Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Cities and Memory - remixing the world

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Cities and Memory - remixing the world episodes

  • 2240: Cockatoos and Coalfalls
    Reimagined by Sherman and Field.
    "Living also in Australia we wanted to connect two locations across time and place – Ulupna Island, Victoria and our home in Coalfalls, Queensland. The Coalfalls recordings feature the sounds of rainfall, and early morning butcher birds on the back deck. Accompanying this is an improvised electronic drums and guitar soundscape entitled mm a."
    Part of the Sounding Nature project - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sounding-nature
    4 min
  • 2238: Suddenly, Gulf Of Finland
    Reimagined by Adrian Williams.
    "The source recording was repetitive waves, lapping against a shore or a dock and it was quite rhythmic, so I wanted to top and tail my piece using just this sound. I faded in an equally repetitive processed piano, adding layers as it progressed, to give it a someone dark and mysterious theme - I imagined the source recording being made at night as there's something about hearing the ocean at night that makes it more prominent for me, so I wanted this piece to be a 'night piece'. I imagined ships, or perhaps a rowing boat in open water, anchored, isolated and being lapped by the waves."
    Part of the Sounding Nature project - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sounding-nature
    4 min
  • 2237: Distortions Of The Murky Waters Of Life
    Reimagined by Rafael Diogo.
    "The concept of this composition was based on the deterioration of our natural environments which were home to millions of species that slowly are undertaken by the human beings to expand their urban cities and capitalistic disorders. 
    This composition is a chaotic and surrealistic interpretation of a shift between the emotional sight of sound environments divergent from harmony in nature (original binaural recording from the sea at Maro Beach/Nerja to chaos in urban spaces (binaural recording through the city nightlife of London. 
    The emotional and sensory aspects of this composition had been constructed and perceived to happen in two different sound environments (nature/harmony) throughout the first two minutes and (urban spaces/chaos) for the next two minutes, as the music integrates both emotional elements into music transitions and breaks and were designed to be presented as soundscapes to make the listener aware of the emotional expression of how nature can be affected by human interference. 
    The distinct aspects of the natural environment such as sea tides, climates and fauna presented me with real sounds such as the ocean, rain, wind and birds to create my acoustic side of the track and were the dominant elements in which I establish the first layers of my electroacoustic composition based on the original recording of the ocean at Maro Beach/Nerja .
    The electronic approach had an equal importance on this composition and was based on sound design. The first stage was to use classic synths to replicate real sound of animals (woodpecker, cicada, snake, frogs, etc) and processed with modulation effects to create dynamics in the mix to recreate the natural environment of Maro Beach/Nerja recording as a the motif of harmony.
    The second stage of the track was based in the motif of chaos and auto destruction of nature were raw sounds from foley and field recordings in London were integrated and processed through Sound Particles software to use particle systems to generate dozens of 3D sound effects and create layers of movement, while randomising the spatial depth and pitch. They were modulated with the intention of being perceived as new sounds and replicate an augmented environment that could express disconnection from the environment can affect our health and well being by creating nature deficit disorder.
    This interrelationship meant establishing a narrative for the background that allows the listener to distinguish the deviation among sounds in a sensible manner and without detaching from the original concept."
    Part of the Sounding Nature project - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sounding-nature
    6 min
  • 2236: The Discoveries
    Reimagined by Alan Bleay.
    "I went on a small musical journey, reflecting the Portuguese age of discoveries from the fifteenth century... off into the unknown."
    Part of the Sounding Nature project - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sounding-nature
    5 min
  • 2235: Textures & Texts From The Shoreline
    Recorded by Rafael Diogo.
    "This recording reflects the movement of the waves breaking into rocks, while the water moves around holes within the rocks."
    Part of the Sounding Nature project - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sounding-nature
    5 min
  • 2234: Sea Breeze
    Recorded by Rafael Diogo.
    "The sun going down at a beautiful beach (Praia da Barradinha - Samoqueira) on the south west coast of Portugal. 
    We can hear the tiny pebbles gently rolling between each other wile the gentle waves break onto the beach and rocks, leaving a magical sound of the sea spray."
    Part of the Sounding Nature project - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sounding-nature
    2 min
  • 2233: Werk Stadig
    Reimagined by J. Simon van der Walt.
    "As someone who spent part of their childhood in South Africa, the bird sounds in the source recording are very familiar to me: most particularly the distinctive monotonous call of Streptopelia capicola, the Ring-necked Dove, or, as I used to call it, the Cape Turtle Dove, the name given in the edition of Roberts’ Birds of Southern Africa that I owned at the time. In the current edition of Roberts the call is transliterated as ‘work harder’, but in the older volume it is given in Afrikaans as ‘werk stadig’ which, given the slightly harsher sound of that language, actually works rather better.
    I always thought ‘werk stadig’ meant ‘work steadily’ but it seems a more accurate translation would be ‘work slowly’. Whichever way: for several years now I have been working steadily, or slowly, through a process of learning the SuperCollider programming language. This composition is to some extent a study in that language: yet another attempt to use livecoding approaches as a means to develop a fixed piece. New ideas in this work include FFT as a means of cleaning up the original recording, and the use of a Routine to script JITLib objects in time."
    Part of the Sounding Nature project - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sounding-nature
    4 min
  • 2229: Through the Forest
    Reimagined by Melaina Barnes.
    "The sounds of birds and other creatures at dawn in Tambacounda Forest, Senegal inspired this song about people passing through a forest at night. The song tells how the strangers consider the danger and beauty of the forest, and hope that the birds will carry their dreams. The forest sound recording is looped four times: once for each of the song’s three verses, and once alone."
    Part of the Sounding Nature project - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sounding-nature
    5 min
  • 2232: Quarrelling coots and booming bitterns at Avalon marches (reimagined)
    Reimagined by Abby Lee Tee.
    "As I'm always loving the sounds of coots when I'm around lakes, this recording immediately felt pretty familiar, but still very special (also because of the additional sounds of bitterns and others). I somehow reimagined the place using only the original recording (expect tiny bits of bass), rearranged some parts and played around with vinyl manipulation – trying to make scratches sound like a mass of jittery birds for example – always exploring the boundaries between natural and artificial sonic worlds."
    Part of the Sounding Nature project - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sounding-nature
    2 min
  • 2231: Savannah polyrhythms
    Birds and insects, South Africa 2016 - recorded by George Vlad. 
    Part of the Sounding Nature project - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sounding-nature
    3 min

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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.