Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Cities and Memory - remixing the world

By Cities and MemorySociety & CultureArtsMusicPlaces & Travel
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Cities and Memory - remixing the world episodes

  • 3581: Midday in Murano
    On the island of Murano in Venice, the bells ring out for midday across the canals. The sound is accompanied by the gentle sloshing of moored boats so characteristic of Venice, and we can hear a mother telling her daughter Nina that there is a boat with the same name as her.

    Recorded by Cities and Memory. 
    2 min
  • 3580: Light whispers
    Cicadas in Arquà Petrarca reimagined by Andarctica. 

    "I really wanted to use the rhythmic pulsing of the crickets as a filter element, so it was a matter of first augmenting the sound to be more tonal and playable, then feeding it back through a vocoder with the original sample as the carrier. It led to some really nice phasing and harmonics, especially when put to tape."
    4 min
  • 3579: The background to summer
    Mid-August in the incredibly beautiful little town of Arquà Petrarca in northern Italy, where the poet Petrarch spent most of his days. On this balmy, hot day, we listen to the cicadas in the trees chattering out their constant chorus, truly the background to summer. Recorded by Cities and Memory. 
    3 min
  • 3578: A day of lockdown in Bourges
    Sounds from a typical day during lockdown in Bourges, France (ignoring remote working, of course):

    0:0s: churches ring at 7:30 AM
    2:00s: birds recorded from my balcony
    4m:30s: bells ring the mass
    8m:10s: playing fetch with my cat
    9m:00s: going out (1 hour/ 1 km radius), rain over fallen leaves in Prés Fichaux garden.
    13m:15s: night walk in the deserted streets of Bourges, Saint Etienne Cathedral at 9PM
    15m:20s: bat screams (played at 10% speed)
    17m:10s: end of the day, reading in bed with my cat

    The field recordings were mostly done from my balcony, the garden nearby or at night in the streets. 

    Recorded by Jeremy Simoncello.

    Part of the StayHomeSounds project to map and reimagine the sounds of the Covid-19 lockdowns.
    20 min
  • 3577: The ineluctable decline of Venice
    Listen closely on a walk around some of the less-explored corners of Venice, and as well as the sounds you'd expect, like boats on the canals and the clacking of shoes on bridge crossings, you'll hear repair and construction, as an ancient city founded on the lagoon constantly regenerates and renews herself for the next generation. Here we're tuning into house repairs on Fondamenta San Felice, as a bucket containing building materials is raised and lowered from a boat to a second-floor window using a mechanical winch.

    Recorded by Cities and Memory.
    5 min
  • 3576: Construction
    House repairs in Venice, Italy reimagined by Xqui.

    "I wanted to utilise all the background sounds by way of manipulation.  Everything here is taken from the original recording."
    5 min
  • 3575: Tranquility in Venice
    In the Giardini della Biennale at the far end of Venice, it's a quiet moment on a sunny September weekday, with hardly anyone around, and the only sounds being the passing boat traffic at the far end of Venice's main island, and the faint sounds of birdsong from the gardens.

    Recorded by Cities and Memory. 
    4 min
  • 3574: Surface
    Venice Biennale gardens reimagined by Eleni-Ira Panourgia.

    "The original recording of the passing boat inspired me to listen to the water surface. The recording reveals traces of human activity and machines in relation to the space, the flora and fauna of that specific location in Venice. 

    "The piece ‘Surface’ focuses on the soundscape’s microcosm. Drawing from the issue of the rising sea levels that has troubled the area, sound is treated in ways to recreate and reimagine alternative climate and biodiversity conditions around water in the future cities."
    5 min
  • 3572: The grand applause for the boat crane
    On the island of San Pietro di Castello in Venice, on an otherwise tranquil and still weekday afternoon, we hear a boat being lowered into the water by one of Venice's typical boat cranes. The operator spins the boat around and zooms off - and at the close of the recording, the slosh of the wash against the boats opposite us almost sounds like a grand applause celebrating the achievements of the boat workers. 

    Recorded by Cities and Memory.  
    5 min
  • 3573: Virtual Venice
    Venetian boat crane reimagined by Andy Billington.

    "I wanted to work from a visual score so took all of the parts of the original recording and colour coded anything that sounded like drums or percussion.

    "Next I took any ambient voice sounds or water sounds and positioned these on top of the drum samples (now all layered). Slowly a sort of smeared jazz construction was built out. Adding DAW double bass and Vibraphone completed the structure. But it was still not quite right. 

    "Next I reduced and removed many layers of samples and added the melody but played on DAW jazz drumkit. Finally more blurring and pitching down and the track was completed with some freeform distortion via a heavily processed organ improvised over the top). Virtual Venice was completed."
    9 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.