Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Cities and Memory - remixing the world

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Cities and Memory - remixing the world episodes

  • Greece lightning
    Kefalonia ferry trip reimagined by Sound Brigade.

    "Travel was non-existent in 2020, and so far in 2021 due to the pandemic.  This re-imagining is dark and hopeless, as isolation from the world has been our reality for the last year. 

    "We did not add any additional sounds or sound effects, we used only the sound file provided to us. We edited, chopped, manipulated, twisted and mixed it into something that expressed our current travel mood."

    Part of the Until We Travel project to map and reimagine the sounds of transport and travel in a pre-pandemic and pandemic world. See the whole project at https://www.citiesandmemory.com/travel.
    3 min
  • That may or may not have been the last one
    Malaysian bus station reimagined by Emmy Tither.

    "I think, for the first time in completing various Cities and Memory projects, I may be speechless when it comes to describing this piece properly.

    "I guess what I can say is that I tried to reimagine the original recording in a way that combines what I hear both internally (through memories) and externally (when my window's open; I leave near a freight train line) when I lie in bed at night, mind racing with everything that is life right now. Travel has been a big part of my identity, basically since birth. I am very lucky. I miss it. Quite a lot.

    "And, when travel - as a concept that involves physical movement or relocation - returns globally, I hope it is in a way that honours people and planet more than it has. I'm too pessimistic to hold my breath on that, though. But that doesn't mean I won't be deliriously happy when I get on a plane or train again, because at that point it will be with the acute knowledge that time may or may not be the last time of its kind."

    Part of the Until We Travel project to map and reimagine the sounds of transport and travel in a pre-pandemic and pandemic world. See the whole project at https://www.citiesandmemory.com/travel.
    3 min
  • Hong Kong international airport - terminal sounds
    Sounds from inside Hong Kong's international airport terminal, recorded by Marcel Gnauk.

    Part of the Until We Travel project to map and reimagine the sounds of transport and travel in a pre-pandemic and pandemic world. See the whole project at https://www.citiesandmemory.com/travel.
    6 min
  • Subvoice of a funnel
    "Traveling on the upper deck of a ship is always an amazing sound experience for me! This sound was recorded (with a Zoom H5) on 10th of January 2021 after Xmas holidays when i left my birthplace, Kefalonia Island to go back to Athens.While recording, i was moving around the upper deck of the boat "Andreas Kalvos", collecting sounds from the boat's funnels, various objects oscillating by the wind, a few people talking etc."

    Recorded by Kostas Frantzis. 

    Part of the Until We Travel project to map and reimagine the sounds of transport and travel in a pre-pandemic and pandemic world. See the whole project at https://www.citiesandmemory.com/travel.
    10 min
  • Alor Setar bus station, Malaysia
    "There are many different private bus companies operating in Malaysia, each offering slightly different routes, destinations, comfort and price. Competition between these companies is high and the right sales technique can be what makes the difference in ensuring the bus parts with no empty seats.

    "In Alor Setar bus station, in order to attract customers, ticket sellers from each of the bus companies announce the destinations at the top of their voices, singing and rhyming the names of cities. Each seller has their own particular style which they use to try to cut through the other noise. I found it a fascinating selling technique, and stealthily recorded a few minutes of the ambiance before I had to catch my bus."

    Recorded by Colin Hunter. 

    Part of the Until We Travel project to map and reimagine the sounds of transport and travel in a pre-pandemic and pandemic world. See the whole project at https://www.citiesandmemory.com/travel.
    4 min
  • Put the needle on the record: Paris (Ensemble)
    Parisian luggage recording reimagined by Loz Colbert.

    "I recorded the sound of my luggage bag on various streets around the world on the RIDE USA/European tour 2019/2020. The idea being that as it was dragged, it was like a stylus playing a record.

    "Most of the field recordings were left untouched, but with this recording taken in Paris around midnight on February 13th, I imagined the grooves of the street triggering sounds of 'real' instruments. This was done using processes in Ableton Live. February 13th 2020 was the last time we played to a live audience."

    Part of the Until We Travel project to map and reimagine the sounds of transport and travel in a pre-pandemic and pandemic world. See the whole project at https://www.citiesandmemory.com/travel.
    5 min
  • Put the needle on the record: Paris
    Parisian luggage recording by Loz Colbert.

    ""I recorded the sound of my luggage bag on various streets around the world on the RIDE USA/European tour 2019/2020. The idea being that as it was dragged, it was like a stylus playing a record.

    "February 13th 2020 was the last time we played to a live audience."

    Part of the Until We Travel project to map and reimagine the sounds of transport and travel in a pre-pandemic and pandemic world. See the whole project at https://www.citiesandmemory.com/travel.
    4 min
  • Boeing 044 (Xqui remix)
    Flight from Tromso reimagined by Xqui.

    "The pilot voice was the main snippet used.  It was almost an ambient track with the sound of the engine in the background, which I manipulated to vary its pitch."

    Part of the Until We Travel project to map and reimagine the sounds of transport and travel in a pre-pandemic and pandemic world. See the whole project at https://www.citiesandmemory.com/travel.
    5 min
  • Covid dreams, part II: Delirium factories
    Heathrow Terminal 5 reimagined by Craig Garrett.

    "Lockdown has me sleepwalking though a restless world of fatigue, insomnia and dreams that — dull, obtuse and fractured — create No Time. I flew into Heathrow from Australia four weeks before lockdown 2020. I go months without remembering a dream, then for days and weeks on end I remember every single detail of every single dream. Layer upon layer, I can’t get them out of my mind. And then they’re gone; I can’t remember them any more, as if they never existed.

    "London is a curious and hybrid lucid dream comprised of random opaque stutters. Then as the pandemic crashed into lockdown on top of lockdown on top of lockdown, and as I fell into restlessness and insomnia, and as the world we all knew ground to a halt — clear patterns took shape. I’d never been here before, so you can imagine how the familiarity of these stories, as they built and grew from nothing, discomforted me. Old stories, embedded deep. As if I’d been here all along. I no longer trace different dreams; I can’t see counterpoints; nor can I expel all this scree from my head.

    "So I scarper; turn tail; run away. Over and over.  Simple, known things: making coffee, cooking food, opening a door. Caught in a world that’s no longer ours (if it ever was); it’s the virus’s now. Eventually, I take flight — but what is dream and what is real?

    "Notes: Initially Covid lockdowns spawned a world-wide epidemic of mysterious dreams, but now, one year in, Covid is turning ICUs into what some doctors are calling Delirium Factories: an epidemic of ‘ICU delirium’: a syndrome caused by drugs, infections and lack of oxygen, where patients experience extended periods of hallucinations and delusions — to the patients these visions and illusions are vividly and unarguably real.
     
    "This piece, in part explores, and in part deciphers, the mental and physical landscapes of my London lockdown. I overlay interior and exterior sounds onto field recording 073 (Heathrow LHR T5 Galleries Lounge) to create a domestic claustrophobia (of trying to escape) — is this house mine?, is it yours?, it could be anyone’s. The first two escape attempts (Acts 1 & 2) are artificially sped up and confusion is sewn using interpolation, misattribution and superimposition. Fitful incursions by Australian birds (a kookaburra, cat bird, magpie, cockatoo & stone bush curlew) don’t belong, but they tie me to where I’m from. When we finally escape (Act 3) everything calms and quietens, the confusion dissolves and there’s space to breathe — we’re finally out the other side of all this, but I leave it to the listener to decide what is the dream and what is the reality?

    "Articles & music I drew on for inspiration:
    1. ‘The worst days of my life: how Covid-19 patients can recover from ICU delirium’ (Guardian, March 15, 2021)
    2. ‘Coronavirus has created an epidemic of weird dreams’ (Wired, April 12, 2020)
    3. ‘Viral Counterpoint of the Coronavirus Spike Protein’ (Markus J Buehler, April 7, 2020)"

    Part of the Until We Travel project to map and reimagine the sounds of transport and travel in a pre-pandemic and pandemic world. See the whole project at https://www.citiesandmemory.com/travel.
    6 min
  • Taking off from Tromso
    Recorded by Johan Vandermaelen.

    "First direct flight from Tromsø - Brussels. Pilot addressing me as 'sir'. The plane had to be de-iced before take-off. Long atmospheric recording."

    Part of the Until We Travel project to map and reimagine the sounds of transport and travel in a pre-pandemic and pandemic world. See the whole project at https://www.citiesandmemory.com/travel.
    19 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.