Artist Spotlight is our regular feature introducing you to Cities and Memory artists around the world with an in-depth interview. In this edition, we meet Paris-based field recordist Colin Hunter, who has been contributing beautiful field recordings to the project since the Covid-19 lockdowns. 

I am a field recordist and have been recording and archiving the rich tapestry of natural, urban, and cultural audio soundscapes from around the globe for the last 17 years. My recordings are shared on my website world-sounds.org.

Through my recordings, I aim to share the beauty and significance of these soundscapes, providing a glimpse into the places and experiences that inspire me as a recordist. I’ve witnessed firsthand the value of archiving soundscapes, as some of the very sounds I’ve recorded have since disappeared, leaving behind only memories and my recordings.

For example, I captured the distinctive sound of the split flap departure board at Gare du Nord in Paris, which has since been replaced by digital displays. The rumble of old tube trains in London, now retired and replaced by newer models, is another sound that exists only in my archives.

In Alor Setar, Malaysia, I recorded the lively calls of bus ticket sellers announcing destinations, but the bus station itself has since been demolished. Even natural wonders like the geothermic park in Iceland, which I recorded before volcanic activity permanently altered its landscape, serve as a reminder of the importance of preserving soundscapes.

By archiving these sounds, I hope to not only document the present but also provide a window into the past, allowing future generations to experience and appreciate the sonic diversity of our world.

The interview continues below ⬇️, and this map collects together all of Colin’s contributions to Cities and Memory: 

Paris is a big, dense city so it can be pretty noisy, but it’s definitely a changing soundscape, with a lot of effort made to reduce the impact of noise pollution.

There is a definite character to the sound of this city, whether through local dialects at the many markets, church bells ringing out across the city on a Sunday, including the famous bells of Notre Dame de Paris, urban traffic, police or fire brigade sirens, train stations.

Aside from these broad generic ambiances, there are also some unique sounds, like the monthly test of the national alert system (air raid type sirens) sounding off all across the country at midday on the first Wednesday of every month.

Having lived here for 15 years I’ve become so used to the soundscape it becomes second nature, and I pay less attention than I did when I first arrived here. Every so often I remind myself to go out and listen (and record) the city with fresh ears.

Music was present during my youth, my dad was an avid jazz fan and always listened to vinyl records in the house and my mum listened to a lot of classical music. I played the violin for about eight years as a child. In my late teens/early twenties I began DJing and producing music, and tried to pursue this as a “career”.

The music industry was tough, and after 5-6 years of having some music released but making little money, I decided to go to university (as a mature student, aged 24) and study Music Technology and Multimedia. In order to pay my fees/rent etc whilst studying I began working in corporate AV as a sound engineer, learning this trade along the way.

When I finished my degree I wanted to become a sound designer, and began working on a few projects. I found myself doing post production sound, and a fair amount of on-set audio work. Getting my foot into the door in the sound design world meant working at the bottom, as a runner, and working my way up, but I was 28 and had already earning good money through live events/corporate AV, so I ended up heading back over to that world and my professional career led me down that path (which I’m still in today).

In terms of discovering the world of field recording, as part of my university degree I worked on a project to redesign the soundtrack to a film (I chose a 15 mins sequence of Alien by Ridley Scott). I was only allowed to record and process my own recordings. I borrowed equipment from the university but soon realised that I’d need a lot of sounds and it would be easier if I had a handheld recorder that I could take with me. So I bought myself an M-Audio MikroTrack II. There was very little choice on the market at that time, Zoom recorders weren’t on the market at that point.

That same year I went to Nepal for two weeks. I had friends living there so my partner and I flew out to Kathmandu, met our friends, then we flew to Pokhara and did a two-week trek in the Himalayas. I took my recorder with me and recorded a few ambiences along the way. When I returned home and listened back I was instantly transported back to the locations, and that was the beginning of an obsession with field recording.

The year after, my partner and I left London and went backpacking for six months in south-east Asia. Again I took the recorder with me and recorded obsessively. And that was really the beginning of my recording and archiving project. I had no experience when I begun, and unlike today where there are tons of forums where people share tips and tricks, back then very few people were doing it. There were a few social groups for sound design (e.g. Social Sound Design) and a few field recording questions did get discussed, but nothing like we have access to today.

As a result I made many mistakes, recording for very short lengths, not using wind protection, handling noises picked up in the recordings etc. I am somewhat regretful today as I travelled to many pristine locations and really didn’t have a clue what I was doing. It’s also worth considering at the time SD cards were tiny and battery life was also a challenge. But all these things led me to improving over the years, and slowly improving my equipment.

What hasn’t changed since my trip to Nepal and then six months in south-east Asia is my obsession with field recording. I’m as obsessed, if not more, today than I was back then. I also still listen back to some recordings from that time, and although there were obviously some missed opportunities, there are a bunch of recordings that I love listening to today!

I love recording moments in time and place that are a snapshot and will no longer happen again. Although in principle this is true for every recording, some sounds and soundscapes can be heard in the same way over and over. What I really love is when a soundscape changes over time, meaning the recording I made becomes a piece of history, a snapshot in time.

I’d have to promote my own project, World Sounds. You can explore sound recordings I’ve made across the globe: www.world-sounds.org

Alor Setar Bus Station, Malaysia

I made this recording a long time ago, whilst traveling around south-east Asia. In order to attract customers, ticket sellers from each of the bus companies announce the destinations at the top of their voices, singing and rhyming the names of cities.

What pleases me most about this recording is that it truly represents the things I’ve mentioned earlier. This is a snapshot of time, and listening to it transports me right back to that bus station. I can still see the faces of the ticket sellers.

Today I believe that bus station no longer exists, so this is also a sound that has disappeared. I also love how the people use their voices in a musical way to stand out from the competition.

In a way this is similar to how birds sing in the dawn chorus, with each species having its own rhythm, timbre and space in the frequency range.

I’m a big fan of Felix Blume, a french sound artist, field-recordist and sound engineer. He’s done some incredible work with communities, collaborating with them to create installations.

I’m always fascinated to see what new perspective he’ll bring in his work, with a nod towards field recording consistently appearing in his installations, but with such a creative approach.

The European spring dawn chorus. I have recorded dawn choruses across the globe, but the European dawn chorus is so close to me. I grew up close enough to the countryside to hear cuckoos and song thrushes each spring.

Today there is nothing more rewarding than to be alone in a forest listening to the fascinating order of birdsong at dawn. Each species has its own space in the spectrum, and combined with other species I fall into a kind of meditation.

I’ve spent many, many years (and lots of money) on refining my field recording kit, but am currently in a place where I’m very satisfied with the versatility of my kit, and as a result I have very little gear lust.

My Sennheiser 8000 series mics are my go to gear when I’m looking to record pristine soundscapes, particularly when recording nature. But I also love using compact lav mics, such as my LOM MikroUsis or Clippy EM272s.

These, coupled with the compact Zoom F3 make the kit extremely compact and discreet, which is so helpful when recording in busy environments and I want to remain undisturbed in the background.

We’ve just had the opening night of an exhibition called “Echos de Bichat” which is a photography and sound installation exploring the lives and memories of people living on rue Bichat in Paris’ 10th arrondissement. I recorded and edited all of the sound elements.

This is a project I’ve been working on for the last couple of years with the artist collective Cinemorphe. The project has culminated in the recent exhibition, but it’s an ongoing project so we will continue to record and archive more testimonials from local residents.

It’s a fascinating street in Paris with incredible history attached to it. This project has taken me away from my usual work of pure field recording, and focussing on the stories of people has really lit a fuse in my work and something I will be exploring more of in the future!