A new website streams live LAPD radio chatter over a background of ambient music. The result is hypnotic, beautiful, and utterly compelling.
Eberhardt explains how he came up with the idea for the site:
The night the Giants won the World Series there were a lot of people on Twitter referencing the live police scanner webcast from soma.fm and I gave it a listen. Interesting stuff to be sure, but I got bored listening to just the voices and started playing some instrumental music in the background. I liked the results but it was complicated to explain to people how to replicate the mix (i.e. opening multiple copies of iTunes or VLC) so I made this site to simplify the process.
To listen to it is to be plugged into the pulse of the city; lost in fragments of someone else's story. Urgency alternates with frustration and low-level routine; some incidents are reported while others are resolved; and jaywalking tickets are issued in the same breath as lives are lost.
Story via Hilobrow.