Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Cities and Memory - remixing the world

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Cities and Memory - remixing the world episodes

  • Y2K
    "The short wave recording used as source for this piece is a documentation of the turn of the millennium in London, as the world entered the year 2000. I wrote a noisy doom metal track emphasizing the angst of contemporary urban life and the unfulfilled promises of the future. The glitchy ending of the track references the dreaded Y2K millennium bug, which was a source of fear and anxiety for many across the globe and was told to be a possible downfall of civilisation."

    Composition by Thomas Van den Eynde / Anachoreet.

    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
    6 min
  • The fragility of détente
    "The samples are from a shortwave radio recording of the UN Security Council broadcast in January 1980, one of the first responses to the Russian invasion of Afghanistan one month earlier. The invasion created a high level of political uncertainty, had destabilised the fragile détente (an easing of tensions) between the East and West, and had large ramifications for the future politics of the 1980s. The repeated accusations and pleas for peace by the UN Security Council inspired the track, ending in a failed resolution for a Soviet withdrawal, but the underlying thread is fuzziness and uncertainty. Where are we headed sir, that’s the question I’d like to ask."

    Composition by Moray Newlands.

    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
    7 min
  • 1970 – Neue Jahr Null: Vom Himmel hoch
    "25 years and one generation on from the end of WWII, 1970 is the New Year Zero / Neue Jahr Null.

    In SFO the hippies get heroin and Haight became hate. Janis and Jimi OD, RIP. 

    Israel, September 8: a month of plane hijacking begins, known as Black September. Three airliners are hijacked and blown up by Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. 

    This is one instance in a year of terror. 70 terror groups are established in 1970, significantly more than any year before or since in the 20C*. In affluent West Germany the Red Army Faction is established (to be known informally as the Baader Meinhof Gang). 

    In south London a five year old boy looks at the walnut valve radio in his father’s room. Forbidden to touch the bakelite dials, he reads the illuminated place names. Wildly exotic: Cologne; Brazzaville; Sofia; Hilversum; Riga; Bratislava; Moscow; Havana; Tapei; Anchorage; Vatican City; Leipzig. The broadcasters speak in a musical received pronunciation that belies the chaos they report.

    In Cologne, Baader Meinhof, the white collar terrorists, demand "an absolute break with the past and a radical new beginning” as they enact a programme of bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, bank robberies and shoot-outs. Also in Cologne, three friends called Ralph, Florian and Conny set up a studio to bounce new sounds off the ionosphere.

    ——— 
    * Journal of Conflict Resolution 2020, Vol. 64(1) 199-225
    ——— 
    1970 – Neue Jahr Null: Vom Himmel hoch was made with a Synthi 100 and a vocoder."

    Composition by Simon Kennedy.

    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
    9 min
  • The Afrikaans name for a bird, NYE 1977
    "This is from a broadcast of South African radio station on NYE 1977. The polite chat and well wishes bring in the year when Steve Biko would be murdered by Afrikaner police. The bit I am captivated by is the explanation to foreign listeners what the Afrikaans name for a bird is. 

    I was two years old when this was broadcast. I remember Radio 2000 in the house, along with the world service. The radio was a mystery to me. I used to hunt for stations on AM, flicking across from fm out of curiosity. There’s no map or index. Surfing the spaces between stations was intriguing, but mostly disconcerting. The edge of a clear signal was infuriating. The noise drowns everything out. 

    Listening to this broadcast now, I enjoyed the fizz and pips. It is a bit like crickets and birds and leaves, ambient noise of the bush. It made me nostalgic for the names of things, and the Afrikaans words that I never understood, and when news had no meaning. For the joy of serendipity in an ocean of ignorance."

    Composition by Marg Laing.

    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
    2 min
  • Passed messages
    "Passed Messages was inspired by the shortwave radio broadcast recording of a news announcement about a Chinese nuclear bomb test on October 5th, 1969. The recording consists of two parts: The first part, which is the announcers voice (in English with a lot of radio static) and the second part, which is an instrumental song. The song in the second part does not fit with the news about an atomic bomb test; it's from a different time with different mores. To the modern ear, it sounds surreal, almost absurd. 

    Passed Messages is a message about a message encoded as a sound piece, where transmissions from the past are received and decoded, interpreted to recreate the message, but data gets lost due to interference and time. The message is always shrouded in noise."

    Composition by Thomas Haighton.

    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
    4 min
  • The Russian invasion of Afghanistan
    U.N.Radio-Security Council (Jan7, 1980) United Nations Radio - Security Council. 15410 khz. 2030 GMT (0630 Jan 8, 1980 East Australian Time)

    Recorded by Ian Holder, 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
    41 min
  • Palastinian hijackings in Jordan
    Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) (8 Sept.1970)

    Recorded by Ian Holder, 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
    6 min
  • The millennium
    "New Year's Eve has always been a good night to stay home and play radio. This recording is one I won't ever have the chance to hear live again. Here are the last four minutes and forty seconds of the GMT year 1999 and the first 25 minutes twenty seconds of the year 2000. As a tradition I would always welcome the GMT New Year by tuning in to the BBC to hear the chimes from Big Ben (which I believe were heard live).
    Date of recording: 12/31/1999."

    Recorded by Tom Laskowski, 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
    30 min
  • Radio South Africa (RSA) New Year's Eve broadcast
    "During the late 1970s, Radio South Africa (RSA) would broadcast a New Years call-in show. This recording is from 1/1/1978 (12/31/1977 in the US). At two minutes into the recording, you can hear the interval signal for RAI (Italy) in the background. I have scoped (edited) the music. Unsure how long RSA carried on this tradition, but heard a similar call-in broadcast the following year on 1/1/1979."

    Recorded by Tom Gavaras, 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
    23 min
  • 20th anniversary of the nuclear bomb
    Radio Peking - statement on nuclear explosion to mark the 20th anniversary celebrations of the Communist Party of China. Broadcast 7.40pm (East Australian Time) Sunday, October 5, 1969.

    Radio Peking recorded off air in Brisbane, Australia.

    Recorded by Ian Holder, 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
    6 min

About Cities and Memory - remixing the world

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Cities and Memory remixes the world, one sound at a time - a global collaboration between artists and sound recordists all over the world.