Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Cities and Memory - remixing the world

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Cities and Memory - remixing the world episodes

  • 3232: Fora Bolsonaro
    Belo Horizonte lockdown sound reimagined by Andy Billington. 
    "The original field recording is very powerful detailing the dissatisfaction with Bolsonaro. The sound is filled with rhythm, emotion and raw anger being smashed out on the bottom of pots and pans in streets and flats. As the sound develops you get a sense of the space it was recorded in and the scale of mistrust and vexation. All of this influenced my approach. One voice was prominent, speaking for many. 
    "I wanted to preserve this but also ensure the relentless pounding percussion (reminding the Government?) filled the whole piece. Preserving the raw emotion and movement was important. Anything else would be a disservice. A synth adds low end, swilling around and filling up the airspace like some septic foggy dub memory."
    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
  • 3231: Peace has a price
    Brasilia lockdown sound reimagined by Kim Goldsmith.
    "This 8-track mix includes 5’00 of the original sound recording as the hero of the remix, underscored by the same track in reverse to create tensity. Tapping into the need to feel ‘normal’ within the safety of our own homes and communities, in the midst of building global tensions around the Covid19 pandemic, I’ve used what’s readily available to create sound effects representing the push and pull of the situation - a scrubbing brush on metal, a kitchen clock, chopsticks on a sink, all rhythmic while we feel OK and off-beat when we’re not. Waves of hope and despair have us surfing on the swirling currents of the unknown, leaving some to watch time and others to lose it permanently."
    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
  • 3230: Why are you clapping?
    London lockdown sound reimagined by Michael Lilley.
    "Using endlesss.fm, my go to for pretty much everything audio based, I made this remix with a combination of in-app synths and FX plus I piped in the additional mournful lead and pass using Animoog on a second iPad.
    "For all our frontline services, you’re doing fantastic. Thank you."
    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
  • 3229: Passing of Time in the Pandemic
    Guadalajara lockdown sound reimagined by Millie Wissar. 
    "While in quarantine I experienced stillness of time, fear, joy, sadness, connection with others and mostly hope. Time felt different while in quarantine. It started out feeling "normal" and doable but as the days went by everything started to melt together. 
    "Some days went by too quickly while others never happened, some weeks felt like a long hour and some got lost within my memory and dreams. This piece represents emotional time during a pandemic. "
    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
  • 3228: Lockdown WHO?
    Rio de Janeiro lockdown sound reimagined by Marcela Echeverri. 
    "I worked with the recording of a prerecorded warning message being played on the streets of Rio de Janeiro asking people to stay home, wash their hands and beware of the lethal virus.
    "All the sounds in my piece come straight from the recording. I was inspired by three elements: the engine of a motorcycle passing by, a cheese melody that was part of the prerecorded message, and birds singing a melody that is familiar to me.
    "My intention was to give this message a dystopian vibe. The cheesy music gets a more futuristic tone. The motorcycle engine becomes a warning percussion. The birds dominate the space in the end. 
    I modified most of the sounds digitally, except for the bird sounds, I wanted to create a feeling that the message starts with a powerful feeling but it starts fading away as the birds enter the picture."
    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
    2 min
  • 3227: The Island Of Birdsong (Xqui MLB Remix)
    Heraklion lockdown sound reimagined by Xqui.
    "We're living in difficult times and maybe appreciating more of the world around us.  The sounds of nature particularly inspire me - were the sounds always there or is nature playing a different song?  
    "Birds provide the most calming chirp - their voices are clearer than ever before and provide much calm and solstice. Adding to their song gives a perfect background and centrepiece"
    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
    7 min
  • 3226: Scops Owl World
    Thessaloniki lockdown sound reimagined by Angela Winter.
    "The scops owl's voice, hidden before coronavirus quieted Thessaloniki, lured me into a dreamlike world. I began to wonder: What do owls hear when they sing within a silenced city? I imagined them gathering as I extended the original solo recording into an experimental chorus."
    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
    3 min
  • 3225: Piombino
    Piombino lockdown sound reimagined by Anthony Lyons. 
    "I was drawn to the sound of the ringing bells of Piombino as markers of time, memory and experience during the lockdown period. The bells ringing every 30 minutes, punctuated by silence and seagulls seemed to capture a surreal sense of time passing – time seeming to slow down and become stationary, repeat, reverse. I was also fascinated by the different kinds of timbrel qualities and rhythmic patterns in the recording – regularity and randomness co-existing, subtle echo patterns created as bells reverberated across the town; The hearing of old sounds in new ways that comes from capturing this strange period of lockdown stillness. 
    "In my piece I’ve tried to pick up on some of these characteristics. Bells are re-pitched, reversed, rhythmically stuttered, transformed into pads, reverberated in ways that magnify a sense of time, space and memory. A constant polyrhythmic bell pattern underlies the piece whist other processed granular bell and seagull sounds more irregularly echo, wash and distort across the texture, pushing and pulling the sensations of time, timbre, space."
    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
  • 3224: St Margaret's Drone
    Oxford lockdown sound reimagined by Daryn Brown.
    "I love a pump organ. only played one once but this sound appealed to me. I didn't take my usual approach of stretching the hell out of it, I wanted to use the sound untreated. I made three copies of the original and used harmonisers, filters and gates to make random changes over time."
    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
    2 min
  • 3223: Great Tom
    Oxford lockdown sound reimagined by Ruth Knight. 
    "My Piece "Great Tom' features the bell 'Great Tom' in Tom Tower at Christ Church College, Oxford. The recording was taken just 30 minutes after Boris Johnson announced the lockdown of the UK.
    "The recording influenced me massively, it runs the whole way through the piece and acts as the skeleton on which everything is built. I tried to bring out the things I could hear in the recording and elaborate on them to create a new, calm and meditative world. 
    "The lockdown has been a strange time for everyone, but for me, a mix of rest, frustration, worry, laughter and reflection. My lifestyle has changed, I've enjoyed running and spending time cooking nice food, I've been reading and spending more time on the phone to my loved ones - all things that I would like to take with me once the lockdown has lifted. The recording was captured at a time of great worry for a lot of people, but from that I have tried to build upon the beautiful elements and create a new and calm world. I similarly hope that we can build upon the good things that have happened within the lockdown and take them forward into whatever 'normal life' looks like afterwards."
    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

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.