Cities and Memory - remixing the world

This piece began with the field recording: Bom war song and dance from Cameroon. I decided that rather than treating this recording as an objective document of place or cultural practice, I approached it as a temporal fracture in time, the past reanimated. I looked at the recording as a rhythm already severed from the moment that produced it, yet able to reengaged and affect the listener in 2026. This recording felt both ancient and current, both in the same moment, yet a sonic event which felt distant. Being an ever changing and varying rhythmic loop with vocal elements, it felt that this piece became the next stage in the loop's recurrence.

I was drawn to the idea that recorded rhythm, like recorded voice, folds time back on itself. Each repetition becomes a reinterpretation, producing a new perception with every cycle. The entire composition is derived from this single recording. The source material contained a strong rhythmic pattern which subtly shifted over time, revealing internal variations rather than static repetition. I was inspired by Steve Reich’s phasing work, particularly It’s Gonna Rain, as a mechanism through which to explore the differences which emerges. Sampling and beat-chopping techniques were used to fragment the recording into a number of loops, which were then layered against themselves at slightly altered timings to give both the phasing effect of Reich but also a polyrhythmic feel which comes in and out of sync.

Ableton Live’s follow actions were used to introduce a generative dimension, allowing loops to trigger variations of themselves. This created a piece which is only partially controlled, where rhythmic relationships and patterns evolve autonomously over time. I then divided the piece up into layers and registers, forming a structure comparable to SATB four-voice writing. 

The piece was the composed through live performance, with layers faded in and out in real time. I feel that the source recording persists, but only in fragmented, phased form. What is heard is not preservation, but sonic recurrence without a sense of closure.

Bom war song and dance reimagined by Neil Spencer Bruce.

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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

When I first heard this field recording, I wanted to join in with the band on the beach. With every subsequent listen, I always find myself tapping or nodding along with the beat and wanting to dance. I decided to pursue this idea of jamming with the band across time, mixing in both my own high and low-tech approaches to creating sounds. The recording database and archival descriptions for this field recording described it as both “South Pacific 'pop' music” and “Monica’s wedding dance”, so I wanted to keep the joy and upbeat feelings of those descriptions in my piece.

This piece uses the first 2:20 of the 5:51 field recording with no added effects as the backbone, this sample plays throughout the duration of the track. Within the entire field recording, this section sounds like a specific song that starts and ends. 

First, In order to jam with the band I’ve added two different approaches to composing/creating sonic textures. First, I added a second layer of that same 2:20 section, but this one features ensemble chorus, spectral resonator, reverb, and bathtub percussion effects and weaves above the original track at a few points, while mostly providing movement in the background.

Second, I formed my own one-person jam band to play along and took inspiration from the practical instruments (tea chest bass, vocals, spoons) featured on original track. I created a variety of sounds with found and household objects, thinking about what I have played or might play on the beach during an impromptu jam session. These sounds including playing the spoons, the sounds of my shoes on the floor as I danced along to the track, stringed “instruments” made of rubber bands on lids and fishing line tied to drawer handle and plucked at different lengths, striking driftwood sticks, vocalisations, percussion with jingle bells inside of a plastic egg, and playing with a metal spring bracelet. 

South Pacific "pop" music reimagined by Stephanie E. Vasko .

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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

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of songs and musical instruments made by journalist Lois Mitchison in Cameroon during 1958.

Recorded by Sonja Lois Mitchison.

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

South Pacific "pop" music recorded on the beach with full band, including guitar, tea chest bass and spoons.

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a large collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of music and soundscapes made by ethnomusicologist Raymond Clausen mainly on the island of Malekula (Malampa Province) in Vanuatu between 1960 and 1979.

Recorded by Raymond Ernst Clausen.

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

Durei-na-mbwe song (late evening performance).

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a large collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of music and soundscapes made by ethnomusicologist Raymond Clausen mainly on the island of Malekula (Malampa Province) in Vanuatu between 1960 and 1979.

Recorded by Raymond Ernst Clausen.

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

The work is inspired by the island’s natural beauty and by the evening songs, chants, and slit drum ceremonies of the Indigenous People of Vanuatu. The slit drums were carved from extraordinarily large, hollowed-out trees, often standing two or three times the height of the performers. The original recording was made over half a century ago, before the islands felt the first signs of rising seas. This piece offers a brief reflection on that earlier time. It opens with pitch-shifted slit-drum rhythms — deep and resonant like distant tympani — and ends with the eruption of a volcano on the nearby island of Tanna.

Technical notes: The drums were pitch isolated and some were pitch shifted down. The entire performance was slightly put through resonant filters and reverb that corresponded closely to the pitch and key of the singers. The drum rhythms that occur through the piece helped integrate the singing with my additional melody.

Durei-na-mbwe song reimagined by David Leith.

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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

Jungle Rumble is my musical interpretation of the awesome force and fragile stillness found within a storm passing over the tropical forests of the Republic of Congo. I was inspired by the immense power of the thunder as it rolls through dense canopies echoing against the towering trees and the living sounds of the jungle.

In contrast to this raw energy, I was also moved by the moments of quiet that settle between thunderclaps: the subtle stirrings of wildlife pausing, then reawakening. Through shifting energetic textures and beats, dynamic surges, accompanied by soothing harmony this composition seeks to capture that duality.

It is an attempt to feature both the storm’s untamed intensity and an appreciation for the varying rhythms of nature.

Touraco (bird) and distant thunder reimagined by Tom Thompson.

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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

Working on this project was very exciting for me for a number of reasons. Firstly, Oxford is my birthplace and my favourite museum is the Pitt Rivers Museum, so this was a particularly enticing opportunity. The thought of my music being archived there? Amazing!

I was also excited to use my new knowledge of modular synthesis. A little risky, maybe, as I am quite new to it, but modular synthesis lends itself beautifully to the dreamy, hypnotic qualities the recording evokes. The track I chose felt very compelling, drawing the listener into a dreamlike world with its distant, echoey water drums. Although the boominess made it slightly challenging to work with, I decided not to EQ the original track, as I loved the distant, muffled quality. It felt like a heartbeat deep in the jungle.

I used granular synthesis to fade sounds in and out, and to randomise some of the textures and frequencies enhancing this dreamlike atmosphere, while the melody represents a dragonfly flitting gently around as we relax.

The glitchy sounds represent radio waves, a connection between the present and the past, like static energy lingering from the moment the clip was recorded.

Overall, the piece is an exploration of memory, place, and time, using sound to blur the boundary between past and present in a gently immersive, dreamlike way.

Forest sounds with distant water drumming reimagined by Trees Can Talk.

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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

Forest sounds with touraco (bird) and distant thunder.

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.

———
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