Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Jerusalem created by The Gaye Device.

"The final part of the journey of Dante reaching Jerusalem and Paradise and looking out on to the universe inspired me to write this composition. 

"Are we all looking for our own idea of paradise? How do we reach that and in what way, is it physical or mental, is it even important? This is a part of a personal journey using tones to induce an almost transcendental state of mind. Trying to reach a level of consciousness where calmness and serenity is akin to being in paradise through music. 

"Paradoxically, the Jerusalem in Heaven has created its earthly opposite. The earthly state is forever seen as a jumbled puzzle, whose pieces may be shuffled into perfection.

Century by century, men find only limited perfection and temporary ends, and by these must redeem themselves in the face of whatever God is listening.

"The track was created by using fragments of sampled acoustic instruments, stretched to form slowly evolving meditative tones and harmonics layered and phased to create an aural soundscape which can be used for any form of meditative relaxation to reach a state of personal paradise.

"Track written and composed by Andrew Howden."

Part of the Inferno project to imagine and compose the sounds of Dante’s Hell, marking the 700th anniversary of The Divine Comedy. To find out more, visit http://www.citiesandmemory.com/inferno

Vestibule created by Sherman and Field.

"The work is a single-take room recording, improvised by candlelight after a storm featuring effects-drenched guitar, drone devices, beats and local-area field recordings. The intention was to capture the ominous feel of approaching the gates of hell and the abandonment of hope that commences the descent towards Lucifer… "

Part of the Inferno project to imagine and compose the sounds of Dante’s Hell, marking the 700th anniversary of The Divine Comedy. To find out more, visit http://www.citiesandmemory.com/inferno

Acheron created by Martha Riva Palacio Obón.

" As Teodolinda Barolini mentions in Commento Baroliniano, Inferno 3 occurs in a liminal space. A no-place for neutral angels and all those people who, paraphrasing Dante, never were really alive. The Acheron is the threshold. In this sound work I explore the boundaries between human - no human, silence, noise, order and chaos. A circular piece in which repetition allows me to reflect also about monotony and eternity. 

The flow of time, a river. Stream of consciousness, history, myth, evolution… 

"Tracing back Acheron’s source, I got to Sappho’s fragment 95: 

but a kind of yearning has hold of me - to die

and look upon the dewy lotus banks of Acheron

"In this fragment, there’s also longing but no fear. I draw a line from Sappho to Dante, a braided river; but the concept of flow returns me also to the nature of sound itself. Another branch leads me to Salomé Voegelin. Sound is a fluid body that fills us with our own shape. Noise pins us down and leaves no space for imagining other posible worlds. We get lost in ourselves just as Dante does at the end of Inferno 3.

"In this sound work, I mix the recordings of my fridge, a rotary hammer in the street, and the wind blowing through a cable bridge with Tibetan tingshas and the chirping of crickets in different frequencies. The line between hellish and sublime harmonies is very thin. That’s how I evoke the choir of angels, the wailing, the buzz of the insects, the whirlwind and the river of sorrow. I start with Sappho’s lotus banks and finish with Dante’s Inferno."

Part of the Inferno project to imagine and compose the sounds of Dante’s Hell, marking the 700th anniversary of The Divine Comedy. To find out more, visit http://www.citiesandmemory.com/inferno

Acheron created by Simon Woods.

"The piece is made up of water sounds (courtesy of my bath and sink) along with synthesised bees / wasps / insects buzzing and voices of the ‘couldn’t care less’.

"The final earthquake is the sound of fireworks outside my house on Nov 5th 2020."

Part of the Inferno project to imagine and compose the sounds of Dante’s Hell, marking the 700th anniversary of The Divine Comedy. To find out more, visit http://www.citiesandmemory.com/inferno

Limbo created by Andy Skelton.

"Dante's Limbo contains those souls trapped between two states - neither of sufficient faith for paradise, nor sinful enough for hell.  I started thinking about this, and our commonly understood meaning of limbo (ie held in suspension between two possible outcomes).  

"Taking inspiration from this, I improvised a piece on shortwave radio receivers. I was careful to record signals that exist between stations, never quite arriving at a satisfactory conclusion. Furthermore, the signals, at times, produced a note that could be microtonally shifted. 

"This means that the notes themselves are held in a kind of limbo, filling the space between notes and never fully resolving. The listener should listen out for this. Other than filtering out a degree of excess noise, this submission is exactly as performed and recorded."

Part of the Inferno project to imagine and compose the sounds of Dante’s Hell, marking the 700th anniversary of The Divine Comedy. To find out more, visit http://www.citiesandmemory.com/inferno

Limbo created by Eva Q. Mansson.

"“My youthful hopes are in the Limbo of lost dreams”

I am the snail 

In a bubble of nothing

Dreaming

I am here, yet am not

I am a meat grinder. Grinding myself

Surviving. Dying. Leaving without a trace

Going nowhere. Being everywhere

Believing nothing. Knowing even less

I am the snail, yet am not

(Thoughts during the hell of worldwide current events)

Field recording of walking on a cobblestone field by the Baltic Sea

Analog noise created with Blind Noise and Radio Sputnik

Melody sequence created on Bliptronic 5000

Beats made with Korg Kaossilator

Effects through Korg NTS-1

Sound clips from the movie “Apocalypse Now”"

Part of the Inferno project to imagine and compose the sounds of Dante’s Hell, marking the 700th anniversary of The Divine Comedy. To find out more, visit http://www.citiesandmemory.com/inferno

Limbo created by Philippe Neau.

"I worked with my voice and the sounds of water and air. My track tries to evoke the expectation of souls in the afterlife, in an intermediate and fuzzy place."

Part of the Inferno project to imagine and compose the sounds of Dante’s Hell, marking the 700th anniversary of The Divine Comedy. To find out more, visit http://www.citiesandmemory.com/inferno

Limbo created by Warren Daly.

"My composition tries to capture the varied emotions of being ensnared in limbo. 

"I used field recordings from a tropical forest in order to mirror Dante's journey. The juxtaposition of chords and polyrhythms is striking, immersing the listener in layered organic synthesis reflecting the tantalizing proximity yet rejection from utopia."

Part of the Inferno project to imagine and compose the sounds of Dante’s Hell, marking the 700th anniversary of The Divine Comedy. To find out more, visit http://www.citiesandmemory.com/inferno

Lustful created by Kenneth Lyons.

"“A Slow Hot Kiss of Wind” addresses the elemental environment in the zone of the Lustful into which Dante enters early into his journey. It is an environment where classical figures, “those dames and knights of antique days” such as Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Achilles, Paris and others are tossed back and forth in a violent wind as a form of punishment for giving over to the sin of Lust and their base transgressions. Three beasts block Dante’s path before he enters deeper into the the circles of Hell with a leopard, the leopard of Lust being the first he encounters. Once past the leopard, Dante witnesses these classical figures of Lust tossed in the winds yet encounters one, Francesca da Rimini whose story of a chaste and pure love bewitches him. A kiss between them according to one interpretation, is an act of innocent passion and desire which moves Dante along deeper into the circles and propels his journey. 

"My interpretation uses sound samples of latter day and contemporary sirens/studs such as Madonna, Britney, Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman, Mae West, Michael Douglas, Barry White, Barbra Stanwyck and others as the lustful and classical figures from antiquity and sets them in the mix, swirling, appearing and disappearing in the winds, teasing and taunting Dante. Eartha Kitt’s signature purr turns into a growl as the leopard of Lust in the beginning of the work and Marilyn Monroe appears as Francesca da Rimini relating a tale of innocence and desire before bestowing the “kiss” from her song, ‘I Wanna be Loved By You’ upon Dante in the final moments of the piece."

Part of the Inferno project to imagine and compose the sounds of Dante’s Hell, marking the 700th anniversary of The Divine Comedy. To find out more, visit http://www.citiesandmemory.com/inferno

Lustful created by Vlad Suppish.

"It has three layers. I've nicknamed them 'moans, groans and slaps' for this project.

"The first one is a field recording of a rusty merry-go-round which I've recorded in Kyiv. Heavily processed, it became the perfect source for moan-like sounds in the begining and through the entire track.

"The second one was song 'Infinity' by Aphrodite's Child from the album 666. Vangelis described the track as conveying "the pain of birth and the joy of intercourse." Great yet quite disturbing composition and an ideal source for processed groans.

"And as for the monotonous slapping and pounding, I've created a patch on a modular synth that relentlessly howls through the composition. In hindsight it reminds me 'Hollow Hills' by Bauhaus but that resemblance wasn't intentional initially.

 

All this was mixed to convey the sinister atmosphere of the second circle of Hell "as the lovers drifted into self-indulgence and were carried away by their passions, so now they drift for ever. The bright, voluptuous sin is now seen as it is – a howling darkness of helpless discomfort." (Dorothy L. Sayers)"

Part of the Inferno project to imagine and compose the sounds of Dante’s Hell, marking the 700th anniversary of The Divine Comedy. To find out more, visit http://www.citiesandmemory.com/inferno