There are many types of refrigerators. There are the industrial churning ones, which sound like they grind your food when you shut the door. There are the ones that sound like your fridge is infested with a swarm of cicada — that magically disappears upon opening. And there are the fridges that, in their premium quietude, suggest that your perishables receive better care than do you.
Those and other fridges are among the subjects of field recordings of the Domestic Appliance Audio Research Society. The Society, which consists of sound artists, musicians, and fellow aural-tradition travelers, performed this past weekend at Wilton’s Music Hall in London, and there are almost two dozen examples in their audio collection, as well as concert photos, online to commemorate the event.
The non-fridge sources include ventilation flaps, radiator piping, coffee filters, kitchen lights, windows, toasters, and so on. There are among the currently presented material no fewer than five refrigerators (including its close confederate, the freezer). They were collected by DAARS members Helen Gough (MP3), Benedict Drew (MP3), Simon Swartman (M3), and Lee Patterson, who posted two (MP3, MP3). This streaming segment below collects them as one long industrial drone:
More at the DAARS page, benedictdrew.com/DAARS. Also among the group’s members contributors are Catriona Clayson, Seth Cluett, Tristram Drew, Karen Gwyer, and Al Jones.