“Missing Sounds of New York”: A New Album of Audio Landscapes From the New York Public Library

From the NYPL:

The New York Public Library today announced the release of Missing Sounds of New York, a new immersive album to bring all New Yorkers together and foster community during an unprecedented time of social separation during COVID-19.  The experience is a collection of audio landscapes that evoke the sounds of New York City as we know it, and transports listeners to the daily urban orchestra they look forward to hearing again soon. The album finds comfort in the familiar for all New Yorkers, whether it’s an essential worker who is still braving our new normal, or a resident who is socially distancing themselves indoors and dreaming about the city they used to know and hear: cabs honking, bike messengers whizzing by, snippets of conversations, cooing pigeons, or the not-so-quiet of a branch library. Missing Sounds of New York reminds us of what makes New York so special for so many people.

Each track uses a combination of sounds to create familiar, ambient canvases on which mini stories are placed: a glass breaking in a bar, a dance performance on the subway, and so on. The library recording, for example, follows a New Yorker entering a branch, running into a tour group, interacting with a helpful librarian looking to make a reading recommendation, walking past a toddler story time and sitting down to begin quiet work.

Missing Sounds of New York was created in collaboration with independent creative agency, Mother New York, and is publicly available to stream on Spotify and at nypl.org/msony. The Library previously partnered with Mother New York in 2018 on the award-winning Insta Novels project.

Resources

Stream the Tracks (via SoundCloud) and/or Stream Tracks on Spotify

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