Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Cities and Memory - remixing the world

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Cities and Memory - remixing the world episodes

  • 2070: Electronics stores, Yangon
    Recorded by Michael McDermott.
    "Walking around Yangon you can get a feel for the various sections of the city. Often blocks are divided up into sections, for example a block of clothing stores, a block of vegetable stores. Below is a quick recording on a block of electronics stores that looked like a maze of wires and all manner of electronics and appliances from the last 60 years."
    1 min
  • 2069: Street cafe in Yangon, Myanmar
    Recorded by Michael McDermott.
    "One of the things I loved about Yangon was the food. Myanmar food is quite different than the food of its neighbours Thailand and India, but somehow a mix of the two cuisines. Often food markets and cafes would serve people on the sidewalk or under a canopy and you would sit on tiny plastic children's chairs and table enjoying freshly made soups, salads, curries and rice dishes. This is a quick recording made at lunch by a roadside cafe."
    1 min
  • 2068: Morning crows, Yangon
    Recorded by Michael McDermott. 
    "This part of the city was busy area with many small temples, the historical house where current president of Aung San Suu Kyi was under house arrest for 15 years and home to crows. Many, many, many crows. In our flat on the fifth floor we were awoken each morning to a chorus of crows circling, nesting and walking on the roof. There were so many giant crows all over the city, I wondered what they ate to maintain such a high population and such a giant size."
    2 min
  • 2067: Pentimento
    Crickets in Scopello reimagined by Jeff Dungfelder.
    "To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is to not have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything."
    — Goethe
    "The foundation of this piece of music is based on a field recording (by Tenute Plaia Scopello) of crickets in Sicily at 1 am (creating musical melodies with their wings). The bottom of a cricket wing is covered with teeth-like ridges that make it rough, and the upper surface of the wing is like a scraper. When crickets rub the upper and lower parts of their wings together, they create a chirping sound called “stridulating." Listening closely, I discovered the stridulating melodies reveal a delicate beautiful world, layer upon layer. Hence the name of this piece, "Pentimento" (a visible trace of earlier painting beneath a layer or layers of paint on a canvas).
    Pentimento is a Mediterranean requiem of sorts - an act of remembrance for all the many poets, writers, philosophers, intellectuals, architects and painters that have their roots in Sicily. An experimental ambient/drone re-imagining of 18th century Italian music, what might have been heard in aristocratic circles in church, at the theatre and at court, but updated with a variable density of sound that unfolds in time. Like in Pentimento, layers of shifting sounds and textures allow the listener to consider an Italian past, rich with history, contributing to the present ambient experience. And to think this all started by listening to crickets. Headphones recommended."
    10 min
  • 2064: Complicated Conversations
    Portofino in the rain reimagined by John Downey. 
    "This was a challenging field recording at first. Though the clip’s title is ‘in the rain,’ after listening carefully, waves are the water element, not rain, so I started to think about how people travel to the seaside or other locations and the burble of dense conversation can drown out the more interesting, environmental sounds.
    I included some low-key arpeggiation, a sub wave from an O-Coast mono synth, and inserted my own mobile phone field recording of a bell buoy recorded in the early morning hours by the Long Island Sound shoreline in Old Saybrook, CT. The buoy was almost indistinguishable until lowering the noise floor and increasing the gain to make it stand out.
    Listen with headphones at a low enough volume to pull your attention to the sonic textures rather than through monitors or as background noise. Notice one of the only intelligible word is around 3:37, a woman apparently ordering “cappuccino.” "
    8 min
  • 2063: Paroxysm
    Roman church bells reimagined by Christopher Reed.
    "The original field recording was comprised of ringing church bells and street traffic. I love the sound of scanning through AM radio static, especially when driving in areas 
    with a weak signal, where recognizable sounds only creep through occasionally and briefly, or where two signals blend together. I've tried to recreate that feeling with these church bells. One sample is pitched way down for a drone, and others are staggered throughout at various pitches and placements so that the bells are only briefly and occasionally recognizable. A rhythm is gradually introduced which eventually becomes very apparent, but stops abruptly. The last third of the piece most prominently features the original sample, with some additional edited patterns. All sounds come from the original recording."
    4 min
  • 2063: Of time and memory
    Monte Grappa cowbells reimagined by Leon Lewington.
    "The title 'Monte Grappa cow bells' was used as a starting point for a personal journey through time and memory. Field recordings from different times and places are interwoven to create an imaginary soundscape, like a dream or distant memory."
    19 min
  • 2062: Sleeptalk
    Campo Santa Margherita (Venice) buskers reimagined by The Black Dog. "Primarily used short musical section with mandolin and guitar as well as a time-stretched section of plaza ambience. Made with Kyma, SpaceCraft ipad app, SoundHack."
    17 min

About Cities and Memory - remixing the world

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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.