In Senate Square, Helsinki

Senate Square, Helsinki: a beautiful square dominated by four important buildings, one on each side – notably the 150-year-old Helsinki Cathedral.

As well as the daily sound installation and the hourly chiming of bells across the square, it’s a regular site for buskers, including the one we’ve captured here, playing a range of standards on his electric violin for what was, to be honest, a mostly nonplussed crowd of tourists more intent on photographing the cathedral or making their way down to the Old Market Hall.

To reimagine the sound, we’ve taken a few lines from the violinist’s second piece in the field recording and heavily processed and effected them to create an ambient electronic piece – everything you hear apart from the drum and rhythm sounds has been directly created from the original field recording.

City version:

Memory version: