Cities and Memory - remixing the world

"There was a lovely intro on the piece I selected, a repeating radio station indent that sounded great. I looped part of this and added a number of synths playing alongside it, some with slight effects, it was a nice sound and I found looping it for a few minutes was pleasent. I added some other little bits of the radio transmission, voice snippets and a sad sounding violin track that was on the piece I selected. That seemed to round the piece off nicely and felt that was enough. I did another version with building beats but decided to scrap this and stick with this simpler version."

Composition by Audio Obscura.

Part of the Shortwave Transmissions project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of shortwave radio - find out more and see the whole project at https://citiesandmemory.com/shortwave

"The original recording is a broadcast from a Christian radio station based in Papua New Guinea. The snippets I chose to sample includes the radio announcer's speech, a few bars of gospel music and a variety of celebratory whoops. It got me thinking about radio as a force connecting isolated people with their communities or cultures, something which many of us were grateful for during the recent lockdowns. While in the original recording reflects the mood of an evangelical church meeting, it could equally stand for the atmosphere of a rave, a football match or a rock concert."

Composition by Kveis.

Part of the Shortwave Transmissions project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of shortwave radio - find out more and see the whole project at https://citiesandmemory.com/shortwave

"This piece was built around a recording capturing the voice of a Preacher out of Guatemala. I was fascinated by the dial spinning and cruft that surrounded the voice- music, noise, other voices slipping in. I'm fascinated by layered voices- so I dug into my archives and found a number of other sermons that I've used in projects in the past, and layered and spatialized them into and around the recording to complicate the listening experience. I also layered in an improvisation I had recorded on my modular synth rig that included bursts of static filtered through a number of effects, allowing the much cleaner recording to blend with the fascinating grain of the shortwave recording."

Composition by Jeffrey Nils Gardner.

Part of the Shortwave Transmissions project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of shortwave radio - find out more and see the whole project at https://citiesandmemory.com/shortwave

"In a field in Ottawa, Canada, a 1940s facility distributes the signals of time, maintained by the National Research Council and occasional human contact. The 2015 bilingual broadcast sample featured throughout Ottawa Shortwave (provided by SRAA contributor, Richard Langley) is used almost as-is, as it fights against a timestretched version of itself and tries to make every second count, despite the irregularities of the Earth’s rotation. 

Read more at https://www.radioworld.com/global/chu-canadas-time-station."

Composition by Roberta Fidora.

Part of the Shortwave Transmissions project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of shortwave radio - find out more and see the whole project at https://citiesandmemory.com/shortwave

"I wanted to keep the very organic feel of the original recording. Using only this single sound through numerous processings, I performed the fragments produced live, as on a theatre stage."

Composition by Stormy.

Part of the Shortwave Transmissions project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of shortwave radio - find out more and see the whole project at https://citiesandmemory.com/shortwave

This broadcast was recorded in Europe on October 17, 2014 at 0545 UTC, shortwave frequency of 7320 kHz.

Recorded by Frank, courtesy of the Shortwave Radio Archive.

Part of the Shortwave Transmissions project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of shortwave radio - find out more and see the whole project at https://citiesandmemory.com/shortwave

Inaugural shortwave broadcast and celebration of Wantok Radio Light, Papua New Guinea on June 11, 2005. Frequency was 7120 kHz. Receiver: AOR AR7030+. Antenna: Wellbrook Communications ALA100 Phased Delta Loop Antenna. Recorded by Guy Atkins at Grayland, Washington USA.

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00:00 Introduction by speaker or host named "Witness"

01:31 Song "Naso Joda" by the band P2-UIF ("P2-United in Faith"; the Gospel band's name honors those killed in the missionary aviation plane P2-UIF that crashed in Papua New Guinea ). A YouTube video of the song being performed live in August 2012 is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQvkKWROal0

03:00 Praise for the signal of Wantok Radio Light to go out through all the world

03:50 Testimony of James

09:18 Solo music on harmonica: "Jesus Saves" performed by James

12:06 Phone conversation with "Brother Paul": salutations to Wantok Radio Light; praise for the new shortwave transmitter

15:52 More talk by Witness

17:50 Live music

23:40 Praise & talk with announcer Witness

24:52 Live Music

28:52 Talk & praise by Witness

29:43 "You're listening to Radio Light, Wantok Radio Light, live right here,  the one and only; live right here Amen, at the top of Minion House, right at the top. That's right! We're right at the top."

Recorded by Guy Atkins, courtesy of the Shortwave Radio Archive.

Part of the Shortwave Transmissions project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of shortwave radio - find out more and see the whole project at https://citiesandmemory.com/shortwave

  Broadcaster: TGNA - Guatemala

Frequency: 3,300 kHz

Receiver Location: Kingsport, Tennessee

Recorded by Timothy Land, courtesy of the Shortwave Radio Archive.

Part of the Shortwave Transmissions project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of shortwave radio - find out more and see the whole project at https://citiesandmemory.com/shortwave

Live recording of time signal station CHU, Canada, on 30 June 2015 beginning at exactly 23:55:00 UTC on a frequency of 7850 kHz. The recording last exactly 10 minutes and 1 second, ending at 0:10:00 UTC. A leap second occurs at 23:59:60 UTC. This can be noted by the 1 second of silence between the 5m:00s mark in the recording (23:59:60 UTC) and the 5m:01s mark (0:00:00 UTC) denoted by the start of the one-second-long tone. This is followed by 9 seconds of silence. Before the leap second, the forecast difference between UT1 and UTC (DUT1 = UT1 minus UTC) to a precision of one tenth of a second was -0.7 seconds. This is indicated by CHU by using a sequence of double tones at 9 seconds through 15 seconds after the start of each minute except for the minute beginning an hour. Following the leap second, DUT1 is +0.3 seconds, marked by double tones at 2 seconds through 4 seconds after the start of the minute, again, except for the minute beginning an hour. 

Recorded by Richard Langley, courtesy of the Shortwave Radio Archive.

Part of the Shortwave Transmissions project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of shortwave radio - find out more and see the whole project at https://citiesandmemory.com/shortwave

The recording, in Spanish, is a typical Radio Reloj broadcast with two announcers alternately reading news bulletins accompanied by time signals. The announcers identify the station and verbally give the local time each minute. In addition to the verbal station identification, each minute either the letters RR in morse code (using 1800 Hz tones) are transmitted or five-note chimes (D4, G4, B4, D5, B4) are played. The chimes sound like those of a dinner chime or even some door bells and are reminiscent of the U.S. National Broadcasting Company (NBC) chimes. On a couple of occasions in this recording, during a particular minute, neither the morse code nor the chimes are used and sometimes, during a particular minute, both are used. In this recording, we can also hear at some minutes pairs of tones being played going up and down the scale as news headlines are read. On other occasions, three- and four-note chimes in various sequences have been heard (perhaps at the announcers' whim).

Different tones identify each second, minute, and five-minute epochs. Based on measurements, each second is marked with a "seconds tick" consisting 10 cycles of a 1000 Hz tone (0.01 seconds duration). Minutes, except for multiples of 5 minutes, are marked by 172 cycles of a 1000 Hz tone (0.172 seconds duration). Every 5 minutes, the marker is extended to 672 cycles of a 1000 Hz tone (0.672 seconds duration). The minute and 5-minute markers are preceded by 5 cycles of a 1000 Hz tone, followed by 0.013 seconds of silence.

Recorded by Richard Langley, courtesy of the Shortwave Radio Archive.

Part of the Shortwave Transmissions project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of shortwave radio - find out more and see the whole project at https://citiesandmemory.com/shortwave