to the lack of this one sound. I was never aware of any crime or, the possibility that there was likely to be any.

It appears that Seoul is sadly losing its identity very quickly, every other shop seems to be a Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts or, Krispy Kreme (my downfall). It sadly feels far more western than Asian, a clone of any large city in the USA. It does still have a unique identity but you really have to search for this as it is quickly getting buried (and hidden away) under a vast array of American corporate identities.  

This recording was taken at 7am, on Saturday 19^th September 2009, from my 12^th floor hotel room at the Lexington Hotel in the heart of Seoul’s financial district.

Could this be any city in the world? What makes it uniquely Seoul? I sadly don't know.

Latitude 37°32'14.15"N

Longitude 127° 3'18.07"E

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Lots of voices, a busy Street outside the Daehango Arts Theatre, Seoul.

8pm, 18th September 2009.

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The Great Hero Hall, Seoul, so called because it enshrines the Shakyamuni Buddha whose teachings are fundamental to The Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism.

This hall is designated as Seoul City Cultural Treasure No. 127 and is the single largest floor hall in Korea.

This was recorded outside this amazing building.

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A courtyard in the beautiful Changdeokgung Palace, Seoul. Cicadas, Birds, tourists. This place could well be a sonic heaven without the infiltration of Seouls heavy traffic in the background. Oh well.

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I’ve just spent an excellent few days with wonderful people in Cabris. The weather was generally good, except for yesterday (Sunday 13^th September) when a storm hit in the afternoon, apparently this was the first rain since early June. Here's the storm approaching which gave us all an excuse to go inside and play golf on the Wii!

The intermittent beep you here is the pool alarm and the young boy’s voice belongs to Finn….

Congratulations Neil and Sophie!

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Sitting up late into the night unable to sleep, grabbing past audio experiments off my drive, some created while learning about (then) new pieces of software, while others were produced in an effort to create a particular sound or mood. Mixing them all together and going ouch or uhmmm. Too much reverb,,,always….compress, or not to compress, I hate compression. Thinking about the current loudness war. Shhhhhh….go to sleep. Then lying in the dark trying to work out why when converting from .wav to .mp3HD I lose the ID Tags and other info. Still not sure why. Really must try and learn to sleep….

So, probably no ID Tags, which means that if you download this mp3 the following information is not included with the file but you agree (on this occasion) that this recording is ©2009 Steven Brown/Listen Hear Sound Projects/All rights reserved.

I’m still not 100% sure that the file remains mp3HD once it’s been uploaded as the size seems to change drastically….more experiments needed, more time needed….to play Backgammon and watch Come Dine with Me….

This recording is mp3HD encoded, further details here. I think!

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