diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index a85fce1dac..462c7bc4cd 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -13,6 +13,9 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](http://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.
 
 * Better syntax errors for invalid use of `!`.
 
+* `futhark literate` now supports a `$loadaudio` builtin function for loading
+  audio to Futhark programs.
+
 ### Removed
 
 ### Changed
diff --git a/docs/man/futhark-literate.rst b/docs/man/futhark-literate.rst
index cbf743557c..19ba46db0d 100644
--- a/docs/man/futhark-literate.rst
+++ b/docs/man/futhark-literate.rst
@@ -270,6 +270,10 @@ Futhark.  The following builtins are supported:
   of values is returned, which should be destructured before use. For example:
   ``let (a, b) = $loaddata "foo.in" in bar a b``.
 
+* ``$loadaudio "file"`` reads audio from the given file and returns it as a
+  ``[][]f64``, where each row corresponds to a channel of the original
+  sound-file.
+
 SAFETY
 ======
 
diff --git a/src/Futhark/CLI/Literate.hs b/src/Futhark/CLI/Literate.hs
index 7afbe92784..fd443d830f 100644
--- a/src/Futhark/CLI/Literate.hs
+++ b/src/Futhark/CLI/Literate.hs
@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@ import Data.Set qualified as S
 import Data.Text qualified as T
 import Data.Text.Encoding qualified as T
 import Data.Text.IO qualified as T
+import Data.Text.Read qualified as T
 import Data.Vector.Storable qualified as SVec
 import Data.Vector.Storable.ByteString qualified as SVec
 import Data.Void
@@ -609,6 +610,33 @@ loadData datafile = do
     Just vs ->
       pure $ ValueTuple $ map ValueAtom vs
 
+loadPCM :: Int -> FilePath -> ScriptM (Compound Value)
+loadPCM num_channels pcmfile = do
+  contents <- liftIO $ LBS.readFile pcmfile
+  let v = SVec.byteStringToVector $ LBS.toStrict contents
+      channel_length = SVec.length v `div` num_channels
+      shape =
+        SVec.fromList
+          [ fromIntegral num_channels,
+            fromIntegral channel_length
+          ]
+      -- ffmpeg outputs audio data in column-major format. `backPermuter` computes the
+      -- tranposed indexes for a backpermutation.
+      backPermuter i = (i `mod` channel_length) * num_channels + i `div` channel_length
+      perm = SVec.generate (SVec.length v) backPermuter
+  pure $ ValueAtom $ F64Value shape $ SVec.backpermute v perm
+
+loadAudio :: FilePath -> ScriptM (Compound Value)
+loadAudio audiofile = do
+  s <- system "ffprobe" [audiofile, "-show_entries", "stream=channels", "-select_streams", "a", "-of", "compact=p=0:nk=1", "-v", "0"] mempty
+  case T.decimal s of
+    Right (num_channels, _) -> do
+      withTempDir $ \dir -> do
+        let pcmfile = dir </> takeBaseName audiofile `replaceExtension` "pcm"
+        void $ system "ffmpeg" ["-i", audiofile, "-c:a", "pcm_f64le", "-map", "0", "-f", "data", pcmfile] mempty
+        loadPCM num_channels pcmfile
+    _ -> throwError "$loadImg failed to detect the number of channels in the audio input"
+
 literateBuiltin :: EvalBuiltin ScriptM
 literateBuiltin "loadimg" vs =
   case vs of
@@ -630,6 +658,16 @@ literateBuiltin "loaddata" vs =
       throwError $
         "$loaddata does not accept arguments of types: "
           <> T.intercalate ", " (map (prettyText . fmap valueType) vs)
+literateBuiltin "loadaudio" vs =
+  case vs of
+    [ValueAtom v]
+      | Just path <- getValue v -> do
+          let path' = map (chr . fromIntegral) (path :: [Word8])
+          loadAudio path'
+    _ ->
+      throwError $
+        "$loadaudio does not accept arguments of types: "
+          <> T.intercalate ", " (map (prettyText . fmap valueType) vs)
 literateBuiltin f _ =
   throwError $ "Unknown builtin function $" <> prettyText f
 
diff --git a/tests_literate/audio.fut b/tests_literate/audio.fut
index e90e6fe738..69eda335c3 100644
--- a/tests_literate/audio.fut
+++ b/tests_literate/audio.fut
@@ -76,3 +76,7 @@ entry surround =
   in [left, right, right, right, right, right]
 
 -- > :audio surround
+
+-- > $loadaudio "mono.wav"
+
+-- > $loadaudio "stereo.wav"
diff --git a/tests_literate/expected/audio.md b/tests_literate/expected/audio.md
index f73be5437e..a5e31b460f 100644
--- a/tests_literate/expected/audio.md
+++ b/tests_literate/expected/audio.md
@@ -107,3 +107,22 @@ entry surround =
 
 ![](audio-img/7e0c96822c449db1dd5712a2b809ff40-output.wav)
 
+
+```
+> $loadaudio "mono.wav"
+```
+
+```
+[[-0.9921875f64, -0.984375f64, -0.9765625f64]]
+```
+
+
+```
+> $loadaudio "stereo.wav"
+```
+
+```
+[[-0.9921875f64, -0.984375f64, -0.9765625f64],
+[-0.96875f64, -0.9609375f64, -0.953125f64]]
+```
+