Skip links

Quiet Street: a tour of Thermae Bath Spa

Bath_Spas_01Where else could we start our sonic tour of Bath than at its most iconic location, and indeed the one from which it takes its name – the Bath Spa.

I wasn’t sure how I’d be able to represent Bath Spa without going inside (which comes at a fairly hefty price), but I was lucky enough to pass just as a walking tour of the city had stopped there, and the guide was explaining all about the spa water, its health-giving properties and the history of the spa buildings, which made for a great location-specific recording.

San Francisco contributor Stanislav Nikolov took this one on, bringing in a bed of beats and synths to sit under the description of the baths given to the tourist group.

A note on the sounds below – as usual, there’s the field recording and the memory version, but the installation mix is both sounds panned left and right to simulate what you’d hear if you came along to the physical installation, so you can hear how the sounds work together.

City version:

 

Memory version:

 

Installation version (best listened to on headphones):