Cities and Memory - remixing the world
Summary: Cities and Memory remixes the world, one sound at a time - a global collaboration between artists and sound recordists all over the world. The project presents an amazingly-diverse array of field recordings from all over the world, but also reimagined, recomposed versions of those recordings as we go on a mission to remix the world. What you'll hear in the podcast are our latest sounds - either a field recording from somewhere in the world, or a remixed new composition based solely on those sounds. Each podcast description tells you more about what you're hearing, and where it came from. There are more than 6,000 sounds featured on our sound map, spread over more than 120 countries and territories. The sounds cover parts of the world as diverse as the hubbub of San Francisco’s main station, traditional fishing women’s songs at Lake Turkana, the sound of computer data centres in Birmingham, spiritual temple chanting in New Taipei City or the hum of the vaporetto engines in Venice. You can explore the project in full at http://www.citiesandmemory.com
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Podcasts:
Burano piazza reimagined by Lee Clift. "Using the original field recording source I sliced the audio at interesting percussive points, arranging the samples into a musical gridded format, I looped it continuously to form the blueprint of the composition. "Using many different types of effect buss channels I condensed the audio further and further until the layers revealed the final arrangement. This is an oversimplification of a very long adding and subtracting process. "The title came about due to the ordered nature of the composition as well as thinking about the ordered nature of the place."
The Sassi-Superga tramway reimagined by Tenali Hrenak.
Rome's metro reimagined by Joel Graham. "The beginning is a short part of the original with a door shut. The rest is the original recording processed into "pseudo lo-fi ambient nature". I added my own footsteps."
A steep-line tramway first opened in 1884, connecting the Sassi suburb of Turin, Italy to the Superga hillside monument. Recorded by Cities and Memory.
Metro trip from Rome Termini to S. Pietro station, recorded by Cities and Memory.
The sounds of Piazza Galuppi on the island of Burano, Venice. Recorded by Cities and Memory.
The stairs inside the Duomo of Milan, reimagined by Vladlen Tepes. "Original recording of climbing the stairs of the Duomo cathedral is playing through the entire track, resonates with my Eurorack modular gear to create a drone pad and with some delay for occasional rhythm. I was trying to achieve the impression of a slow, constant ascension from the reverberant darkness of the cathedral interior to the bright light of day on the top."
Climbing the steps of the Duomo in Milan, recorded by Cities and Memory.
Hydrofoil at Favignana, reimagined by Richard Watts. "I really liked the strange rhythmns in the background of the original recording as the hydrofoil cuts through the waves so have tried to reproduce those. I also like the talking between the mother and child so have included that." Photographer: Danilo Cedrone Credit: Courtesy of United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
Hydrofoil departs the harbour at Favignana, off the coast of Sicily. Recorded by Cities and Memory. Photographer: Danilo Cedrone Credit: Courtesy of United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
Tahrir Square protest in Cairo reimagined by Cities and Memory. Pulsing waves of brass instruments create a sense of foreboding, over a bed of filtered and manipulated sections of the field recording. Snippets from the protest jump in and out, mirrored by mournful excerpts of singing.
A protest taking place in Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt, recorded by Kim Laugs.
Frogs in Fort Canning Park reimagined by Cities and Memory. Taking inspiration from sound effect and foley artists in movies often starting with animal sounds as their base to create fantastic monster sounds, here we've built a soundscape including weird alien calls that have been constructed from the original frog sounds. Every sound in the piece is derived from the original recording. Photo by Matthew Kosloski on Unsplash.
Frog chorus with cicadas recorded at night in Fort Canning Park, Singapore.
Wua Lai night market, Chiang Mai, reimagined by John Tenney.
