Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Cities and Memory - remixing the world

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Cities and Memory - remixing the world episodes

  • 2624: Washington Square to Coalfalls
    New York subway reimagined by Sherman and Field.
    "We opted to retain and use the New York field recording in entirety, giving its story a place of prominence in the track. 
    "Accompanying it is an improvised beats session one November Sunday afternoon on our deck, chimes being struck at the local railway museum, and a short field recording captured on a train back to the station at the bottom of our street."
    7 min
  • 2622: Found Tapes in Columbus Park NYC
    Columbus Park reimagined by Andy Billington.
    "The original field recording was chosen randomly but was perfect. It sounded like it was a great day and I wish I was there. 
    "I took the key melody from the opening few minutes of the original and using a combination of plug ins and live instruments improvised over this with oboe, strings, flute and found audio. 
    "This was chopped into equal bars and re assembled. Next, I added movement with ring shifter and finally reversed the whole track and pitching down. 
    "The final recording sounds like a weathered, dream wave, found cassette tape which I imagined might still be there after everyone went home."
    8 min
  • 2621: Chinatown comes to Columbus Park
    A slice of Chinatown, New York, condensed into one small Manhattan park. In this fascinating recording, we can hear first a man playing a Chinese string instrument solo, as he teaches his friend technique on the instrument. Next, we wander around the park where there are tables full of mostly older people playing various board games, betting on the outcomes and discussing the next moves in a very animated manner. Finally, we hear a group of five or six musicians settling down to play some traditional Chinese songs on an array of instruments, including a small vocal amplifier. Recorded by Cities and Memory.
    9 min
  • 2620: Run to Home
    New York baseball match reimagined by Scott Wilson. 
    "The original recording, of a local baseball game, suggested both the noisy role of sports in contemporary culture and the narrative of each game, leading to an overwhelming crescendo at the conclusion. 
    "My piece mirrors that but is, I hope, slightly more uneasy listening, reflecting my own ambivalences about team sport."
    16 min
  • 2618: Sweeping Manhattan
    Circle Line cruise reimagined by Elisabetta Senesi.
    "The piece is composed by snippets of the original recording which are chopped, slightly manipulated and reassembled with a few static tones in a way that the cruise flows between real and unreal. 
    "I was inspired by a little human voice coming out of the loudspeaker swept by the abstract sounds/noises of these huge cruising waves around Governor's Island."
    5 min
  • 2617: Baseball in Williamsburg, Brooklyn
    It's Sunday morning in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and in McCarren Park there are two amateur baseball games going on at once. Here we're watching a game, hearing the sound of balls being whacked, runners going to different bases and the fielding team calling out to one another. Recorded by Cities and Memory.
    6 min
  • 2616: Near Governors Island
    The Circle Line cruise is one of the most popular New York tourist attractions - here, we pass Governors Island and tune into the commentary along with the throb of the boat's engines. Recorded by Cities and Memory.
    5 min
  • 2615: Do Electric Ferries Dream of Staten Island?
    Staten Island ferry reimagined by Graeme Rose.
    For this Cities and Memory project I realised that the deadline was, more or less, when the events in the 1982 film 'Blade Runner' take place. This got me considering what the clip I picked, ('Staten Island Ferry') would be like in this alternative November 2019. Maybe it would be a space port as well as a normal ferry crossing?
    I sliced up the file into the announcements ( for glitching and distorting) and slams from it as heartbeating-ish engine throbs, with the sounds of the water as background hum/hiss. And went for an ambient-ish set of music chords which ebb and flow, and surround, like waves over the ferry noises to surround them all.
    So do Electric Ferries dream of Staten Island?
    4 min
  • 2614: The Staten Island ferry arrives
    The Staten Island Ferry is that strangest of things - an extremely functional public transport service route that also doubles as one of New York's most popular tourist attractions as it's free and it takes you past the Statue of Liberty. So the makeup of ferry travellers varies in percentage of tourists to locals depending on the time of day you take it - here it is docking into Staten Island at the end of its brief 20-minute trip. Recorded by Cities and Memory.
    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.