The Sirens of Gotham

The wail of sirens is a familiar element in the New York City soundscape. No new sounds have been added to Stuart Fowkes’ field recording of police sirens at Elizabeth and Grand Streets on the Lower East Side. The original recording is reverse-printed onto itself so that when rising and falling tones cross, the observer perceives both ends of the Doppler shift simultaneously—as if the sound is approaching and receding at the same time. This backwards-forwards combined track is repeated and run through multiple layers of resonance filtering and stereo field motion. The sounding clarions, vanguard of the armies of the urban night, move and merge to become an elegiac dirge.

Reimagined by Tom Miller.