Brum SoundTracks is available now on iOS and Android.

Birmingham’s music history, in your pocket

Brum SoundTracks is a new location-based app that brings Birmingham’s rich musical heritage to life through self-guided walking tours, archive material, and augmented reality experiences.

Created in partnership with BOM (Birmingham Open Media), the app lets you explore the city through the stories, venues, artists, and scenes that shaped Birmingham’s globally influential music culture.

At the centre of the experience is Birmingham Music Archive Founder/Director, Jez Collins, who appears throughout the app (in many guises!) as your guide to the city’s musical past and present.

Explore Birmingham through music

From heavy metal and reggae to bhangra, punk, jazz, folk, indie, electronic music, and beyond, Brum SoundTracks helps uncover the people, places, and communities that built Birmingham’s unique sound.

Using the app, you can:

• Follow curated music trails across Birmingham
• Discover iconic venues and hidden music landmarks
• Unlock archive photographs, posters, and stories on location
• Explore by genre, artist, or area of the city
• Experience augmented reality content featuring our own Jez Collins
• Listen to specially curated Birmingham playlists and soundtracks

Whether you are a lifelong Brummie, a music fan visiting the city, or someone curious about Birmingham’s cultural history, Brum SoundTracks offers a new way to experience the city.

A guide like no other!

For years, Birmingham Music Archive has documented, celebrated, and preserved the city’s music heritage.

Brum SoundTracks builds on that work by placing those stories directly into the streets and spaces where Birmingham’s music history happened.

Throughout the app, Jez appears as your pocket tour guide, introducing venues, sharing stories, and connecting Birmingham’s musical past to the present day.

“Birmingham’s music history is everywhere. Brum SoundTracks helps people experience those stories where they actually happened.”

Filmed using BOM’s virtual production and immersive technology facilities, the AR experiences create an engaging and accessible way to discover Birmingham’s music culture at locations across the city.

A collaboration between Birmingham Music Archive and BOM

Brum SoundTracks has been developed by BOM (Birmingham Open Media) in collaboration with Birmingham Music Archive.

The project combines BMA’s extensive archive and deep knowledge of Birmingham’s music culture with BOM’s expertise in immersive technology, digital storytelling, and augmented reality.

“This project combines archive, storytelling, technology, and place to celebrate Birmingham’s musical identity in a new way.”

Together, the project aims to make Birmingham’s music history more visible, accessible, and engaging for audiences of all ages.

Funding

The Brum SoundTracks app has been developed by BOM in collaboration with Birmingham Music Archive. The project is funded by the UK government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

The UK Shared Prosperity Fund aims to improve pride in place and increase life chances across the UK investing in communities and place, supporting local business, and people and skills.

For more information, visit https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-shared-prosperity-fund-prospectus

Birmingham Music Archive and a group of passionate volunteers invited people from across the city and beyond to share their memories and items of memorabilia related to the Town Hall. Culminating in a permanent on-site installation, alongside a fully accessible digital archive, the history of Birmingham Town Hall is now available to a local, national and worldwide audience for the first time.

First opened in 1834, Birmingham Town Hall has hosted countless legendary artists and momentous events during its 191-year history. Moments in history have been marked within its walls, with Queen Victoria and leading suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst both having taken to the stage. In more recent times the venue has showcased musical icons such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Nina Simone and David Bowie to name just a few.

In December 2025, a significant piece of Birmingham’s cultural history was permanently marked at Town Hall with the unveiling of a new blue plaque commemorating the first-ever public reading of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. The plaque recognises Dickens’ reading on 27 December 1853, delivered to an audience of nearly 2,000 people, and was unveiled by Birmingham actor Anton Lesser alongside the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Councillor Zafar Iqbal MBE.

The unveiling coincided with the launch of our new permanent archive installation across the lower floor of Town Hall, celebrating almost 200 years of the venue’s history.

Creating the legacy

During July and August 2025 we hosted 5 drop-in sessions at B:Music venues, Town Hall and Symphony Hall. Volunteers scanned and recorded memories, researched archives, and explored the Town Hall’s history to bring together all the programmes, photographs, tickets and posters that were used in the design of the installation. They’ve also populated the new digital archive with the materials uncovered.

We really want to say a special thank you to our ‘Dream Team’ – this project couldn’t have happened without them: Alison, Angela, Ann, Bernie, Caroline, Ciara, Julie, Layla, Marc, Margaret, Maggie, Marie, Mary, Matt B, Matt F, Mick, Molly, Neil, Paul C, Paul J, Phil, Phillipa, Rachel, Rob, Rosie, Simren, Susanna, Wayne and William. We’re also grateful to everyone who turned up with a piece of memorabilia, recorded a memory, or donated items to the project.

Couldn’t get to a drop-in?

If you have memorabilia or a story you’d like to contribute to the archive but couldn’t get to the drop- ins, please email info@birminghammusicarchive.com with ‘Amplify Town Hall’ in the subject line for further information about how to contribute, or use the contact form here.

Support the fundraising appeal

B:Music have launched a public fundraising appeal to raise £200,000 towards this transformative project. Your support will help them improve accessibility for audiences and artists, upgrade facilities and protect Birmingham Town Hall for future generations. Donate, set up a regular gift, name a Town Hall seat or become a sponsor.

There are lots of way to support the project.

The creation of the Birmingham Town Hall archive was made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Thanks to National Lottery players, we have been able to collate and share the extraordinary history of the Town Hall, protecting these important items and stories for future generations.

A documentary, In The Que: Celebrating the Que Club is also available to watch. The film explores the legendary Birmingham club’s history, its iconic raves like House of God and Atomic Jam, and its significance to Birmingham’s music scene. It features interviews with DJs, promoters, clubbers, and staff who were part of the Que Club experience between 1989 and 2017. 

Opening in 1989, the Que Club saw the likes of The Chemical Brothers, Altern8, Massive Attack, and David Bowie perform at the beautiful Grade II* listed Methodist Central Hall. Daft Punk even used Que Club for a live set of their 1997 album ‘Alive’, while BBC Radio One Essential Mixes recorded mixes with Carl Cox, Sven Väth, and Paul Oakenfold at the venue.

The exhibition included newly discovered photographs of 1990s rave culture taken by the fashion photographer Terence Donovan shortly before he died, displayed for the first time. The intimate shots of revellers lost in the sounds of the Que Club are thought to be some of the last photographs Donovan took.

Hidden in a drawer in Wolverhampton for 25 years, the images mark a very unusual shift in subject matter for the photographer, who made his name in the 1960s capturing ‘swinging London’ and supermodels such as Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton.

Donovan’s son had sent the pictures to Chris Wishart, a founder of the House of God club night. They lay in the drawer at Wishart’s house until Jez Collins, founder of the Birmingham Music Archive, turned up to interview Chris for the documentary.

“I interviewed him for an hour and a half and he didn’t mention Terence coming to the club or the photographs. But as we were walking out the door, he said ‘Jez, I think you might be interested in this.’ And I opened this drawer, and there was this box of Terence Donovan photographs. They were just stunning.”

Watch Jez Collins from Birmingham Music Archive sharing some highlights from the exhibition.

As part of the festival, and in partnership with B:Music, Birmingham Music Archive programmed a series of live events, simultaneously recording the podcast series, On Record | In Conversation. Broadcaster Satnam Rana and Journalist Adrian Goldberg present twenty-two conversations with Birmingham musicians, promoters, managers, venue owners and entrepreneurs who have all contributed to local, national, and international music culture. The conversations focus on their life in music, their connection to the city, and how it influenced or inspired their work, as well as what they think of Birmingham and our music.

The podcasts were also broadcast on BBC Radio WM and are available to stream on BBC Sounds and all major platforms. They include conversations with radio DJ Bobby Friction, reggae band Friendly Fire, jazz musician Xhosa Cole, music manager and entrepreneur John Mostyn, and 80s icon Toyah! Listen here:

Ceremony: Pop Comes to Campus, 1965–95 is an installation celebrating the University of Birmingham’s rich but often overlooked role in local and global music culture. Drawing on newly uncovered posters, photographs and archive material, the project was developed by Birmingham Music Archive in collaboration with UoB student researchers, who traced three decades of popular and alternative music on campus.

From the mid-1960s onwards, the University was a key stop on the ‘university touring circuit’. Gigs organised by the student events committee brought world-class acts to venues across campus, giving audiences of students and staff a first glimpse of artists who would go on to shape music history.

The Guild of Students, Deb Hall, High Hall, Founders Bar, Mason Hall and Cellar Bar hosted hundreds of performances, with line-ups that included Joan Armatrading, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, The Cure, The Human League, The Who, and UB40.

One of the most remarkable finds was material from Joy Division’s last ever gig, held at the University. Rare photographs and an original set list were brought to light and are now displayed as part of the installation — a reminder of the campus’s unique place in music history.

Birmingham Uni’s famous alumni include:

• Joan Armatrading, singer-songwriter and recipient of the Ivor Novello Award
• Janet Beat, electronic music pioneer
• Sister Bliss AKA Ayalah Deborah Bentovim, co-founder of Faithless, who had seven UK top ten singles
• Spencer Davis, whose 1960s band reached number one with Keep On Running
• Amrita Hunjan, singer with R&B/pop band Rouge
• Simon Le Bon, lead singer of Duran Duran
• Mistress Mo AKA Mo Jones, co-promoter and DJ at Flashback and co-founder of TicketSellers.
• Bill Sharpe of jazz-funk band Shakatak
• Karl Willetts, death metal vocalist of Bolt Thrower and Memoriam

The installation can be seen at Bramall Music Building, University of Birmingham.

Admission: Free