Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Cities and Memory - remixing the world

By Cities and MemorySociety & CultureArtsMusicPlaces & Travel
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Cities and Memory - remixing the world episodes

  • 1955: T Temple (Sri Lanka)
    Tooth Temple reimagined by Andy Billington. "Points in the original recording I can use are noted. Audio is cut and merged. The drums and drones remain.
    "Various reverbs are added to build new spaces and bring out the background noises ( birds, a child's voice, the drums resonating off the walls of the temple)
    "I then record in one take an improvised refrain using gamelan instruments pitched at different tones.
    "A piano carries the same refrain forwards.
    "Echo is added and everything pitched down (as always)."
    15 min
  • 1953: Babaa (Colombo, Sri Lanka)
    Colombo, Sri Lanka reimagined by Richard Watts. 
    "The piece is based on a number of samples taken from the original field recording. I wanted to capture the feeling of a walk through Colombo so used a 'walking' bass line. I loved the noises the child makes so they feature. I've also used traditional sounding instruments like the Indian flute, which is supposed to reflect the bird sounds."
    4 min
  • 1952: Colombo town, Sri Lanka
    Recorded by Stephane Marin - the sound of ambience in the town of Colombo, with traffic, birds and the sound of children playing. Image by Stephane Marin.
    11 min
  • 1950: Tornado siren test, Michigan
    Recorded by Christopher Reed. "The original sound was recorded at 1.00 pm, from a front porch in Ferndale, Michigan. I recorded it with the webcam microphone on my laptop, so there is some (lots) of wind and other sounds in there."
    3 min
  • 1951: Get the haunted music box
    Tornado siren test in Ferndale, Michigan, reimagined by Christopher Reed. 
    "The original sample of the tornado siren comes in at around the one minute mark in this track, which I've named "Get the Haunted Music Box." One part of the track features a reversed recording of a mic'd up rusty old music box that I mistakenly cut my hand on within seconds of owning, hence the title.
    "The track also contains sounds from a Korg Volca Keys synthesizer and a handmade (but slightly broken) "Atari Punk Console" synth, which was one of my earliest successful attempts at the whole DIY synth thing! I love it like few other instruments in my collection and I love what it added to this track."
    4 min
  • 1919: Rhythmic auditory field at Galu Kotuwa a] hocket b] drone
    Reimagined sound from Galle Fort, Sri Lanka by Robin Parmar.
    "The source recording captures the cacophony of traffic and tourists at Galu Kotuwa, Sri Lanka. This piece comprises two interpretations, each focusing on superposition and rhythmic interaction. 
    The first section layers a short excerpt of the original. These overlays have been offset, so that the total effect comes from the interlacing of components (car horns, voices, laughter). A new rhythm is created from the old, similar to how the hocketing technique works in Subsaharan African music, Balinese gamelan, late medieval French motets, and seventies funk. The more one listens, the more one finds emergent musical qualities.
    Much of the recording documents street hustlers as they encourage tourists to have their photos taken with a cobra. There is a brief section of actual music, likely from a pungi or murli, the reed and gourd instrument commonly used by snake charmers. The fact this instrument is played using a circular breathing technique inspired the second section, which resynthesises the timbre using short, repetitive loops. A rhythm is imposed by this technique, in a manner similar to granular synthesis.
    I found the original recording to be emotionally charged. My sympathies were first with the tourists being hassled by strong-arm sales tactics, then with the young hustlers themselves, forced to survive on their wits, and finally with the cobra, ripped from its home and held captive in a chaotic urban environment. Mass world tourism is symptomatic of an intense capital exploitation that creates a world of opportunity. The trick is that this "opportunity" is only that faint chance one might create with one's life the integral form it had, before the arrival of that self-same capitalism. It's a trick, a recursion. A snake eating its own tail."
    Photograph by Nathalie Dona.
    10 min
  • 1949: Inner Market
    Hikkaduwa Market, Sri Lanka reimagined by Valerio Orlandini. 
    "This piece is made using only the original field recording as source, then chopped in different parts, each one treated in a different way. The reverbered and blurred sounds came to my mind after having listened several times to the original recording. The vortex of voices, stuff, steps and other unidentified sound sources projected inside me and made me think about the sounds and the title."
    7 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.