The Sounds of the World

In the streaming era it’s easy to forget that there’s still a lot of stuff being broadcast over the radio for anyone who cares enough to dial in their receiver. The Sounds of the World, One Random Album at a Time. Give me an antenna big enough and a tower on which to place it, and I shall listen to the world.

Of course, so you can’t actually listen to everything being blasted out all over the planet yourself. But if you’d like to at least have a little taste, check out Impermanence Series A — a project by [Sam Scorsby] that randomly combines bits and pieces of audio pulled down from shortwave and FM broadcasts with some web streams, live microphones, and even a bit of the Internet Archive each day into a one of a kind album. But it’s certainly fascinating to listen to, a bit like randomly spinning the dial on a planet-wide radio receiver.

[Sam] has shared the Python scripts that pull together each day’s album, and he’s not shy about the fact that the project was created with the help of artificial intelligence tools. [ Sam] puts himself somewhere in the middle when it comes to the current debate over AI, and acknowledges that while computers are good at processing raw data, it still takes a human touch to put it all into context. So each day [Sam] will listen to the latest computer-generated album and pick his favorite tracks, and once the project has run its course, he’ll put together a human-curated “Best Of” collection.