Last year I noticed the freezers in my local co-op store sounded quite nice. They’re in the corner and you’re surrounded by them. The fans are somehow tuned to two notes, one slightly louder than the other, creating a nice chord. My son didn’t agree, so I posted to the Sheffield reddit asking if others had noticed.
Ecclesall road co-op freezers
Anyone noticed how nice the freezers sound in the eccy road co-op? It’s like all the fans have been carefully tuned to the calmest droning chord ever, it’s like being in an electrical gong bath. I thought it might have been a freak event when I first heard it but it’s been that way for a couple of months. If anyone has some decent field recording equipment I’d really recommend capturing it
A couple of people replied that they did. Over the next week or so there were a couple of follow up posts, with people who’s visited the shop confirming that the freezers did sound nice. For example:
The co-op freezers are not a lie
I must start this post by saying that I didn’t believe the original post. How can freezers make any kind of noise that is comforting in anyway. After all, they’re just freezers. Holy shit I was wrong. I walked in and instantly I could hear a low hum that put me at ease. As I got closer, they got louder, and I swear it was as if I was in a monastery and the monks were calling me. Highly recommend. u/yaxu you brilliant bastard, you’ve discovered something important.
It took a while for someone to share a short recording of it, which triggered a lot of analysis from armchair musicologists of what the chord was, a 10-hour youtube remix, etc. Someone reposted the video to X, which caught on (currently at 1M+ views). I would normally think a bit less of people still using X when it’s run by a weirdo far-right ketamine billionaire, but seeing as the person in question used the opportunity to promote sludge metal, trans rights, Sheffield’s independent venues etc, and muted all the blue checks, you’ve got to respect that!
Anyway it wasn’t long before I was being interviewed about it on BBC Radio 4’s “the world tonight”. It’s kind of funny that it hit international news, then national before being picked up by local news. I saw a few comments saying that ‘it must be a slow news day’ which I found funny, considering how much news there is at the moment with world war, climate chaos, financial turmoil, elite pedophile rings being exposed etc. I think people are just happy to have the privilege of a break from it by listening to some nice freezers.
Some lovely local musicians Emergence Collective walked in and did a short improvisation with the freezers:
With the community producing a lovely album using the samples of the freezers in aid of a local foodbank:
The wider co-op organisation of course noticed, and used the attention in their marketing, making instagram posts, producing their own ‘official’ 8 hour remix on youtube. I’m a bit disappointed that they haven’t reached out to any of the people involved, maybe their own donation to a foodbank would be in order? They’ll have benefited from all the free airtime. Ah well.
Here’s some of the coverage I’ve noticed:
Wave one:
(initial response to viral twitter post)
– Radio 4 World Tonight from around 37m30s: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002rdyj
– Radio 1 breakfast with Greg James, from 3h13m00s https:// www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002r2fk
– Radio 2 Jeremy Vine, from 1h34m30s https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002r2h7
– Music radar: https://www.musicradar.com/music-tech/those-fridges-are-probably-the-fourth-best-musical-group-to-come-out-of-sheffield-supermarket-goes-viral-for-the-chilled-ambient-drones-of-its-freezer-section
– The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/feb/18/the-sheffield-supermarket-going-viral-for-the-symphonic-sound-of-its-freezers
– Sheffield essentials: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1675867343791779
– Radio Sheffield https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0n24h5b
Wave two:
(coverage of the coverage)
– Time out https://www.timeout.com/uk/news/how-a-co-op-supermarket-freezer-in-sheffield-became-an-unlikely-ambient-hit-030426
– Mixmag https://mixmag.net/read/ambient-hum-emitted-co-op-freezers-sheffield-10-hour-loop-youtube-eccy-road-news/
– NME https://www.nme.com/news/music/viral-sheffield-co-op-sound-bath-freezers-turned-into-10-hour-ambient-loop-3932642
– DJ https://djmag.com/news/viral-ambient-drone-sheffield-co-op-freezers-now-available-10-hour-loop-youtube
Wave three:
(coverage of emergence gig, album etc)
– Radio Sheffield https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002rz9z -1h07m
– BBC South Yorkshire https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgld40d23mo
I’ve probably missed some!
A funny thing is that a friend already noticed the freezers back in 2018 – so they’ve been making this chord for around 8 years! They sound in good health so hopefully they’ll carry on going for many more years.