Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Cities and Memory - remixing the world

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Cities and Memory - remixing the world episodes

  • 3484: Street band plays a famous Mexican song during lockdown
    "During lockdown all music live events were cancelled. Many musicians went to the streets and played. People from the windows threw them some coins or food. They are playing "Asi Fue" a song by famous and iconic Mexican musician, Juan Gabriel. I love the dogs barking in the distance, annoyed by the music." Recorded in Mexico City by Luis Arenas López.

    Part of the StayHomeSounds project to map and reimagine the sounds of the Covid-19 lockdowns.
    2 min
  • 3483: From a fire escape in New York
    A sound from New York's lockdown recorded from an apartment fire escape on April 23 2020 in the Lower East Side.

    Recorded by Ryan Kailath.

    Part of the StayHomeSounds project to map and reimagine the sounds of the Covid-19 lockdowns.
    20 min
  • 3482: Uzès, South of France - second Lockdown on All Saints' Day
    Recorded by Claire Maurel.

    "Sunday 1st of november at noon in a small city in the south of France, quite touristy during high seasons. Today is All Saints Day, it is also the second lockdown in France. I'm walking around the beautiful city square. It is deserted today. 

    "One can only hear the sound of the big fountain and the ringing of the church bells, there is few people chatting in the background. It is a day of ancient tradition. 

    "Yet, the cloudy sky, and silence amplify a strange feeling of unprecedented and lingering threat. Pandemic. Lockdown. Terrorist attacks. Those terrible words are in every head, in every home. The sounds of the fountain and the bells have been there forever, going through wars and disasters. 

    "They are a comforting lullaby that reminds us that everything passes, and beauty remains, always.

    "In the Christian tradition, today celebrates the known and unknown saints. Believers or not, Christian or not, today is a day of Faith and Hope. I light a candle back home for everyone of us."

    Part of the StayHomeSounds project to map and reimagine the sounds of the Covid-19 lockdowns.

    1 min
  • 3481: Life under the Rialto Bridge, Venice
    The Rialto Bridge is one of the busiest spots in Venice, both in the tourist shops on top of the bridge, and the Grand Canal traffic below. Join us as we find a cosy spot next to this iconic bridge and listen to the sounds of Venice passing by us, including gondolas, a police boat, an ambulance boat with wailing sirens and the vaporetti (water taxis). Recorded by Cities and Memory.
    9 min
  • 3480: Washes under the Rialto
    Rialto Bridge sounds reimagined by Richard Gadd.

    "I have used the entire original recording and have highlighted and altered sections to create a richer soundscape.The original plays throughout the reimagined piece anchoring it in a lived in city. I was struck by the classical renaissance beauty of the bridge and the contrasting modern sounds."
    9 min
  • 3479: The Drift
    Sports cars drifting reimagined by Cities and Memory.

    The original field recording is an exciting listen - two sports cars practising their Fast and the Furious-style drifting in an empty car park at night. If anything, the distance between the cars and the recording device adds to the dynamism, with acres of reverb coming from those tuned-up engines. 

    For the reimagined piece, it's all about the engines, and trying to generate some of that same kinetic energy. The basic rhythms are generated by injecting motion into the car engine samples, around which the track is formed: drums are added, basslines in each half, and a series of dynamic, mobile synth lines from the Buchla Easel and ARP 2000 keep the energy levels high. This is The Drift. 
    4 min
  • 3477: Monte Grappa tu sei la mia patria
    Monte Grappa WW1 shelter reimagined by Cities and Memory.

    Walking around inside a shelter carved from the very rock of the mountain was a humbling experience, thinking of the incredible hardship enduring during the Great War in the mountains, and the effort that had to go into creating a supply line. 

    As a sonic tribute, the recording is blended with La Canzone del Grappa ('Mount Grappa'), a song composed in August 1918 by Captain Antonio Meneghetti as we make our way around the shelter, fading at the end as we reemerge into the misty daylight.

    Here are the lyrics, in both Italian and English.

    La Canzone del Grappa

    Monte Grappa tu sei la mia patria,
    sovra a te il nostro sole risplende,
    a te mira chi spera ed attende
    i fratelli che a guardia vi stan.

    Contra a te già s'infranse il nemico,
    che all'Italia tendeva lo sguardo:
    non si passa un cotal baluardo
    affidato ad italici cuor.

    Monte Grappa tu sei la mia patria,
    sei la stella che addita il cammino,
    sei la gloria, il volere, il destino,
    che all'Italia ci fa ritornar.

    Le tue cime fur sempre vietate
    per il piè dell'odiato straniero
    dei tuoi fianchi egli ignora il sentiero
    che pugnando più volte tentò.

    Qual la candida neve che al verno
    ti ricopre di splendido ammanto,
    tu sei puro ed invitto col vanto
    che il nemico non lasci passar.

    Monte Grappa tu sei la mia patria...

    O montagna per noi tu sei sacra
    giù di lì scenderanno le schiere
    che irrompenti a spiegate bandiere
    l'invasore dovranno scacciar.

    Ed i giorni del nostro servaggio
    che scontammo mordendo nel freno,
    in un forte avvenire sereno
    noi ben presto vedremo mutar.

    Monte Grappa tu sei la mia patria...

    English Translation - Mount Grappa

    Mount Grappa you are my motherland
    our sun shines over you
    Those who hope and wait they look at you
    they look at the brothers at guard on you

    The enemy's already broken against you,
    he who already aimed to Italy
    no one can pass such a bulwark
    put in charge to Italian hearts.

    Mount Grappa you are my motherland,
    you are the star showing the way
    you are the glory, the will, the destiny,
    that makes us remembering Italy

    Your peaks were always banned
    to the foot of the hated foreigner
    he doesn't know the way on your flanks
    that he tried to fight out.

    Like the snow that in winter covers you
    with a white mantel so you are pure
    and undefeated with the pride of having
    never let the enemy pass.

    Mount Grappa you are my motherland...

    O mountain, you are sacred to us
    the stormy ranks, with flags
    raised will descend from you
    to drive out the enemy

    We will soon see the days
    of our servitude, that we
    endured with great efforts,
    change in a serene future.

    Mount Grappa you are my motherland...

    4 min
  • 3476: Inside a mountain war bunker
    This recording is from inside one of the many shelters carved into Monte Grappa, northern Italy, during World War 1, as soldiers cleared and protected a supply line through the mountains. It was a humbling experience to walk through these shelters, thinking of the huge effort it would have taken to make them in the first place, and the hardship endured on the mountains by those soldiers. Recorded by Cities and Memory.
    2 min
  • 3475: A hopeful thought
    Aeolian-Skinner organ reimagined by Baying Ridges.

    "The original track had a sadness but also some hope to it. I wanted to focus on that hope amid a wash of drones and noise. Hence the title, A Hopeful Thought."
    3 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.