Thomas Bird (小飞) is a Asia-based writer, photographer & musician who abides chiefly by immoderate craft beer consumption and the teachings of Zhuangzi.

Hi! I’m a singer-songwriter. Some friends call me Dirt, some call me the dirtstar. Sometimes it’s Dirt Star. I am always looking out for new music, and creating some playlists featuring artists in SoundCloud. Made a little EP with Steevee Rey, and new songs in Mandarin and English on the way.

Rock and roll. 🤘🏽

Hello and welcome to Outside Sounds, a library of the sounds of the outside world I hope to remember and share in the hope of promoting more active listening as we travel through the daily life and wonders of our world.

My generation has had the good fortune to travel the world at increasing convenience and decreasing cost but I fear we have missed something I'm only now realising. We have neglected truly listening to the beauty of our surroundings.  Big travel vlogger you find online will rarely give time to the sounds around them but more likely  fill their videos with voice overs and inappropriate music. I'm guilty of this myself in the real world as I'm sure many of us are. Hiking Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2013, a daily priority was to plug in the playlist of the day. For this reason and only myself to blame, I have no memories of the sound of Kilimanjaro, it's wildlife, its winds or the myriad of local languages spoken by our guides. This is true of many of the amazing places I've seen but never bothered to hear. 

Inspired in part by Japan's 100 Soundscapes of Japan whose mission is to "promote the rediscovery of the sounds of daily life", I hope this can become a collection of sounds I can revisit with the same excitement of flicking through an old photo album.

Thanks,

M

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