Cities and Memory - remixing the world

This recording features a cappella chants from the Breton tradition performed in solo within the historic chapels of Ouessant island - a unique acoustic setting where complaints, canticles and popular songs resound in French and Breton. 

Recorded on Ouessant Island, France by Florent Picollet.

The recording is from April 17, 2025. The recording point was chosen under the iron bridge that crosses the Tiber River near the town of Pretola a few kilometers from Perugia in Umbria. Interesting reflections and resonances are created under the bridge. Water is certainly the dominant acoustic element but its veil is constantly torn by a multitude of sounds. 

The bridge, despite being located in a densely populated and busy area, isolates the urban environment creating a capsule of natural sounds.

Recorded by Nicola Fumo Frattegiani.

A surreal discovery in a deserted motorway service station in Lazio. Behind the gas pumps stands a small, post-modern chapel, empty and silent. Inside, hidden low-fi speakers broadcast a bizarre loop of farm animals (goats, roosters) and distorted Christmas carols. 

The recording captures the haunting reverb of this lonely, sacred space, where kitsch sounds and motorway melancholy collide in a glitchy, suburban liturgy.

Recorded in Casalecchio di Reno (BO), Italy by Andrea Tondi.

Tourists strolling on the foggy night, we could hear men singing in a courtyard just beyond the bridge. Using my iPhone with a Rode Me-L, I walked to the circle of men, paused, and then exited down a narrow pathway between two buildings. Subsequent research confirmed that we were in an historic Jewish ghetto and the occasion for song and feasting was Lag BaOmar. 

Recorded in Venice by Emiko Morita.

IMAGE: G.dallorto, CC BY-SA 2.5 IT <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/it/deed.en>, via Wikimedia Commons

"The haunting chants from this recording are so powerful, at first I was intimidated. I really wanted to preserve the integrity of the voices while also creating a new sonic experience. I also wanted to explore the type of communion that happens in a space such as this historic chapel. 

|So utilising a lot of stretching to mimic waves on the sea I hoped to express the expanse of time across generations, a reaching out of one hand to grasp another. It’s as if a story is always unfolding through this beautiful oral tradition and my hope is to emphasize the sacredness of that here."

Ouessant Island chapel reimagined by Aemivore.

"A surreal discovery in a deserted motorway service station in Lazio. Behind the gas pumps stands a small, post-modern chapel, empty and silent. Inside, hidden low-fi speakers broadcast a bizarre loop of farm animals and distorted Christmas carols. The recording captures the haunting reverb of this lonely, sacred space, where kitsch sounds and motorway melancholy collide in a glitchy, suburban liturgy.

"To respond to this recording, I wanted to preserve its surreal, absurd and almost filmic character. The scene felt like something from a strange theatre production or an abandoned movie set, where familiar sounds take on an unsettling, dreamlike quality against the hum of the road. To capture this feeling I used a piano-led approach, collaging harmonic and melodic sounds from the recording and using pauses and space. Rather than filling the sonic landscape, I wanted to create room for the atmosphere of the original recording. I was reminded of Samuel Beckett and his use of absurdity, repetition and space in writing this piece. I aimed to use the theatrical strangeness of the recording while leaving space for its strangeness and melancholy to linger."

Italian autogrill nativity reimagined by Laura Hills.

"While I was exploring the recording, I noticed a small pulsating noise, almost like the beating of a heart. It made me think about the interconnectedness of nature — no living being is truly separate, there is the same pulse that runs through every fibre of this planet. 

"I started to play with the idea of turning the river into something bodily while maintaining a feeling of abstraction and fluidity. Since I wanted to fully explore its pure potentiality, I chose not to add any new sounds or instruments: Every sound in this piece is created from the same sample."

Pretola bridge reimagined by Jen S. Neidhardt.

"I was captivated by the collective choral singing and the way the melody naturally became fractured and glitched through the layering of voices and their echoes bouncing through the streets.

"The main vocal melody became the backbone of the piece, with alto clarinet framing and responding to the voices before drones and distortion gradually emerge. The rhythmic clapping provides momentum for the second half, carrying the music forward as the singing slowly dissipates into the distance, leaving the clarinet alone to complete the melody."

Venetian ghetto soundscape reimagined by N.Kleiner.

IMAGE: G.dallorto, CC BY-SA 2.5 IT <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/it/deed.en>, via Wikimedia Commons

"My response to the field recording started with appreciating the every-day sounds in the recording, and recognising that sometimes it is in the every-day-ness of those sounds there is something special: when we can pay attention to all the detail is where I personally find moments of quiet revelation, dappled sunlight, the light on clouds or time to listen to birdsong. From there it was embroidered with a piano part, reverbed strings and MS20."

Port Colborne soundscape reimagined by de Velden.

"My great-grandfather was a glassblower. He was gone long before my time, but I grew up feeling his presence in my grandmother's house. Hearing this field recording felt like a way back to him, and to something older. Molten glass has always reminded me of primordial earth and creation myths. I built the piece from fragments of the recording, layered with synthesizers. I hope you find something cosmic in here. 

"Thus created were the islands,
Rocks were fastened in the ocean,
Pillars of the sky were planted,
Fields and forests were created,
Checkered stones of many colors,
Gleaming in the silver sunlight"
— Kalevala, Rune I, translated by John Martin Crawford (1888) 

St Helen's glassblowing reimagined by Anni Roenkae.