Cities and Memory - remixing the world

The tram ride in Oslo, Norway from Kontraskjaeret to Jernbanetorget outside the main station, with beeps, doors opening and closing, track sounds and announcements. 

Recorded in September 2025 by Cities and Memory. 

The sounds of a working steam-powered Victorian beam engine, recorded during one of its open-to-the-public steaming days. It’s located in the grounds of the former Tottenham Sewage Works, now a community park. 

The rotary beam engine was built in 1888, and features a 27-foot flywheel and 21-foot beam. It drove two pumps, each capable of moving 2 million gallons per day.

Recorded by Paul Wheeler.

"Based on a field recording of the Paris to Charles deGaulle train, put through some effects and instrumentation added."

Train ride to Charles de Gaulle airport reimagined by David Aimone.

"It was a privilege to work with this huge-sounding field recording of a massive moving body of water. I tried to stay true to it by not adding any instruments, everything you hear is either the original recording or processed from it."

Bremerhaven lock sounds reimagined by percolator.

"I listened to the file once and very quickly I was drawn into the journey. I tried to give "shape," or rather "sound," to what the voices and noises of the tram produced, what they triggered within me. I followed the rhythm; an imaginary flow, somewhat haunted or at least inhabited, took shape along the length of the original file."

Oslo tram ride reimagined by Philippe Neau.

"I liked the clanky & clunky-ness of this recording, like a slowed down industrial techno track. I used Ableton to convert it to melody, harmony and drum midi parts, then messed around with those until i got it to sound right on top of the recording. I added a pitched down version for more bass boom. I also added loads of layers of greasy reverb and oily grains to replicate the decades of use of the beam engine."

Markfield beam engine reimagined by Dave Webb.

At the same time as recording the spiral staircase waterfall at Folie number six in La Villette, Paris, we also took a vibrational recording of the structure with a Geofon at the same time.

This piece blends the Geofon structural vibration recording in one channel with the "normal" microphone recording in the other channel. They start on the left and right respectively, and swap sides by the end, meeting in the middle with both sounds centralised. In this way, we can hear what our ears hear, but also experience the "hidden" sounds beyond our human hearing - two sounds from the same space at the same time.

Folie number six reimagined by Cities and Memory. 

The Folies were designed by the architect Bernard Tschumi for the Parc de la Villette in Paris. 

These metal structures are placed around the park, and take the form of red metal structures that stand out from a distance. While their square bases are all identical (10.8 metres per side), their shapes vary according to their purpose. Each Folie is identified by a name and a code composed of a combination of letters and numbers. 

This is a recording from Folie L6, which features a spiral staircase waterfall - here we can hear the water tumbling down into a pool at ground level, while the sounds of the park continue around us. 

Recorded in April 2026 by Cities and Memory. 

"I've long been fascinated by sunsets; no two are alike. Where I live currently (early-2026 as of this writing), we have "The Golden Hour" every evening - named for the color of the sun's waning light as it travels through more of the Earth's atmosphere, making for longer, warmer wavelengths, or a "golden" atmospheric glow that on the best days can be all encompassing. 

"I'm also fascinated by how light travels relative to perceived time, and as such, the bent light of a sunset we observe is 8-minutes removed from the true sun's positioning - emphasizing this point, we're quite literally seeing the past inside the present with every day's new sunset, not unlike every star in the night sky thereafter, shown as distant-travelled light from things long past. Every sunset, like every star in the night sky, is a eulogy of distant daylight past and gone, never to be repeated the same again, and only observable by us in that moment. 

"This is a composition saying farewell to the day's light, as it travels further into the past for other distant observers, and we continue onward with our perception of time towards our next bit of light in our present moment. Light travels as waves, and the waves of the ocean at sunset in Jake Edwards' field recording spoke deeply to me due to my fascination with the conceptual physics around light, our perception of it, and it's wave-space in the electromagnetic spectrum. All of this observation is bolstered by both the voices of people and the symphony of cicadas present to observe this once-in-a-lifetime, wholly unique fading light on the day Jake was present to document it."

Koh Mook beach, Thailand reimagined by Akira Film Script.

This recording takes place at Charlie Beach on Koh Mook, Thailand during the sunset hour. Listen to the combination of waves hitting the shore, the chatter of people and cicadas buzzing as the day comes to an end.

Recorded by Jake Edwards.