So what will you hear? Not much in the way of music, except in a John Cage sort of way. The closest things to musical instruments are rather magnificent foghorns and deep-throated ships’ whistles, as well as what sounds like trolley bells (though I believe that NYC’s streetcars were already gone by the time of this recording).

You’ll also hear the sounds of waves, trains, industrial machinery, birds, children’s voices, airplanes and such. It’s described on the back of the record as an “abstract symphony”, which seems fair enough, though it could certainly be more abstract and more symphonic. The liner notes also assert that it will “affect you deeply”, which simply wasn’t at all true in my case, though I did appreciate it as an interesting document.