Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Cities and Memory - remixing the world

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Cities and Memory - remixing the world episodes

  • 2041: Lento Bella Ciao
    Festa della Repubblica songs reimagined by Simon Woods.
    "The music section of this piece consists of the notes, chords and bass of the traditional rebel song ‘Bella Ciao’ slowed down and echoed to a point where it becomes unrecognisable as the original. "
    5 min
  • 2039: An accordion player lost at sea
    Helsinki accordion busker reimagined by Ollie Campbell.
    "The geographical location of the original recording and the seagulls that you can hear faintly inspired me to invent a story about the accordian player. That he was swept out to sea on a little boat, getting caught in a fierce storm, before drifting back to shore.
    I used the original recording in its complete form, applying effects to it, and adding different recordings."
    4 min
  • 2037: Death and the Violin: Revenge of the Busker
    Castel Sant'Angelo busker, Rome, reimagined by Mark Taylor. 
    "All the music in my reimagined version was created directly from fragments of the original field recording; nothing new has been added. Various snippets of bowed and pizzicato violin were used alongside tiny grains of crowd noise that formed the percussive groove in the central section.
    To my ears, the original field recording gave the impression of everyone walking past and ignoring this highly talented busker. What if the musician decided to exact revenge in a warped, hypnotic, death-dealing twist to the performance? First of all, my distorted version creates an appropriately dark, disturbing ambience before sliding into a ‘Dance of Death’ section.
    I used a new editing environment for this one – the synthesis capabilities of Omnisphere 2\. I’ve owned and used it for a few years now, but this project gave me the chance to delve more deeply into its sound design side.
    The violin, of course has often been associated with Death / the Devil in music - Danse Macabre, and many more compositions.
    In folk tales, the Devil enjoys wagers - betting his own gold fiddle against the souls of his opponents. He may also bestow musical talent in exchange for a soul - a prominent part of the myth surrounding Tartini’s “Devil’s Trill” Sonata.
    The great Italian virtuoso Niccolò Paganini was the subject of vicarious rumours that he had sold his soul, and worse: Theosophy founder Madame Helena Blavatsky included Paganini in her story The Ensouled Violin suggesting that the strings of Paganini’s violin were made from human intestine, and that his uncanny ability to mimic the human voice with his playing actually came from a spirit trapped within the instrument. "
    5 min
  • 2035: Borsellino and Falcone: death of anti-mafia magistrates
    2 June celebrations in Rome reimagined by Cristina Marras.
    "2018 is the 26th anniversary of the Mafia murder of anti-mafia prosecutors Paolo Borsellino and Giovanni Falcone and of their escorts. They have become symbol of an Italy that fights and does not surrender to organised crime. Cosa Nostra bosses have been condemned for the killings but there is still the shadow of alleged State-mafia talks over the two bomb slayings of Falcone and Borsellino. Sicilian prosecutors called the investigation into the Borsellino killing "the biggest cover-up in Italian history".
    In my recording I have put together the newsreader breaking the news of Falcone’s killing, together with the voices of people discussing the impact of those killings, as well as pro-mafia protesters at a ceremony for the naming of a public space to their memory. I have also included the voice of Falcone himself saying that the mafia is a human made phenomenon, and as such it’ll pass soon or later.
    I have distorted the original sound to make it ominous and menacing, highlighting basses and low frequencies. The original recording appears as a contrast of 'joyous patriotism'. I am not implying any relation between the soldiers singing at the parade and the killing of the two magistrates, I have just used the song as a representation of the Italian state, covering up and colluding with the mafia."
    3 min
  • 2033: San Siro - theatre of football
    Inter Milan vs. Lazio reimagined by Andy Lyon.
    "The approach I took was to create three live recordings in Sensomusic Usine Hollyhock 3 using parts of the recording processed the joggle sampler and a variety of effects - Mangled Verb and Blackhole; 
    Octavox, Ultratap, Blackhole, h3000 factory delay; 
    Palindrome, Blackhole h949 dual harmoniser; Grain cloud sampler, h949 dual harmoniser, groove slicer.
    The joggle sampler has a speed control (-400% - 400%) and I've used a midi controller to start / stop the sample and alter the speed during the recording.
    I've then used the start of the original recording layered against orchestration and bass to create a contrast and change the feel. The three live recordings are then substituted for the original recording to create the track."
    14 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.