| Centuries of Sound | |
| Hosting: | James Errington |
| Language: | English |
| Began: | January 1, 2017 |
| Genre: | History of recorded sound, Music podcast, Sound collage |
| Cited For: | Bronze Bullseye Award, British Podcast Awards 2019 |
| Num Episodes: | |
| Fetchwikidata: | ALL |
Centuries of Sound is a series of mixes and podcasts presenting a history of recorded sound,[1] produced independently by Cambridge-based sound artist James Errington.[2] [3] Each mix presents sounds recorded in a single year, and episodes are released monthly, in chronological order.[4] Errington also presents a monthly show of the same name on Cambridge 105 Radio in which he discusses the music of a year with a guest.[5] Centuries of Sound has been reviewed by multiple publications[6] [4] [7] and received a British Podcast Award in 2019.[8]
Errington researched and sourced music from a number of sources, including Archive.org, Rate Your Music and Acclaimed Music.[3] The first mixes include early sound recordings made by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville in 1860, and the earliest episodes are shorter and cover multiple years, due to a lack of surviving recordings.[4] Each mix contains not just music but layered speech and other sounds.[9] Contemporary "preview" mixes were also posted for the years 2016 to 2019[10] and there are annual Christmas and Halloween episodes covering particular eras.[11]
Notable individual episodes include the 1927 mix, reviewed in The New Yorker,[2] the 1901 mix, which was one of Indiewire's 50 best podcast episodes of 2018,[12] the 1931 mix, which was podcast of the week in The Financial Times,[6] the 1943 mix, reviewed by Cory Doctorow,[11] and the 2016 mix, covered in Hyperallergic.[3] Centuries of Sound received a bronze Bullseye Award at the 2019 British Podcast Awards.[8]