Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Cities and Memory - remixing the world

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Cities and Memory - remixing the world episodes

  • The fall of Saigon
    "The incident in Vietnam on 30 April 1975 is known as the Fall of Saigon or the Liberation of Saigon. It depends on which side you support. This historical event unquestionably clarified the end of old-style colonialism. I prefer the former for the title because we still live in the cycle of fall and rise."

    Composition by Keisuke Oki.

    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
  • Fierce fighting in substantial numbers: ships damaged
    "In this story from the BBC World Service, news of the British invasion of the Falkland Islands begins with, as is customary, an announcement of the fighting and loss of ships and other large equipment.  Only after this cataloging does the story move to the loss of human lives, both potential and actual.  

    While this does place the loss of ships and helicopters--literally--before the human cost of the invasion, I reread this news story as working in the way that a sonnet can, even if that wasn't the BBC's original intent.  One form of the sonnet builds an argument in its first eight lines, then a shift occurs in the argument in the remaining six.  The initial argument can be reversed in the volta or the turn in the latter section of the poem.

    Thus, I distilled the language of the news story into a sonnet.   The loss of equipment sets up the tragedy of the lost lives, the heavier cost of war.  I wanted to turn the idea of privileging metal over men as the news story seems to do into one that concludes something quite different. 

    For the recording of my text, I left in artefacts of breath and pauses to mirror those of the news reader in the broadcast.  I also distorted my voice and laid the static and pops of the received transmission over the poem, as I wanted my voice to be both of the language of the news story and of its reception over shortwave radio."

    Composition by T.D. Walker.

    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
  • Fall of Saigon
    Shortwave coverage of the fall of Saigon as heard on Radio South Africa (RSA), Radio Nederland, Radio Japan and Radio Moscow on April 30, 1975. 

    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

    17 min
  • British troops land in the Falkland Islands
    BBC shortwave newscast during the Falklands War reporting that British troops have landed on the Falklands Island.

    RX location: Plymouth, Minnesota

    Receiver and antenna: Hammarlund HQ-180, longwire.

    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

    7 min
  • Revolution and DFF Suite (Transmission 16 Mix)
    "I started the process by going through the audio to pick out any interesting snippets, including re-editing phrases to change the context. This also led to me to use the tone from the BBC ident in the intro section. After working on the rough arrangement I decided to add the tempo change then layer up the music in my usual fashion. The title of the piece references the talk of death (DFF) and revolution from the original audio. The final mix you hear is a live mixdown, hence the full title."

    Composition by DFF Sound System. 

    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
  • Radio Havana Cuba: spectral formation
    "When we hear our own voice, we are already separated from that moment in which we spoke. As we pay attention to listening, we thicken the "now" with recollection, anticipation, and imagination. When we speak on the radio, our voice is further extended out through medial spacetime to receivers that we cannot even know are there. Radio is an act of trust, a gift... as is all language. But in radio the spectral presence of speech is enacted explicitly. Shortwave voices are heard as revenants of the radio frequencies, returning and returning again to haunt places they have never been, connecting moment to moment in an already-present remembrance, an already-remembered present.

    The source material is a transmission on Radio Havana Cuba, 2 August 2017, recorded by Anthony Messina."

    Composition by Robin Parmar. 

    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

    5 min
  • Falcons of Iran
    "This is a piece made entirely from the original shortwave radio recording. I was entranced by the documentary section of the broadast on hunting with falcons, and I wanted to use as much of that as possible. Other sections were processed, looped and delayed to make a suitably atmospheric backing for the voices (only when it was finished did I realise that I stopped the rhythm each time the interviewer asked a question...)."

    Composition by Basic Design. 

    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
  • Thank you, miss you, hope to speak soon
    "This was a difficult recording to reimagine - the weight of the messages contained in the recording was immense and it felt almost incorrect to change them too much. I didn't for that reason. I added nature sounds which I felt underscored the distance, though... and the isolation and longing for a familiar voice. Everything felt so far away, yet so full of emotion."

    Composition by Emmy Tither.

    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
  • Chapel of the snow
    "Shortwave transmissions definitely have a ghostly quality, so I approached this with somewhat of a narrative; thinking of a long-ago abandoned outpost in the Antarctic, their final shortwave "radio show" transmission on loop."

    Composition by Eulipion Corps. 

    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
  • Radio Havana Cuba (aircheck): 2017
    This is an aircheck of Radio Habana Cuba on 6145 from 8/2/17 via a KiwiSDR in Alexandria, VA at 1:15am EDT roughly. 

    Recorded by Anthony Messina, 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

    8 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.