Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Recorded by Steve Ashby.

"Recorded as part of Sonic Mmabolela, the 6th Annual Workshop/Residency for sound artists & composers at Mmabolela Reserve, Limpopo, South Africa."

Part of the Sounding Nature project - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sounding-nature

Recorded by George Vlad. "When night falls in Niokolo Koba, the baboons start arguing over the best spots in the trees."

Part of the Sounding Nature project - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sounding-nature

Reimagined by Ricky Milano.

"When I first heard the sound, it communicated to me strength, group, community.

I imagined being there in the forest at night and hearing the calls and answers are baboons between tree and tree.

This feeling inspired me a composition where the calls of the baboons are transformed into a rhythmic and tribal dance."

Part of the Sounding Nature project - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sounding-nature

Reimagined by Irving Kinnersley. 

"I was responding to a sonic world which is totally different to that which surrounds me every day in the Somerset countryside. One of the dominant characteristics of the sound file is its sheer 'noisiness' - bird calls, wing noise, buffalo grunts(?,) but covering it all the never ending sheen of insect noise. In response I decided to extract various sonic elements from the file and treat them to various forms of processing in order to form a pallet as a basis for the pieces. When composing I was thinking of abstraction in painting where the source material and aesthetic requirements of the work merge into a whole. The Sonic Mmabolela underpins all three 'abstracts, disappearing and reappearing sustaining the pieces as the water sustains the animals of the Mmbolela Waterhole. 

The sound file while continuous contains three separate pieces."

Part of the Sounding Nature project - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sounding-nature

Reimagined by Claudio Fredo Ignazio Landolt.

"I was struck by this birdcall from the moment I heard it. I really just liked the sound this bird made, the consistency of its whistle had an eerie deepness and a mechanical quality to it that made me curious. I later read that it was recorded at the Canadian Banff National Park in the Rocky Mountains and I thought I could try to detach this bird from its natural habitat and see what happens when I begin to mess around with it. I somehow liked the thought that I take a bird from the Rocky Mountains to the Swiss Alps (where my studio is situated) to and build a new habitat for it. I then isolated the birds call from the original audio spectrum and began to compose with it by transposing and collaging and layering it. The piece starts with a reminiscence of the original river noise from the original audio-file in order to draw attention and to build a clear contrast to the new, artificial world that builds up afterwards. It slowly grows into an artificial room full of dystopian fake birds - which is why I called the piece „Fögel" („Vögel“ is the german word for „birds“. Because we hear mutant-birds I called it „Fögel“, which sounds just like „Vögel“ when pronounced, but has grammatically mutated DNA)."

Part of the Sounding Nature project - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sounding-nature

Reimagined by Stanislav Nikolov.

"In this piece, I wanted to play with time and frequency to explore the richness of the organic and synthetic in bird calls and helicopter drones. I pitched the bird calls down in frequency to create lower and more extended tones. I also pitched the recording up and used very short loops to create synthetic-sounding noises from the organic sounds. To reference another source of organic tones, I closed the piece with a chorus of very pitched down crickets recorded on my terrace in Bulgaria."

Part of the Sounding Nature project - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sounding-nature

Reimagined by Arian Zilliacus.

"This is my first attempt at composing a sound piece so it was a very intuitive process, with a lot of experimentation due to my unfamiliarity with the software. The sounds I used, in addition to the ‘Fog’ recording by Robert Dansby, are recorded by myself. I’ve been waiting to use this recording of singing bowls resonating in an underground water cistern and this seemed like a good opportunity to try it out. The singing bowls sound otherworldly to me, almost space-like, so I edited the small tapping noises in Robert’s recording to produce the glitchy sounds you can hear throughout the piece, which continue to echo and bounce around beyond the fog."

Part of the Sounding Nature project - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sounding-nature

Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger on Unsplash

Recorded by Mark Wilden. In a park by the bank of Bow River in Banff National Park, Alberta; birdsong, walking to a bridge over Bow River.

Part of the Sounding Nature project - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sounding-nature

Recorded by Cities and Memory. "Starlings argue, fight and feed in their hundreds in New York's Central Park, while traffic noise and helicopters pass by around us."

Part of the Sounding Nature project - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sounding-nature

Recorded by Robert Dansby. 

"Living near the Ventura County coast the marine layer is quite thick at times, particularly in the early morning. This day it was condensing on to the tree canopy and beginning to drip like a soft rain.

With the drought in California as severe as it is most plants derive more moisture from fog than rain.

As always ambient noise from CA Highway 126 can be heard as a constant drone."

Part of the Sounding Nature project - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sounding-nature

Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger on Unsplash