Swords to Ploughshares

Swords to Ploughshares is an experimental virtual instrument that weaves real-world field recordings and expressive sound design together into a unified creative toolbox. The sounds in this library were recorded during the invasion of Ukraine, between February and May of 2022, by Ukrainian sound designer and video producer Histibe.

It includes field recordings made in and around his home in Kyiv and during a temporary evacuation in the Carpathian mountains during the heaviest period of shelling near his home. The subject matter includes the everyday sounds of his life and his city, quickly adapting to wartime and often punctuated by blasts and the wail of air raid sirens. It explores the gentle sounds of nature in the mountains made all the more surreal by eerily distorted late-night shortwave radio broadcasts filling the airwaves.

This is not a Hollywood-style war sfx collection, or a traditional instrument or sound library. These sounds were recorded in uncontrolled real-world city and forest environments, by an ordinary person, under less-than-ideal conditions, using basic hand-held recording equipment, under wartime conditions. Needless to say, some of the edges remain naturally rough. The field-recorded sound effects and live environmental soundscapes captured in this library allow a glimpse into our observer's unique frame of reference at a specific place and time in the world. The sound-designed content follows the artist's mental journey from that subjective experience as they mentally process and re-articulate it from raw kinetic energy into more musically constructive forms.

This library offers the artist's unique vantage point during a transformative place and time in their life and the world around them. His goal is to transmute an act of oppression into a tool for expression. It is not meant to be a definitive, unbiased, unvarnished or complete representation of the artist's entire experience or those around him. It is intended as a work of constructive and reusable sonic art. It is a dim and hazy window into another human's personal experience, crafted with the simple hope that it serves and inspires your own creative process.

Note: You can support Histibe directly by ordering through his website. The cart button above takes you to the checkout page at Histibe's web shop. Soundiron receives no money from the sale of this product. Maks is an outstanding multimedia artist, colleague and friend and we support his creative efforts.