Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Cities and Memory - remixing the world

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Cities and Memory - remixing the world episodes

  • 3335: Have a safe day
    New York Grand Central lockdown sound reimagined by Logan Austeja Daniel.
    "These are the sounds that have intensified in my neighborhood - the infrastructure and the machines made more evident as the people shelter in place.
    "On the east coast, the empty halls of Grand Central Station in New York City are resonating with the thrum of trains vibrating through the station, but very few people. On the west coast, the cars of essential workers are zooming over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
    "And in many homes, the chorus of individuals at their sewing machines, stitching masks to bind us to health, to share through donation, to stem the tide.
    "The original field recording submitted to Cites and Memory of Grand Central Station inspired me to record our Golden Gate Bridge with a contact microphone. I recorded the vibrations of the metal's internal resonance, deep rhythms and pulses. This was interwoven into my soundscape like the flow of blood and breath inside our bodies.
    "Our days are more intense now. No longer are we greeted with "have a nice day", but instead we are wished a safe one."
    Part of the #StayHomeSounds project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of the global coronavirus lockdown around the world - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/covid19-sounds
    5 min
  • 3334: MinaCity 2020
    Oxford Circus, London lockdown sound reimagined by Camilla Fanning.
    "The sound was just so normal, it reminded me of travel and short city hops. I often visit pals in the UK, but now this is going to be difficult. It got me thinking about how underneath all the ordinariness there is something lurking. There is a sense of unease, of an alarm at any moment.
    "I wanted to take the recording and twist it, manipulate the original to expose this under-layer. We start by hearing the fairly normal sounds of the international identity that is London, a world capital. But bit by bit we hear something discordant. There is something wrong. And then we realise - there is a warning, and finally, we hear the alarm.
    "The word for this feeling is Minacious, from the Latin minax, to threaten, which then became the title - MinaCity 2020."
    Part of the #StayHomeSounds project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of the global coronavirus lockdown around the world - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/covid19-sounds
    6 min
  • 3333: On the beach, breathless
    Wagga Beach, Australia reimagined by Richard Gadd.
    "I wanted to contrast the openness of the beach to the confines of of suffering in bed, ventilated, possibly in an induced coma. The bird sounds provided me with a rich palette of sounds from the commonplace that could be made menacing or threatening."
    15 min
  • 3332: Bergensk life
    Norwegian harbour sounds reimagined by Cities and Memory. 
    "The field recording on its own was somewhat enigmatic, and tricky to gauge what was going on in the surroundings, so I checked out some images of Bergen and was struck by the absolute beauty of this Norwegian port town with its picturebook houses and mountainous backdrop. The piece is built tightly around the field recording, allowing it to pop up and down and in and out of the final piece, which is a  melodic composition reflecting the simplicity of enjoying life in a fishing town in the north."
    4 min
  • 3331: Life in a Norwegian harbour
    Field recording from Bergen, Norway by Peter Barnard. 
    "This recording took place in Cappes vei near the Bergen Cathedral (Domkirken). In the recording you can hear bells from the cathedral in the distance and footsteps of people passing by. Around 00.54 there's a male voice saying something along the lines of 'come on!'"
    3 min
  • 3330: I'm sure there's stuff going on here
    Davos church bells reimagined by Jason Pinches.
    "I couldn't help but go quite cinematic with this one. There are a lot of sonic elements so I tried to isolate then rearrange them to create a bit of a story. There's a rumbling noise in the original recording that has a pumping effect which I like and have used throughout. I've not added any other audio, just processed the original recording. The story might be about a tourist group trudging around the church grounds as sinister events unfold."
    2 min
  • 3329: Church bells at the World Economic Forum
    During the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the bells of the tiny church ring out across the town as usual - but the town has a completely different feel, filled as it is with the world's most powerful leaders and businesspeople. The church carries on its business as usual, but its bells seem somehow smaller in the huge context of what happens in this town once every year. Recorded by Cities and Memory.
    3 min
  • 3328: Waking up, staying up
    Spring in Tehran reimagined by Alan Bleay.
    "The birds of dawn are the starting point of another day for which I have tried to reflect in the journey through that time musically which ultimately will come to an end ready for the start of another day."
    Part of the #StayHomeSounds project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of the global coronavirus lockdown around the world - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/covid19-sounds
    6 min
  • 3327: Fenêtre sur cour
    Marseilles lockdown sound reimagined by Ian McArthur. 
    "My composition consists of digitally processed layers of the original file augmented with synths and guitar plus the original file."
    Part of the #StayHomeSounds project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of the global coronavirus lockdown around the world - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/covid19-sounds
    15 min
  • 3324: Silence Please
    Rome's Pantheon reimagined by Dave Webb.
    "The Pantheon is such an enormous space with a huge reverb. I timestretched the sample and layered it with a slowed down version. I isolated a couple of percussion sounds. looped them and added some convolution reverb using impulses that I recorded in the Pantheon several years ago. The result is a vast, sludgy, Roman dub techno track."
    11 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.