Cities and Memory - remixing the world

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of Berber (Ait Haddidu) music and soundscapes made by members of the Oxford University Expedition to the Atlas Mountains of Southern Morocco in 1961.

Recorded by Audrey Butt, Michael R. Emerson or Ralph Hudson Johnson.

Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.

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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

Durei-na-mbwe (song) by the Broken Consort, with Samuel on bu-wahr-wahr (panpipes), accompanied by Dominique, Erine, Ferdinand and Marineau.

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a large collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of music and soundscapes made by ethnomusicologist Raymond Clausen mainly on the island of Malekula (Malampa Province) in Vanuatu between 1960 and 1979.

Recorded by Raymond Ernst Clausen.

Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.

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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a large collection of cassette tape and digital audio tape recordings of Bayaka music and soundscapes made by ethnomusicologist Louis Sarno mainly in the Central African Republic (and the Republic of Congo) between 1986 and 2009

Recorded by Louis Sarno.

Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.

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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel recordings of music and spoken language (principally Thulung Rai) made by anthropologist Nicholas Allen in Nepal and India between 1970 and 1981.

Recorded by Nicholas Justin Allen.

Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.

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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel recordings of music and spoken language (principally Thulung Rai) made by anthropologist Nicholas Allen in Nepal and India between 1970 and 1981.

Recorded by Nicholas Justin Allen.

Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.

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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of Chocó music and soundscapes made by students Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith in Colombia in 1965.

Recorded by Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith.

Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.

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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

Inspiration came from both the sound recording itself, and my impressions of the Pitt Rivers Museum. I was struck by the many objects and collections of musical instruments in the museum – giving me the phrases "surrounded by..." and "all around us..." As a wind player I was interested in all the different objects that could be blown through including some very simple pipes with one or two holes. I chose a piece which included a wind instrument and so it became a natural thing to highlight that as part of my piece. 

After listening extensively to the recording I found myself always wanting to move my feet – it was very much a dancing rhythm with constant movement. I wanted to capture that in my piece, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to do this. With lots of discussions going on among the artists about moral aspects surrounding the collecting of these sounds I had to decide whether I was going to "mess around" with the content to the extent that you couldn’t hear the original. I wanted to make sure that I was able to include the original recording so instead of my usual cutting up I copied the sections that I felt interesting. These included a drum rhythm and flute phrases (there were two that stood out). 

I began to experiment with my own wind instruments – metal flute, wooden flute, ocarinas, to see whether I could replicate the phrases. I wasn’t too concerned if they weren’t totally accurate as I felt I wanted an echo of the original. I was also experimenting with recording binaurally and surround sound in order to reflect the way I had felt at the museum. 

After doing a little research about where the recording was made, I found a couple of things about the area that suggested rainforest sounds would make a good backdrop to my piece. I think that the sounds of the insects become part of the incessant rhythmic pace of the piece. 

The piece is very much in my usually style – a mix of rhythm and layers of musical phrases with a backdrop of natural rainforest sounds. It has moments of stillness and quiet, but underneath is the driving constant rhythm of drums and insects. I decided to include sections of the original to drive that constant rhythm and as a reminder of where it all came from.

Chocó flute and drum music with rattle reimagined by Jessica Rowland.

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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

The production process centred on preserving the integrity of the original field recording from Lokhim, Nepal, while building a modern arrangement around it. Spectral Layers was utilised to isolate the vocal line from the background noise and original percussion, allowing the singer’s performance to remain the focal point without destructive editing. Once isolated, Melodyne and a custom built MIDI analysis tool were used to map the vocal’s intonation, identifying the scale to guide the new instrumentation.

Structured with a traditional verse and chorus arrangement, the track blends this preserved archival audio with contemporary sound design. The rhythm was programmed with the Air DrumSynth and Synplant provides melodic textures that complement the vocal. The atmosphere is heavily shaped by a number of Eventide effects — including Blackhole, UltraTap, and Physion Mk II — with Temperance Pro transforming processed artifacts of the vocal into a background drone, all arranged in Ableton Live and finalised with iZotope Ozone.

Man singing with percussion reimagined by Karhide.

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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

For this project I challenged myself to create every sound directly from the original recording. Drum hits, textures, bass and even a cowboy guitar were all manipulated extracts from the sample. The recording contains vocal interjections which I reused as percussive elements.

The jaw harp has a rich timbre and a compelling rhythmic drive, but it often required careful processing to soften harsh metallic tones.

Man playing bināyā (jew's harp) reimagined by Gavin Inglis.

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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

A reflection on distance, time and listening.

Morning sounds captured on reel-to-reel tape in Chocó, Colombia in 1965 meet digital recordings made sixty years later in Forest Gate, East London.

Morning soundscape among the Chocó people reimagined by Asher Levitas.

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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds