Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Cities and Memory - remixing the world

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Cities and Memory - remixing the world episodes

  • The death of Fidel Castro
    BBC World Service Reporting on the death of Fidel Castro. Believe these broadcasts were targeted to Africa, but reception was good into Europe that morning. I was listening to these using my home receiver in East Anglia, England, but due to local interference, started recording them using the Twente SDR.

    Broadcaster: BBC
    Date of recording: 11/26/2016
    Starting time: 0700 UTC
    Frequency: 11.770 & 12.095

    Recorded by Scott G, 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

    18 min
  • Voice of Iran: December 5, 1976
    This recording might be of historical interest. It is the Voice of Iran from December 1976, three years before the revolution in Iran that overthrew the Shah and established the current Islamic Republic. The recording is of the full half-hour broadcast and includes the news, some Iranian music, and a segment on falconry as a sport. There is some occasional interference from single-sideband station.

    Recorded by Greg Shroom, 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

    29 min
  • BBC World Service's broadcast to the 2013 British Antarctic Survey
    Every year, the BBC broadcasts a special program to the forty one scientists and support staff in the British Antarctic Survey Team; the show contains music requests and, most notably, personal messages from back home to the team of forty one. 

    The British Antarctic Survey celebrates today (their longest, darkest winter day) with the same enthusiasm as Christmas. The BBC noted:

    The base commanders rise early to cook breakfast for their staff, presents are exchanged, there are sports and even, weather permitting, a mad streak in the snow! Feasting continues before they gather round a shortwave set to listen to the traditional broadcast packed with greetings from their family and friends back home together with music requests and messages from the British Antarctic Survey and a few celebrities. Finally the Antarctic horror movie The Thing is screened. For those who know the plot, perhaps it is just as well there are no longer sledge dogs in Antarctica...

    Here is the recording of the BBC World Service's thirty minute broadcast to the British Antarctic Survey. I was able to receive a relatively strong signal at 21:30 UTC on 9,890 kHz from the World Service's Wooferton transmission site.

    Recorded by Thomas Witherspoon, 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

    31 min
  • American Forces Antarctic Network (AFAN): circa 1980s
    The American Forces Antarctic Network (AFAN) at McMurdo Station recorded in the 1980s on 6012 kHz SSB in New Zealand.

    Recorded by Tony King, 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

    2 min
  • Voice of Peace (Hexany 1-3-9-11)
    "This piece uses - in various ways - a recording from the offshore radio station that broadcast from the former Dutch cargo vessel MV Peace almost continuously between 1973 and 1993. In addition to the more 'obvious' use of the recording (a static layer; short staccato bursts) an additional layer is played through a system of modules which - reacting to the sound itself - generates a heterodyne-like (near-)melody; a fake shortwave warble. The station did broadcast over AM, after all..."

    Composition by Phexioenesystems.

    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
  • Voice of peace, 1990
    Live, off-air, approximately twenty-minute recording of the Voice of Peace from Baghdad on 29 December 1990 beginning at 21:40 UTC on a shortwave frequency of 11860 kHz. This broadcast originated from a transmitter either in Iraq or Kuwait.

    Iraq's Voice of Peace was established in August 1990 to beam programs to American servicemen stationed in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Shield following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait at the beginning of the month. Programming consisted of music, initially easy-listening music but subsequently changing to a "Top 40" mix, news and commentary in a failed effort to try to demoralize the American troops. Beginning in September 1990, the broadcasts used a female announcer dubbed "Baghdad Betty" by the Americans. Reportedly, Baghdad Betty was replaced by a team of announcers sometime in December 1990. The recording is an example of the news and music programming. It is not known if the female announcer is the famous Baghdad Betty or someone else. 

    Reception of the broadcast was poor to fair with slight interference and fading. At 21:58 UTC, there is interference splash from WYFR starting up on 11855 kHz. The initial frequency recorded may have been 21675 kHz before switching after a minute or so to 11860 kHz as the radio teletype interference abruptly stops at this point. The recording includes frequent station identifications such as "You are tuned to the Voice of Peace from Baghdad." 

    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

    18 min
  • Planetary inertial orientation
    "This was created by chopping up the original recording and then creating an instrumental track using drums, bass and guitar."

    Composition by Karhide. 

    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
  • Let us become human bombs to devotedly defend Respected Supreme Leader
    "The piece is called "Let us become human bombs to devotedly defend Respected Supreme Leader", which is a North Korean propaganda slogan. I wanted to capture the relentlessness of the original recording and the sinister nature of the propaganda in it. I've created it using different samples that have been 'stretched', treated and cut using Audacity or Logic Pro. I added a drone pad to ground the piece a bit. It's a bit disjointed at times but I think it somehow works."

    Composition by Richard Watts. 

    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
  • There was always music in our home/a partly-fictional memoir
    "The true part: I indeed grew up in the 1950s with a little radio, though not a shortwave, to which I was thoroughly addicted. The fictional part: My real family wasn't anything like my fictional one, and it was I, not my dad, who became a professional musician and played in hotels, orchestra pits, etc. Besides my longstanding interest in commercial "old time radio," I have had a fascination for the sounds of shortwave for many years, and contributing to this project was right up my alley!"

    Composition by John Tenney.

    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
  • Number station
    "Discovering (after sending the file to a Russian translator) that the recording consisted of just spoken, random numbers, I took to chopping out the most interesting sounding sequences and arranging in a rhythmic pattern. I had played with shortwave before and already had some usable sounds. The music was improvised."

    Composition by Daryn Brown.

    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.