Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Unawatuna reimagined by Marc Jacobs. Image by Nathalie Dona.

"Having travelled in rural Asia, but never in Sri Lanka, I immediately found myself propelled back in those villages and nature where constant birdsounds and insect drones surround the sonic environment. The result is a melancholic track feeding on the rural noise.

"Technically, I added some simple digital effects on the field recordings, pitching them and delaying them, and added some reverb. I also kept them clean and edited them slightly. The music was composed on a Korg Minilogue synthesizer."

Recorded by Ross Whyte in Sri Lanka.

Embilmeegama tea factory, Sri Lanka reimagined by Michael Lilley. 

"I loved the way the factory sounded like a hardcore Berlin techno club or some gabba rave! I stuck the recording through Yellowfier on the iPad and added some synthy warbles, and drums from a Volca Beat."

Heenatigala, Sri Lanka reimagined by Enrico Ascoli. Image by Stephane Marin.

"One of my best historical and geographical interest is about islands and in particular about utopian and mysterious lands; so when I discover that Stephan Marin fields recordings were about Sri Lanka, my mind immediately dreamed about Taprobana, probably one of the most ancient name given to Ceylon (alias Sri Lanka). Here is not the place in which talk about the long journey that this name did from ancient Greeks to late Renaissance, but what I would like to remark, is that for centuries that land was non only a possible, but non verified and unprecise geographical point, but a real state of mind: an imaginary concept about Orient and his marvelous forests and people. It was the idea to give a voice to my fantasies about this ancient phantom that drove me to choose the track 19, a over layered texture of sounds with a very rich spectrum of frequencies. "In this complexity" I thought "made of insects, birds, monkeys and human ritual choirs, I'll will find for sure that dreamy archetype".

At the base I worked with 3 different techniques.  

1) Spectral synthesis in order to select just the frequencies in which i was interested in;  

2) Granular synthesis to move at the same time in the different sample positions and different ptichs;

3) hyper Time Stretch to create a slow and harmonic base

then I filtered all this stuff with a light Shepard effect in order to create the illusion of a continuum falling sound matter, a gateway from past to contemporary.

At the end I gave a touch of spiritual concreteness mixing this ethereal soundscape with the field recording of a Hindu purification ritual: a Puja recorded by me for a documentary."

Recorded by Stephane Marin at Kogalla Lake, Sri Lanka. Image by Stephane Marin.

Unawatuna, Sri Lanka, reimagined by Gilles Mardirossian. Image by Nathalie Dona.

"From the sound of Stéphane Marin recorded in Sri Lanka, this piece is an invitation to a sound trip which inspired to me.

It is a trajectory with my own field recording in India and Vietnam and the sound of Stéphane Marin, recorded in Sri Lanka, acting like a new vision of the places crossed.

The image would be that of an imaginary island, made up of varied populations coming from Sri Lanka (Sinhalese and Tamils Indian) , India and Viet Nam and try to living here in harmony.

Musical improvisation for Cities and Memory was composed with guitars, Indian percussions, santur, and sounds recorded in India or Vietnam."

Hantana forest reimagined by Louise Rossiter. Image by Stephane Marin.

"Having spent a fair amount of time in Asia (particularly China and Malaysia) I was struck by the musical (and somehow magical) qualities of the rainforest wildlife with the occasional (but somehow still dominant) interruption by humans. I wanted to use these sounds to take the listener into a new, unworldly place.

"In order to evoke these ideas further, I isolated and transformed the sounds of cicadas and native bird which dominated much of the original soundtrack. I recorded a glockenspiel and weaved in recordings I made of Buddhist temples in Asia."

Recorded by Stephane Marin. Image by Nathalie Dona.

Shrimps at Kogalla Lake reimagined by Jeff Dungfelder.

"For my track “Saltus” I used a hydrophone field recording of shrimp in Kogalla Lake (Sri Lanka). The recorded sounds (which sound similar to electronically produced micro sounds) actually come from the shrimp when they generate a low pressure cavitation bubble that bursts (tiny jets of water containing bubbles that implode from pressure). 

"It reminded me of the voltage of an alternating current and the variations of sound creating a break in the sequence, or “Saltus”. It is this micro-droning oscillating sound captured with the hydrophone (which converts the ultrasonic waves traveling through the water into electrical oscillations) that inspired me to use it as the foundation of “Saltus”. The project started first with importing a variety of samples and loading instruments and effects into Logic Pro X, and then selecting an Oblique Strategies card that said “Do nothing for as long as possible”. 

"After several weeks of thinking passed I selected another card that read “Once the search is in progress, something will be found”. Several days of work later an underwater sound story soon developed using loop-based shifting sounds, textural nuances, swirling masses of oscillations, Indian percussion and intervals of silence. At this point I selected the 3rd Oblique Strategies card which read “Take away the elements in order of apparent non importance”. After several days of digital gardening, “Saltus” finally came to life, completing my original vision."

Recorded in Sri Lanka by Stephane Marin - peacocks, birds and monkeys. Image by Nathalie Dona.