Cities and Memory - remixing the world

"I used a recording of ducks on a Russian lake with a plane flying overhead. It was a 6 minute track and I only used about 1 minute which I chopped up into my sampler. I then played the samples rhythmically using the plane as a drone and the ducks as an instrument. This was treated with delay. Behind this initial track I added two tracks of analog synth and topped it all off with a very simple and repetitive acoustic guitar."

Ducks on lake in Samara reimagined by Laurence Lillvik.

A field recording captured at the Voronezhskie Lakes park in Samara, Russia, around 11:00 AM. The recording features ducks quacking and taking off from the water. In the background, you can hear ambient city sounds, distant airplane noise, and people's conversations.

Recorded by Vitaly Safarov.

Birds nesting in scaffolding at Kroepcke Passage shopping centre, along with street sweeper sounds. 

Recorded in Hanover, Germany by Cities and Memory.  

"After a few false starts, I decided to simply improvise a line for flute in my usual notation software while listening to the birdsong file. I then used this to create a line of counterpoint for a second flute, but quickly realized that the piece would be better served by a darker, contrasting instrument, and settled on the cello. Finally, I filled out the texture with a piccolo, reharmonized the whole score bar by bar, shaped the dynamics, and folded the original birdsong in as an overlay."

Birds in Kroepcke Passage, Hannover reimagined by David Petersen.

"The presence of science is a huge part of Oxford, but one that's often overlooked in favour of the more traditional side of Oxford University and of the city more widely, but science is hugely important to the city. This piece is a tribute to the scientific side of Oxford, as a reimagined take on the fascinating, huge tanks of liquid nitrogen that sit hissing away between the Department of Earth Sciences and the Pitt Rivers Museum, provoking many a "what if?" fantasy conversation. 

"The hissing of the tanks forms the underbelly of the track, accompanied by a "sister" sound of the same recording manipulated via a Torso S-4 sampler. Over the top of this, huge waves of distorted, ambient guitars represent clouds of gas and condensation. From here, drum beats and arpeggios make a lively introduction, and represent (and form a tribute) to all the scientific discoveries and innovations coming out of the city, as professors and boffins work all night in the very same labs that neighbour these liquid nitrogen towers."

"The title is the chemical formula for liquid nitrogen, and the postcode of the location. There is a sister composition to go along with this one, which takes a purely ambient approach to the sound. You can decide which you prefer."

Liquid nitrogen tanks in Oxford reimagined by Cities and Memory.  

On 17 June 2026, the Oxford Union debating society invited extreme right wing agitators Tommy Robinson and Laurence Fox to take part in an inflammatory debate titled "This house believe the West is right to be suspicious of Islam". The response was mass protests in the city centre, with up to 1,000 anti-fascist demonstrators surrounding the Oxford Union (and about 30 pro-Tommy Robinson supporters showing up). This recording is from the much smaller group of 25-30 pro-Tommy Robinson supporters, who mostly seem to be there to get drunk - this recording is much quieter than the other protest recordings, with just a few half-hearted chants and shouts from these far right supporters. 

Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

"I listened to the original recording a few times to pick out some focal points I could use, notable the "Tommy Tommy" chant at the beginning and the "refugees are welcome" chant at the end. I also picked out some profanity used by a member of the protest directed at a female member of the opposition and pitch shifted a few other bits to use more as textures.

"It's quite an experimental piece, lots of synths, big reverb drums, metal guitars and hard auto tuned vocals and the song as a whole is a bit tongue in cheek but overall it is meant to be uplifting."

Tommy Robinson protest in Oxford reimagined by Gary Pitt. 

Cities and Memory:

"A special recording like this needed special treatment, so I had a collaboration in mind from the outset when starting on the music. Thinking about that, I set out to create a track that evoked the feeling of the dusk skies and the mellow heat of the African savannah. The field recording was full of different voices and tones, so using it as a bed for the track required some careful splicing and placement so that those voices appeared in the track in the right moments, complementing but not intruding. And of course, there's a buildup towards the entrance of the star of the show, the lion, the track building up towards its appearance near the end.

"Having created this ambient track with a collaboration - and specifically with some vocals - in mind, I approached micca, as I've been a huge fan of all her contributions to Cities and Memory so far. Together we worked on the concept of the lion's gate portal as the way into the track. Once the vocals were in place, I remixed and re-edited the track, restructuring it around the words and creating more space and balance for the vocals and field recording to breathe naturally. In the end, it feels like a three-way collaboration in space and time between the moment Rafa experienced when recording this extraordinary soundscape, and our creative responses to it.

"This is about mood and meaning - I tried to provide the mood, and micca brought the meaning." 

micca:

"I often look to nature for inspiration when writing music. While working with a field recording and an ambient piece by two collaborators, the lion's roars immediately caught my attention. It's not a sound you come across very often, and it naturally became the creative spark for the piece.

"As I continued writing, I was drawn to the symbolism of the Lion's Gate and its themes of courage, personal power and new beginnings, celebrated each year on 8/8. While it's an important event in astrology, I think its themes can speak to anyone: reconnecting with your own strength, finding your voice, and letting go of what no longer serves you. Those ideas became the intention behind the vocals.

"Some of the vocals are spoken, others are sung, so creating them wasn't just about finding the right words. They had to sit naturally with the ambient music, match its key and pace, and become part of the overall sound through recording, processing and mixing. My hope is that the final piece feels like one shared conversation between nature, music and voice."

Lions at dusk in Tanzania reimagined by Cities and Memory and micca.  

The microphones were set metres away from the lions as the light dropped off and the temperature shifted. The lions are close. This is by far the most dangerous recording I have ever done. Their voices hold weight, spreading slowly across the savannah, overlapping in uneven intervals. There is a sense of space in the gaps between each call. What carries first is distance, low frequency calls moving across open ground, travelling further than expected in the cooling air.

This was not a controlled recording. The position was exposed, visibility was low, and movement nearby could not always be placed. The decision was deliberate but dangerous, but the outcome was worth it.

If you listen beyond the foreground, there are secondary layers: hyenas further out, thinner and more erratic in pitch, and closer still, intermittent movement from baboons, short, nervous gestures in the mid range.

Well, the sound of a savannah at its best.

Recorded in Tarangire National Park, Tanzania by Rafael Diogo.

Photo by Keyur Nandaniya on Unsplash.

Broadcast on BBC 6music, Sunday 26 July 2026. Cerys Matthews talks to Cities and Memory creator Stuart Fowkes about disappearing and obsolete sounds, and introduces the project.

Includes musical selections by Stuart from Can, Broadcast, Stuart Dempster, William Basinski & Janek Schaefer and The For Carnation.