Cities and Memory - remixing the world

"The piece is made up entirely of samples from the field recordings, chopped, filtered and mangled, with the exception of "Game Over". The overall piece sounded like a retro computer game. Further research revealed that the dashboard software on S-Bahn trains is Windows 3.11!"

S-Bahn trip in Berlin reimagined by Simon Woods. 

An S-bahn journey from Savignyplatz to the Hauptbahnhof in Berlin - train sounds, doors opening and closing, announcements in German, September 2025. 

Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

"I transformed the original field recording into a more dronish soundscape and added some subtle guitar layers over it. The result feels like a warm atmospheric cinematic piece. I think the edit of this field recording offers further opportunities for more (de)compositions..."

 Lake terrace in Lummen, Belgium reimagined by Marco Vanoppen.

Recording of the ambient sounds on a terrace by a lake called "Schulensmeer". Noisy visitors, so almost none of the nature sounds are audible.

Recorded by Lummen, Belgium by Marco Vanoppen.

"Taking the original background noise of a Columbian protest and treating it like a drone, but adding reverb and delay on certain higher pitched sounds within it, I built a reggae bass loop and drums with some dub effects, building to a more dance 4/4 track. The piece then progressing to bring in brass to reflect the carnival vibe of South America."

Protest in Bogotá reimagined by Dubberrookie.

The Rialto fish market in Venice is an incredible piece of history, dating back to the 1200s. Sometimes when you're in Venice, it feels like little has changed (other times, conversely, you're well aware of the march of time!). 

Once the fish market is close to closing, what we hear is the sound of workers shovelling up the ice and leftovers from the ground to be taken away. 

For hundreds of years, this has gone on almost every day of the year - with every shovel of ice, there's a piece of Venetian history to go with it.

Recorded in Venice, Italy in December 2025 by Cities and Memory. 

The sample of the workmen shovelling the ice to cleanup the market space has this rich, raw, physical and rhythmic texture, and an overall flow from start to finish. It's a story of a changing states - and I felt like accentuating these changes  would be an interesting direction.

Of course, ice itself changes state, and that sparked the idea to use various states of water - rain, frost, snow, meltwater, rivers, oceans, dripping, boiling steam - as the accenting elements to create quite a gestural piece. The source sample is left in place, and no effects are used on the various field recorded elements other than volume shaping (it felt like the piece itself was very raw, and did not need adornment).

Venice fish market clearup reimagined by Warren Anthony.

 "I began writing this song on the spring equinox, so it felt natural to follow the sun.
While writing it, I kept thinking about the whole cycle: winter’s quiet, spring’s return, summer’s abundance, autumn’s slowing down. 

"The same is true of day and night - we need both. 

"This song is really about rhythm: how spring only means what it means because winter came first, and how light matters because darkness does too. 

"Plants rest, animals slow down, people turn inward, and then life rises again. 
Follow the Sun is a song about the sun as guidance, but also about learning to trust the rhythm of life.

"I worked with a live recording of a jazz band playing in Paris, using a sample of its melody as the initial spark. From there, I wrote a song and arrangement that grew around that melodic idea."

Jazz at Le Duc de Lombards, Paris reimagined by micca. 

Live jazz from one of Paris' top night spots, Le Duc des Lombards - the excellent quartet The Hookup (Geraldine Laurent, Noé Huchard, François and Louis Moutin) entertain us with a great piece. 

Recorded in Paris, France in February 2026 by Cities and Memory.