Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Radio Moscow (8 August 1970). Propaganda broadcast discussing German-Soviet Treaty, Northern Ireland, Vietnam and the Middle East.

Recorded by Ian Holder.

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

Shortwave coverage from Radio Moscow of the Soviet October Revolution Parade (7 November 1970). The military parade celebrated the October Revolution beginning in 1918 and continued until 1990 (the year before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991).

Recorded by Ian Holder.

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 piece is called "A man of talent with great abilities", which is what Putin said about Yuri Andropov, which I thought sounded rather sinister. It's more of a soundtrack to the original recording. I wanted to do something a bit like Benjamin Britten's 'Russian Funeral' so it's mainly a horn based instrumental. There are three main parts to it - intro, march and bridge."

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

"There's something I loved about grit and the words coming out of the interference that grabbed me. My original idea was to try and make the whole track out of samples from the original piece. Although it didn't quite work out that way, I did create a lot of the drums, pads, bass and the kind of piano / xylophone lead thing at the end by dropping samples from the recording in to various ableton instruments and pitching / manipulating them until I could play them as instruments. It produced these brilliantly gritty sounds that had the character from the original recording

"I went through the track and pulled out the more melodic sections from the ident at the beginning of the recording and chopped and rearranged them ableton. I also went through the spoken section and pulled out some phrases that jumped out and panned and glitched them to create the wall of spoken dialogue.

"Once I laid out the main track with the instruments and direct samples I then added some new drums and guitar to the last section. I used ableton to kind of jam the whole thing out and added live guitar overdubs and some new drums to make it sound more alive."

Composition by Tiger Mendoza.

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 piece is made up of samples from the commentator's voice in a “Zoolook” style (JM Jarre 1984). Sometimes words can be heard and sometimes it is just rhythms."

Composition by Simon Woods. 

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 spent six months in the 1980s working at the BBC World Service, so I felt a particular connection to the original recording. The vast majority of the piece comprises clips of this, processed and manipulated. A montage of other Short Wave transmissions was added at the top  - thanks to Electronic Battle for the loan of the SW Receiver (and for helping me to the rig the aerial over the roof!). The recurring six note keyboard motif is based on the syllables of "BBC World Service". The title -  the BBC's motto - is used ironically here."

Composition by Nick St. George. 

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 started by playing with the recording in my software - processing it in different ways. As I was messing around tinkering with sounds, the recording made me think of a deserted giant cargo spaceship and a lone character boarding and searching the ship while the recording mysteriously played through the ship's tannoy. I added some field recordings I made recently on a village green near me. And it felt like the searching character was remembering being back at home. So I think that maybe this track is a soundtrack to that imagined sci-fi movie scene. Later, I googled whether radio transmissions leak into space and they do, so maybe this scene actually happened. The final track is made of the original radio recording, a synth made from a sample of the recording, some preset digital synths, stock samples, a recording I made of HAM radio static, some of my original field recordings and I play guitar on it too."

Composition by Sam Care.

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

A shortwave transmission from Radio Peking. Propaganda recording about the challenge to world peace posed by "the U.S. Imperialists”. Recorded in Australia by Ian Holder.

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

Radio Peking (6 November 1970). Commentary on establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Italy; message from China to Soviet Union.

Recorded by Ian Holder.

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 period before 1980s,1950s and 1960s were very active in terms of espionage. Many declassified documents tell us about CIA and SIS operations in Baltic States, Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and elsewhere using Morse code messages. Then there is a case of Operation SOLO of FBI infiltration in the American Communist Party and Soviet secret service, where numbers transmissions from the Soviet Union were involved.

Numbers stations were in the air and there were people listening to them. So this brings to the subject of this article: a authentic tape recording of several transmissions of Spanish language Five Digit numbers station recorded in 1966. What we have here is a recording of supposedly male voice Spanish language numbers station. The technical issues and specifics of the broadcasts may point to Cuba. Cubans in 1980s to early 2010s used voiced five figure stations with characteristic“Atencion” at the start of the broadcast. This is was known as V02 and V02a before moving on to hybrid digital and voice station HM01  This station however has no such prefixes. It could be old predecessor to Antencion station. CIA was caught using four figure numbers station in Spanish language, so CIA involvement  also cannot be ruled out.

Recorded by Don Hibschweiler.

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