Cities and Memory - remixing the world

When approaching a project like this I try to come up with a concept quickly - the immediacy of ideas is what makes most sense to me. To me, the sample reminded me of people rapping, and the flow of the original sample seemed to ask for some accompanying electronic instrumentation to give them centre stage. 

I tried three different approaches and stitched them together - the first part lends itself more to ambient listening, turning the vocals more into an instrument - and the second and third parts would be more at home in a club. I included parts of the sample where the people are also talking/expressing themselves to make it feel like a live jam - that they were also in the room. I think the restriction of not understanding the lyrics can also be an advantage - as the vocals can be used more like an instrument and listeners can focus on the tonality and flow of the words.

U'wa group chant reimagined by Richard Corke.

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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

U'wa group chant from the Andes in north-east Colombia.

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel recordings of U'wa songs and stories made by anthropologist Ann Osborn in the Northern Andes (Sierra Nevada del Cocuy region) in Colombia between 1969 and 1977.

Recorded by Ann Osborn.

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

I chose this field recording because I liked that it’s a documentation of someone imitating the music of nature. In that original recording itself there’s so many layers of the art. There’s the birdsong that the person presumably heard many times, then spent time learning how to make the whistling sound, then they made their song, which was recorded onto magnetic tape, and converted into a digital format, which finally reached me. It made me think about at what point something becomes art. 

In my composition, I featured the field recording mostly untouched, but I added elements that also comment on when something can be considered art. There’s the sound of a flag flapping against a pole, of which I liked the rhythmic and melodic gentle clinking. There’s the sound of a tuning fork, which I usually consider not to be a musical instrument but rather a tool used before the music is made. There’s sounds of me whistling based on my memory of the original field recording, which I felt more comfortable manipulating than the original. And there’s recordings that I took of some birds from my apartment in Michigan during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

This field recording is of U'wa whistling from the Andes in north-east Colombia. Some additional decisions in my composition were made based on what I learned about the U’wa people, who live in cloud forests mostly in Colombia. I used a bansuri to create some noisy flute articulations to evoke the misty air that I imagine flood the cloud forests. The U’wa people have also fought for many years to prevent oil drilling on their land. Throughout the composition there are two low drones, one meant again to evoke the ethereal cloud forest, the other meant to evoke the looming threat of environmental destruction. 

Above all, this field recording and this project made me reflect on what art is and when something becomes art. Art is amazing for its ability to transcend time and space. Through writing this composition I feel as though I have reached back to the cloud forests of Colombia in April 1973 when the original field recording was created and tie that moment in the past to this moment in the present, this cold wintery day in Baltimore in December 2025. 

U'wa whistling reimagined by Eugene Yoon.

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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 one of a number of miscellaneous individual recordings.

Unknown recordist.

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

"Six Records of Gongs and Singing": six phonograph records of drums and singing from Vanuatu, originally recorded on wax cylinders by anthropologist John Layard, later transferred (here) to tape.

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being one of a number of miscellaneous or individual ethnographic field recordings (rediscovered during a recent research project).

Recorded by John Willoughby Layard.

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

U'wa whistling from the Andes in north-east Colombia.

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel recordings of U'wa songs and stories made by anthropologist Ann Osborn in the Northern Andes (Sierra Nevada del Cocuy region) in Colombia between 1969 and 1977.

Recorded by Ann Osborn.

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

I decided to reimagine the recording of “Six Records of Gongs and Singing”: six phonograph records of drums and singing. Originally recorded in 1914 on Atchin Island in Vanuatu, these recordings were made using wax cylinders by anthropologist John Willoughby Layard. Later, in the late 1930s, they were transferred to 78rpm records, and in 1979, they were transferred to reel-to-reel tape.

In my recording of “Aural Sunbeam (Six Records of Gongs and Singing),” I am reinterpreting these historical sounds to capture the essence of the museum’s recording. My objective is to create a captivating narrative and sonic experience that may enhance a listener’s engagement with this remarkable historical artifact through our shared cultural memory. I believe that culturally significant artifacts that hold historical narratives can be used to gain new insights into the past.

My interest in preserving the music is equally important to me as the voice of anthropologist John Willoughby Layard in these recordings. For me, it deepens the connection between time and place, bringing history to life. I hope that my “Aural Sunbeam (Six Records of Gongs and Singing)” will create a new physical, emotional, and sensory connection to the original content.

Six records of gongs and singing reimagined by Jeff Düngfelder.

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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

As a starting point for this project, I did some research into the person who played the barrel organs on the recording.

It transpired that Freddy Hill (born 1932 in Sussex, UK) was a very gifted man. The son of a headmaster and a clockmaker by profession, he also taught carpentry and music and was an expert restorer of antique musical instruments including the chamber barrel organs in this recording. Freddy was a founder member of the Musical Box Society of Great Britain which was established in 1962. 

The three barrel organs being played here were built between 1764 and 1850, and the recordings were made in April 1967 after Freddy’s repairs and restoration. Most of the sounds on this 42-minute recording are of Freddy speeding through the barrel organ cylinders to check functionality, however the "Morning Hymn’"and "Evening Hymn" sections are played through at a nice pace and stood out to me, so I extracted these as the base for my work. After a number of abandoned approaches, rather than “reinterpret” the sounds, I have built a world around them, orchestrating with strings and brass, and blending sounds both natural and unnatural into the mix aiming to give the finished track a widescreen feel.

I considered contacting Freddy to tell him what I was doing, but he died in 2005. It was at that point I realised that this piece could be my small tribute to his life, hence the title I have chosen. 

Via Facebook I managed to locate someone who knew Freddy, and they have agreed to inform his only known relative; his nephew Michael Richards - of this project and submission. Freddy’s collection of clocks, musical instruments and barrel organs were bequeathed to the Royal College of Music.

Barrel organs reimagined by Adam Leonard.

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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

Barrel organs: recording of three English barrel organs in the Pitt Rivers Museum's collections, comprising songs played by Freddy Hill (restorer).

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being one of a small number of recordings of the musical instruments in the institution's collections being played or discussed.

Unknown recordist. 

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