Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Reykjavik Art Museum reimagined by Shaun Malone.

"This was a very short clip so I applied some heavy time stretching and pitch shifting to allow the rhythm, texture and space of the sound to be heard in detail. Using Ableton Live I focused on looping rhythmic elements of the sound and layering it against itself at different speeds. To represent “brain” I added a repeating sine tone at 40Hz, the typical frequency for gamma waves. “petted” was covered courtesy of a cat purring, found on freesound at https://freesound.org/s/260881/. “went” had me stumped for ages, until I realised I could use a plugin to make the sound appear to fade into the distance and come back again. The piece is 2:11 long, as the number 211 has a personal significance to me. I came up with the title by putting the 3 words through an anagram server and finding that ///beard.intent.wept is located in a small town in Czechia!"

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

Gullfoss waterfall reimagined by AJ Born.

"The original recording contained a lot of wind noise, so the first step was to extract the sound of the Gulfoss waterfall from it. I played around with that sound of falling water, used some filters and changed speed and hight of the sound. Surprisingly I found something unexpected: The Gulfoss was singing like a bird!

To include patriotism, I have used this bird sound to create a little tune that was inspired by the Icelandic national anthem.

I have combined these different sounds with the acoustically enhanced original recording and it inserted some rewinding sections."

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

Bhakti Park reimagined by Baying Ridges.

"The Three Words ///ounce.hammocks.gateway along with the raw recording from Bhakti Park in India provided the inspiration for the piece.  A weary traveler stumbles upon and enters a gateway, which leads to a majestic deep hidden cavern.  Once inside, the traveler sees an ancient thatched hammock and lies down, drifting off while the djinn awake..."

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

St. Peter's reimagined by Simon Le Boggit.

"The three apparently random words ///memo.audible.bless assigned to the location of St Peter's Basilica seem strangely apt for a place of worship. I like it when chance and coincidence / synchronicity emerge from chaotic systems. I've ganged the three words with the sounds made by a wordless choir whose music has been algorithmically generated using simple chaos, repetition and mutation. Why do I do such things? Beats me! Just another product of chaotic life I guess...  :)"

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

The sounds inside the gallery space at this museum in Reykjavik, Iceland - recorded by Richard Watts. 

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

The sound of the wind, tourists and the waterfall, recorded by Richard Watts. 

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

Ambience inside the world's largest and most famous Catholic cathedral at the heart of Rome. An epic, sacred ambience and the sound of thousands of worshippers and tourists. Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

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

The late-night sounds of Bhakti Park, Mumbai, India - as heard and recorded by Mark Baker. 

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

At midday on the first Wednesday of every month, each village, town and city in France tests the national emergency alarm siren. This was recorded in the 11th district of Paris.

Recorded by Colin Hunter.

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

Paris alarm test reimagined by David Henckel.

"I used two of the three words. Relating and Spots. I used another field recording of my own - An overground train journey in London for the word relating - I felt there were similar dynamics and drones in the sounds of that and the sirens I was given. I also Pitch shifted the sirens sample really low and panned the 2 field recordings slightly left and right. Half way through the piece I started layering the siren field recording at an octave higher and throughout I used resampled and chopped parts triggered randomly - ish with a sequencer and some Lfo's controlling various parts of the sequencer and the filter. This formed the base of the track. The Spots were the short samples as well as side chain compressing a muted snare in 4/4 over the tracks base to imply a rhythm - I was imagining a dot painting across the sound. I exported / resampled the whole track about 6 times as I added new layers including a reversed reverb/delay layer of the whole track. The final elements were some bass sequences (again using lfos to trigger randomisation of notes - 16th note Hi Hats and a kick sat way back and filtered out somewhat. I really liked the bird sounds in the sample which came out really well when the sample had been pitched lower / stretched and I'm happy with the way that various sounds merge and cross over - some of the train noises are v similar to the bleeps and bloops from the synths. Everything done in Ableton with Native plugins and a few Max for Live devices."

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