Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Spoken word recording of Mekana discussing a case of adultery.

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of wax cylinder recordings of Zande songs, dances and spoken language made by social anthropologist Edward Evans-Pritchard in South Sudan between 1928 and 1930.

Recorded by Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard.

Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.

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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

"Merer Pake": an nDavu trumpet signal for a full circle tusked boar.

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a large collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of music and soundscapes made by ethnomusicologist Raymond Clausen mainly on the island of Malekula (Malampa Province) in Vanuatu between 1960 and 1979.

Recorded by Raymond Ernst Clausen.

Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.

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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

U'wa drones from the Andes in north-east Colombia.

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel recordings of U'wa songs and stories made by anthropologist Ann Osborn in the Northern Andes (Sierra Nevada del Cocuy region) in Colombia between 1969 and 1977.

Recorded by Ann Osborn.

Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.

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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

I heard the piece, which is a Vanuata hymn called 'You say you no want ’im married long me,' and connected with it immediately. Despite not knowing what the lyrics were about the singing was filled with emotion and a kind of melancholy that I often bring to my own work. I contacted Pitt Rivers for details on the lyrics, as I thought I would like to add my own singing to the piece, but unfortunately the sound recordist Raymond Clausen published little on his fieldwork. 

It turned out to be quite a tricky track to work with as the original recording wasn't in a consistent key or rhythm. I got around this by turning the piece into a sort of fugue; organs and choir ensembles have a breath and dissonance to them that I felt would complement the voices in the recording, and be in keeping with the original context of the song.

"You say you no want 'im married long me" reimagined by Hattie Cooke.

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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

I haven’t sung professionally in over 21 years and had long stopped writing and recording music. I am trying to return to it but these things are easier said than done. 

I was immediately drawn to this 1987 recording of a woman singing with harmonium recorded by David Mowat in the town of Mahalingapur, in the Indian state of Karnataka. It was perfect as it was – and in choosing it I knew I would be setting myself up to fail. Something about it spoke to me, though, and I felt hopeful that perhaps this unknown, beautiful woman might accompany me back to singing. Her voice was so strong, so effortless, that I couldn’t hope to match it; I couldn’t hold the notes or even understand what she was saying. I listened closely. I pulled out my old vocal warmup tape, began rehearsing and sang alongside the recording every day.

Between first hearing her voice and producing my version, I stepped far outside my comfort zone. In one of those crazy “and why not?!” moments an old friend I decided to start a band and record an album. Against all expectation, I sang again – so far just a single complete vocal, written quickly in response to an improvisation – but I had broken the spell that bound me.

This piece is as much about listening as it is about singing, about proximity without possession and about connection across time, distance and uncertainty. I did not sing on this recording – only she did. The work remains with her voice and with what it set in motion.

Woman singing with harmonium reimagined by Margaret Fiedler McGinnis.

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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

The song "Narel" made me think about the power of separate and unique voices working together. The name Narel in Hebrew also mean "singing". I was inspired to use the field recording to make new voices that I could remix in different ways and recombine to form a new whole. In my version of "Narel", the field recording is manipulated in various ways to create different instruments - choirs, guitars, strings - upon which a new composition is built.

Narel (song) reimagined by Kid Kin.

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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

Narel (song) performed by Peter, Sali and Mal Sekini.

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a large collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of music and soundscapes made by ethnomusicologist Raymond Clausen mainly on the island of Malekula (Malampa Province) in Vanuatu between 1960 and 1979.

Recorded by Raymond Ernst Clausen.

Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.

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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

"You say you no want 'im married long me" (song performed by men, women and children).

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a large collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of music and soundscapes made by ethnomusicologist Raymond Clausen mainly on the island of Malekula (Malampa Province) in Vanuatu between 1960 and 1979.

Recorded by Raymond Ernst Clausen.

Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.

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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of cassette tape recordings of songs and instruments made by playwright David Mowat across several different states in India during 1987.

Recorded by David Mowat.

Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.

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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

The field recording that I worked with was a wax cylinder recording of a Zande funeral song. One of the things that really struck me when I first listened to it was how this funeral song is buried beneath the imperfections of its recording medium – you just hear this single impassioned, grieving voice breaking out through layers of noise and obfuscation. I thought there was something strangely poignant about hearing this almost century-old funeral song, originally intended to memorialise a lost loved one, itself having become an imperfect and dwindling memory.

Following on from hearing the recording in this way, I wrote the song 'Int. Exteriors (Day)', which aims to convey how it feels to find yourself momentarily severed from the material present moment. How it feels, for example, to be internally going through intense emotions but not feeling able to express them out in an everyday public space.

In terms of how the field recording itself is incorporated in 'Int. Exteriors (Day)'; the recording emerges throughout the song in a few different ways – it is run through a vocoder, adding a ghostly layer of harmony to the synthesiser and guitars that drive the music; and later on, samples of the emotive song bleed out in the composition alongside the crackles and hiss and artefacts of the original recording medium.

Zande funeral song for a woman reimagined by Mute Branches.

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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds