Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Cities and Memory - remixing the world

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Cities and Memory - remixing the world episodes

  • 3523: The torment of hypocrisy - Oscar Wilde's voice
    Hypocrites created by Giovanna Iorio.

    "I have used the recording of the voice of Oscar Wilde reading “The Ballad of Reading Goal” and Ergo Phizmiz "The Faust Cycle or, The House of Dr Faustus" (2006-2009) to represent the Hypocrisy and its monstrosity.

    "The very short introduction of my composition is the voice of Oscar Wilde at a fast speed, it sounds like terrible crows awakening the conscience of people. Then there  the voice of the poet arises, although the recording is not clear it is, I believe, very moving. 

    "The powerful composition by Ergo Phimiz is, I believe, the perfect sound to create the atmosphere. Although the sound file has been attributed to Wilde in various contexts, it is also debated whether it is genuine or not but it remains the only recording by Oscar Wilde."

    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

    3 min
  • 3522: Les lettres volées
    Thieves created by Flavien Gillié.

    "Thieves. I looked in my bookshelf for my volume of The Divine Comedy, right next to it I also had a book by Rimbaud, A Season in Hell, I didn't remember having made this thematic classification.

    "I created this play during the second confinement, from old magnetic tapes, Rimbaud's words as an echo to those of Dante, hell seen from the outside or from the inside, thieves are not what they seem.

    "I played some other tapes in effects pedals, looking for a drone to mix with these indistinct words, voices passed through a guitar amp, ghostly voices."

    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

    5 min
  • 3521: The Autodox
    Hypocrites created by Daniel Yap.

    "In Autodox, the hypocrite hordes of hell chant a verse while they trod upon Caiaphas. Is the chant what it appears to be — cultic gibberish — or does it conceal a deeper truth about how we wind up as hypocrites?

    "I took Dante's lead on hypocrisy in religion, and made a concept piece based on the scene in his writing. I chose to explore hypocrisy that is unaware of its self-delusion. Its fault is not in conscious self-contradiction, but rather a reluctance to look itself full in the mirror and run the risk of discovering flaw and mistake. It is satisfied with its moral performance, and doesn't consider inconsistencies or impure motives. I posited that this stems from some need to preserve a perfect self-image. 

    "The bulk of pre-production was examining this concept. I wondered how to express the idea of facade and hidden self-obsession and wrote down lines I imagined the consummate hypocrite might say to himself.  The most concise and potent one was, "I'm so thankful I'm not like you." 

    "Jesus used the same sentiment to describe the hypocritical Pharisee in Luke 18:11: The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.'

    "Then I recalled the controversy surrounding backmasking and rock music in the '90s. Concerned Christians were alleging satanic lyrics were lying buried in the songs of popular bands. You only had to play the tracks backwards to hear the smeary, scandalous proclamations. 

    "Backmasking would make an interesting method of producing facade and hiddenness. I though to place the forward sound in ironic tension with the backward sound.

    "I started by recording 6 takes of myself singing choir-boy style "I thank God I am not like you" with a Sanken CUX-100K in 24/192kHz. The tune was not meticulously crafted but quickly improvised and then iterated upon. Earlier versions featured overly sweet intervals. 

    "Then I experimented with playing back the recording at 96kHz and 48kHz. The CUX-100K preserved the high-frequency detail. I was going for that monstrous, ritualistic vocal sound that comes from drastic octave bombing, but didn't want it too woolly and indistinct.  

    "96kHz did the trick. One octave down. Then I reversed it. Now, I had an evil-sounding clip which when flipped back forwards and raised an octave was the recording of a devout, deluded choir boy thanking God for the wrong thing. Next, I exported the 6 takes alternately panned hard left and right. I wanted to re-amp the sung lines with my OKM binaural microphones while standing at various distances from my spare KRKs, deployed to the living room for this occasion. 

    "I'd not done this before, but wanted to try creating a sense of motion and to see if I could generate depth by standing 1m, then 2m, then 3m away from the speakers. I also walked towards, away, and in-between the speakers. I wanted a "cloud" of my voices, and to use the variance in spatial characteristics to generate versions of the vocal takes so it wouldn't sound like just thrice-doubled vocals. It's a promising technique, but I didn't have the luxury to spend more time refining it. 

    "Then I took the binaural recordings and edited them in an effort to create a horde of hypocrites, singing this infernal chant. The idea came later to just pan the voices from left to right because I didn't think the vocal part generation technique resulted in a truly natural sounding group of 6. 

    "This is a bit of a shame because there were some subtle spatial nuances that the binaural re-amp / layer approach generated. Nevertheless, I felt this would create a more obvious sense of movement in the story for the listener. Caiaphas' shrieks are actually downpitched samples of an angry porcine animal. I hope nobody is offended by this choice. 

    "I would've recorded and layered the footsteps, cloth and movement foley but ran out of time and gas. In Inferno, the hypocrites wear robes that glitter on the outside but are lined with lead."

    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

    1 min
  • 3520: Barrators (Andy Lyon Imagining)
    Barrators created by Andy Lyon.

    "The Eighth Circle, Fifth Pitch is very dark.  Barrators are pursued by demons with pitchforks and thrown into a river of boiling pitch.   Barrators are corrupt politicians. Often they seem plausible and pleasant on the outside whilst all the while the fraud, contradiction and hypocrisy is bubbling away under the surface.

    "I've tried to capture these elements in my piece using a range of orchestration. This was a new technique for me, I've used orchestration on other Cities and Memory submissions but I haven't entirely created a piece using only orchestration.  

    "The listener should look out for contrasting sounds, rhythms and changes in the feel of the piece that reflect elements of the location as well as Barrators that can be found here."

    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

    11 min
  • 3519: Immerso nell’oscurità
    Barrators created by ElizaLauren.

    "Immerso nell’oscurità is essentially an attempt to recreate the barrator’s journey through the eighth circle of hell with sound. The intention was to put the listener in the position of the barrators, as they are exposed to the suffering that the depths of hell beholds.

    "Comprised of a combination of field recordings, amplified objects, and prepared guitar techniques, the drone-based nature of the piece evokes a dark, chilling atmosphere. Descending glissandi, which sound at the beginning of the piece create a sense of dread, representing the reluctant descent into hell. 

    "Throughout the composition, bowed metal is used to replicate the screams of anguish and desire to escape, whilst the scraping sounds you hear depict the Malebranche (clawed demons) prodding down the sinners. The sonic realisation closes with a breathy crescendo, depicting their punishment of being plunged into the ‘marvellously dark’ pits of boiling tar, fading out to reveal a cold emptiness."

    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

    5 min
  • 3515: Allor mi dolsi, e ora mi ridoglio (It pained me then and it feel the pain again now)
    Counsellors of fraud created by Matt Chapman Jones & Dai Bowe.

    "We began with the text itself and trying to recreate ideas and images from it sonically. Our starting point were the fireflies flitting about, also evoking tongues of flame and the deceiving voices of the fraudulent counsellors. We then focussed on the structure of the story of Ulysses being told - the guitars and the spoken text - which grows and grows, and then fades away to just leave the trickster voices in the pit."

    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

    9 min
  • 3514: I love you, Odysseus
    Counsellors of fraud created by Cristina Marras.

    "In Italy we devote three years to the study of Dante’s Holy Comedy, but despite of analysis and exegesis, no one remembers Purgatory and Heaven, we all remember Hell. 

    "Among the many characters encountered in Hell, Odysseus is one of those that I’ve always loved because I very much identified with his spirit of rebellion against rules and his passion for discovery. Reading the story of Odysseus today, I still love it, but I cannot avoid thinking that behind every hero there is a multitude of enablers, people who must take care of the dirty, hidden, unsatisfactory and unheroic daily tasks, so that the destined hero can take his masculine place among the other masculine heroes. 

    "So I decided to tell the heroic story through the eyes of one of those enabler, making her a woman in love who doesn’t regret having followed her hero to Hell, at the cost of hiding her true self, because her love for Odysseus is second only to her love for discovery and adventure. 

    "Technically, I have tried to avoid screams and other sounds typically associated with Hell, rather preferring the dissonance of an unruly cacophony."

    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

    6 min
  • 3516: Sowers of discord
    Sowers of discord created by Audio Obscura.

    "For the first week I read as much as I could on the particular zone I had chosen, excerpts of the English translation and articles online about the context. I also listened to other musical versions that had interpreted this text. Some of the reading was uncomfortable, parts of Dante's text is racist, Islamophobic and antisemitic by our standards. It does date to 1320, making it 700 years old, an almost impossible time frame to really contemplate in the life of a written work of art.  

    "I tried to approach the sound piece by imagining and immersing myself in a sort of fantasy world, like being trapped in a movie or virtual reality world of the inferno. This helped me escape the uncomfortable elements I found.  I wanted elements of noise and dissonance in the piece but these had to be in balance and not take over.  

    "I always wanted to have the sound of knifes being sharpened - which is mentioned in the original text. I recorded these myself in my kitchen. The hardest part though was creating the two keyboard / synth lines that dominate the track. I wanted them to be both pleasant enough to listen too but also to create a sense of tension between them and foreboding. This took me a few weeks of playing around, improvising and recording.  

    "Once I had these written and at a tempo and style I was happy with I was able to create the other elements, adding and taking away underlying noises and atmosphere, almost like turning up and down the sense of tension and peril. There are some added string / orchestral sounds underneath the keys hinting towards classical music.  

    "I added further atmospheric effects, crackles and moments of static that were intentional, I wanted to give to give the piece a sense of fragility like it could cut out at any moment as though there were forces fighting against the very creation and playback of this music."

    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

    6 min
  • 3517: Sowers of discord
    Sowers of discord created by Odette Johnson (Museleon).

    "In keeping with the theme of Divine Retribution that runs throughout Dante’s Inferno, the sinners in the ninth chasm, the Sowers of Discord, are brutally split and mutilated, just as they split and mutilated aspects of religion, politics, or their fellow citizens. They poison the world with their words and create havoc, division and chaos as a result.

    "How appropriate for the times we are living in.

    "For this piece I began by reading several articles on some of the major issues that face our  planet at this time - climate change, the pandemic, radicalism, Trumpism, poverty, racism and mapped out common themes such as denying science and facts, denying culpability, undermining and diminishing others, spreading mistruths and destabilising democratic institutions and processes. Certain terms and practices are common and phrases such as ‘It’s not real’ ‘It’s not our fault’ ‘It’s not urgent’ are often repeated like mantras. The spreading of repeated denials, mistruths and conspiracy theories often result in division, conflict, riots, demonstrations and violence. I also looked up the definitions and synonyms of the word discord, which included musical terms, and since this is a pandemic and I am in semi lockdown, I recorded myself reading them.

    "These recordings of phrases and words are the basis of my piece and represent the methods used by the sowers of discord such as, whispering, louder voices drowning out weaker ones, repetition, overspeak, distortion, circular repetitive phrases, constant messages, reiteration and disorientating the listener. Radio waves, static and feedback add to the noise, with some voices sounding distorted as if the dial isn’t quite on the radio station but certain messages are still getting through. The underlying  doom laden drone uses notes from a discordant chord.

    "Overall, the aim was to create a cacophony of words that represent how the sowers of discord use amongst other things social media, media, rallies etc to get their message through with the aim to create division, hatred and violence, in order to get their way."

    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

    6 min
  • 3518: Hollow echoes
    Falsifiers created by Richard Gadd.

    "The broad theme of the eighth circle of Hell is fraud. The consequences of which result in the corruption of every social interaction, every identity is a lie, nothing and nobody can be trusted. This has a striking contemporary resonance.

    "I start the piece with a relatively bucolic soundscape, but there are not only birds but also flies. The bells, so familiar to medieval ears, become distorted and threatening and can be heard throughout the piece. The falsifiers are punished with diseases, and scream as they are torn apart by others and so on for all of eternity."

    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

    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.