The Free to Use Sounds account on Bandcamp is packed with what it sounds like: field recordings for use, royalty-free. One of the most recent sets, Leaking Pipe Abandoned Courtyard (that’s the title on the digital cover, while the entry itself bears the more prosaic Abandoned Courtyard Ambience! Leaking Water Pipe & Church Bells) has seven tracks, dripping atmosphere.
All but two are of a length between two and five minutes, featuring undisturbed continuity of the title sounds. The additional pair, both brief, at around 30 seconds each, include the sounds of church bells. While the audio sets a scene, the accompanying notes lend specific detail. The tracks were recorded in Malta in the courtyard of a tall, largely unused apartment complex: “High ceilings, huge corridor doors and if you walk up and down the stairway it already creates this natural haunting reverb.”
The dripping here doesn’t suggest water torture; quite the contrary, it’s soothing, comforting. The two tracks with the church bells are especially beautiful, the combination of the natural and man-made, both speaking in different ways of the heavens opening up.
The set is at freetousesounds.bandcamp.com. More at freetousesounds.com and youtube.com/freetousesounds.