Cities and Memory - remixing the world

A walk around the poultry souk in Essaouira, Morocco - listen closely at the end and you can hear the somewhat unpleasant sound of a chicken being slaughtered. Recorded by Cities and Memory.

Part of the Three Words project - find out more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/three-words

Brass band in Moscow reimagined by Matt Chapman Jones.

"My words included "slam" and the audio features train doors so I started from there processing the mechanical sound in to a quasi-kick drum or "kicker"... From there with a lot of my compositions sounds do develop and evolve so the the Three Words prompted me well. I was trying to render the jarring experience of the coming and goes of trains, people; even the the recording was largely noise, I chose to pull out more rhythmic elements prompted by "kickers" and "slam"."

Part of the Three Words project - find out more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/three-words

Essaouira souk reimagined by Alex Hehir.

"I used the words (///goes.rescue.tonality) as musical /sound cues for firstly delving into the field recording and pulling out sounds. This then informed the direction and mood of the piece. I found the sounds of slaughter quite troubling and wanted to reflect this with the repetitive bass pulse that is throughout the majority of the piece. The mix down process was down live to create as much movement and dynamics as possible. I have used the field recording in a number of ways including small fragments for percussion and time stretched versions running underneath the musical elements."

Part of the Three Words project - find out more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/three-words

Essaouira call to prayer reimagined by Chris Enisle.

"I guess I was thinking of a basic building structure; the first half being the planning and the second half the brick laying and stabs as floors are completed."

Part of the Three Words project - find out more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/three-words

Morere Hot Springs reimagined by Tim Coomb.

"I had the words in mind as I created the piece of music, but it was only after I created this Haiku, that the relationship between the words and music became clear.

Kneeling, water, hiss,

Fizzing, falling, spirits, now,

Communing nature."

Part of the Three Words project - find out more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/three-words

Recorded at the Morere Hot Springs between Gisborne and Napier. You can hear cicadas and a stream running past the Hot Springs. Recorded by Richard Watts. 

Part of the Three Words project - find out more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/three-words

Farlim night market reimagined by Richard Gadd.

"I was drawn to the chosen sound by the three words: ///frame.poems.vanished. I created a text which, ultimately, used the three words in the line 'A poem is/Love varnished/Framed by silence. I used a diverse group of people (non-actors) to voice the text. Given that the sound originates from a night market I used clips to suggest a busy, bustling crowd together with the sugar cane crusher (the sound).

The original sound was sampled and used to provide a percussion track for the duration of the piece while the text is 'refined' to its conclusion."

Butterworth pier reimagined by Keira Simmons.

"For Suffusion I was interested in the rich textures of the original recording, and the location of the recording (what sounded to me like underneath a dock, right at the water). For that reason I composed from an underwater perspective, moving from the surface to the deep ocean and back up. In using richer.snacks.protect, I thought about the effect of using the three as a unit, and from that point focused on consumption as a theme; consumption of resources, of nature, and the ramifications of industry on oceans. Inspired by Leah Barclay's  "Migration Patterns: From Freshwater to Saltwater", I created layered, overwhelming textures to sink the listener into the world of underwater creatures. I supplemented the original sound with my own field recording of waves, to strengthen the sense of watery immersion. I used granular synthesis on the sound pitched-up to freeze time and imitate the sound of snapping shrimp, and on the sound pitched-down to create the rumbling sensation of machinery underground."

Part of the Three Words project - find out more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/three-words

Recorded by Marcel Gnauk.

"It was a gloomy day with clouds and a few raindrops. I drove to the end of the pier and found all these fisher boats leashed on the pier. Because of the wind, the waves splashed on the sites of the boats and these boats hitting the pier. Great soundscape!!

The pier is not really fixed, more like a loose floating pier. Everything shakes around and I had to be careful. One step into the wrong fishing net and I land in the water."

Part of the Three Words project - find out more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/three-words

Recorded by Marcel Gnauk.

"You can hear a vendor making sugar cane juice with a very old machine that is connected to a power generator as well. Lots of people walking by having a chat in mostly Chinese language. I stopped next to two food stalls and got an amazing sizzling sound.

They're not just using a tiny pan, they using super huge woks and you can listen how the chefs turning on the gas to fire up the woks over and over again plus turning the food around."

Part of the Three Words project - find out more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/three-words