Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Cities and Memory - remixing the world

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Cities and Memory - remixing the world episodes

  • 3270: Telegranular
    Piece based on telegraph sounder and speaking telephone by John Wiggins.
    "Such early technology, I had to use granular synthesis to go back in time and get down to the "quanta" of what this object sounded like then and what it sounds like now."
    Part of the Smithsonian Treasures project, a collection of new sound works inspired by items from the Smithsonian Museums’ collections - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/smithsonian
    2 min
  • 3267: I Love A Piano - Jungle Radio
    Piece based on photo of Irving Berlin by Glenn Sogge.
    "I think of this as one of a series of Counterfeit Pieces. Imagine being in a jungle with a radio and scanning for entertainment. Counterfeit birds, counterfeit rain, counterfeit radio tuning, counterfeit record noise as you finally catch a recording from 1916 (not counterfeit) of one of Irving Berlin's early hits - I Love A Piano."
    Part of the Smithsonian Treasures project, a collection of new sound works inspired by items from the Smithsonian Museums’ collections - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/smithsonian
    5 min
  • 3270: The Marey Reel
    Piece based on "Marey Reel photographs of unidentified model" by Paul Collins.
    "I was initially made aware of chronophotography while at studying art school: Marcel Duchamp used Marey’s and Muybridges’ work as a direct reference for his painting, “Nu descendant l’escalier, N°2.” The chronophotograph from the Smithsonian Collection is by Thomas Eakins, who is generally recognized as having introduced photography as a tool for art students and painters in America. He used Etienne-Jules Marey’s system of a rotating cylinder mounted on a rifle-like apparatus. This “Marey Wheel” consisted of 25 views. 25 then, is the number of steps that I used to compose the sequence that structures my piece. We hear the steps of the model running, leaping through the air, landing with a thud. 
    "This is translated as a motif, or ostinato, that repeats itself, over and over, like multiple prints reproduced from the same negative.
    Besides the filmic connotation of a reel, I am referencing here the folk dance. 
    "All sounds in “The Marey Reel” were made using a Moog synthesizer."
    Part of the Smithsonian Treasures project, a collection of new sound works inspired by items from the Smithsonian Museums’ collections - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/smithsonian
    3 min
  • 3273: Spitfire
    Piece based on Supermarine Spitfire by Jeff Holland.
    "This piece reflects the take-off, swooping majesty, and deadly impact of the Spitfire aircraft as it soars the skies in a quest for freedom."
    Part of the Smithsonian Treasures project, a collection of new sound works inspired by items from the Smithsonian Museums’ collections - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/smithsonian
    7 min
  • 3264: Moonshine
    Piece based on DJ tweeters by Michael Lilley.
    "This treasure is named as Tweeters used as part of a DJ setup and categorised under hip hop music, which (semi-tangentially) led me to think about sampling.... 
    "Every sound in my entire composition evolved from a (heavily manipulated and treated) single sample (of Imogen Heap singing the short vocal phrase which can be detected weaving throughout the piece). 
    "I made the core of this piece using a solo jam in endlesss.fm, including the stereo effects (as a response to the physical curvature visible in the image) before restructuring the exported stems using jamm pro and mastering it with final touch. All on an iPad."
    Part of the Smithsonian Treasures project, a collection of new sound works inspired by items from the Smithsonian Museums’ collections - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/smithsonian
    6 min
  • 3257: Kurtis Blow's jacket
    Piece based on Kurtis Blow's jacket. 
    "I took the catalogue description and fed it into Google Translate. The output was turned into a WAV which was then manipulated. Some of the detail was turned to Midi data. 
    "This was then fed back into my DAW and provided a melody idea. The remaining track was then manipulated until a structure was reached. Some sounds of clothing against the mic input of an OP1 became synths which were then further pitched and turned into basic synth lines. The jacket sort of became the song."
    Part of the Smithsonian Treasures project, a collection of new sound works inspired by items from the Smithsonian Museums’ collections - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/smithsonian
    9 min
  • 3258: Everyone knows I'm not a liar
    Piece based on "Murder on Lennox Ave." poster by Richard Watts. 
    "I always enjoy doing something dark. I managed to find a copy of the film on the Internet Archive so sampled some of the dialogue and the title music. There’s an odd feel about the film so I wanted to capture that in the re-imaged piece. I’ve used a repeating bass line that drives the piece on and then added a lot of horn melodies as the original film music used horns."
    Part of the Smithsonian Treasures project, a collection of new sound works inspired by items from the Smithsonian Museums’ collections - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/smithsonian
    4 min
  • 3256: Golden poison frog
    Piece based on Golden Poison Frog by Odette Johnson. 
    "The Golden Poison Frog  is of the species phyllobates terribilis and is found in the pacific coastal regions of Columbia. It lives in areas of the rainforest with very high rain levels of about 5m per year, temperatures of at least 26°C, and relative humidity of 80–90%. For such a brightly coloured tiny frog, it is deceptively dangerous, as it is the most poisonous thing on the planet, where the secretions from its skin could kill up to 10 men. However, it is used by the indigenous people of the rainforest, who use the poison on their arrowheads for hunting.
    "As with many of my tracks, I wanted to create a sound story based on the image and in this case I imagined a tiny yellow frog sitting in the undergrowth during a heavy downpour in the Columbian rainforest. I used sounds that were recorded in amazonian rainforests under creative commons 0 licence (www.freesound.org ) or created on synths to sonically represent different types of rain, falling through the canopy, rainfall on tin roofs and heavy raindrops. There is a lot of noise, particularly the Piha bird in the distance. I also found a recording of a charango improvisation, which I felt loosely represented the area, as well as rain. 
    "As Museleon, many of my tracks are created based on the close connections I feel  between sound and image and in this case I wanted to explore the link between the colour yellow and sound. I read an article about a Parisian Jesuit priest named Louis Betrand Castel who in 1730 built his own Ocular Harpsichord. 
    “This consisted of a frame with 60 small coloured windows that sat above a regular harpsichord. Each window was covered by curtains which in turn were connected to an individual key. Whenever a key was struck a curtain would open revealing a coloured window that corresponded with Castel’s theory relating colour to sound. According to Castel the colour yellow related to the note E”.
    "The sound of yellow is apparently one of pulsating energy, lightness and is also luminous. I mainly used the note E as well as sounds that tried to mimic these qualities.
    "However, the overall track ended up having a melancholic air. The tiny frog with high guiro voice, sits in the rain, chirruping, as in its world it has no threats.
    "Unfortunately,  it is oblivious to the many dangers there are to its habitat." 
    Part of the Smithsonian Treasures project, a collection of new sound works inspired by items from the Smithsonian Museums’ collections - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/smithsonian
    4 min
  • 3255: Renewal
    Piece based on "The Violinist" by Fernando Cerqueira.
    "The loneliness of the violinist."
    Part of the Smithsonian Treasures project, a collection of new sound works inspired by items from the Smithsonian Museums’ collections - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/smithsonian
    6 min
  • 3254: Washing Fabric
    Piece based on Japanese artwork by Andy Lyon.
    "There's an element of mystery to the picture. It appears to be set in the mountains with a picture of Mount Fuji in the top left.  
    "There isn't really a background, this adds to the mystery as does the serious expression on the lady's face and the fact she's looking behind her.  I've tried to capture the mood and various rhythms, there's rhythms in the flow of the water and in the washing process for example and I've used a variety of orchestration sounds with a variety of movement. "
    Part of the Smithsonian Treasures project, a collection of new sound works inspired by items from the Smithsonian Museums’ collections - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/smithsonian
    6 min

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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.