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

  • 1586: Brexit at Gatwick airport
    Gatwick arrivals reimagined by Cities and Memory. Airport arrivals are an emotional, multicultural centre, at which people from all countries and backgrounds arrive home (or arrive in a new destination), greeted by friends and family. After Brexit, I find myself increasingly saddened by the shrinking of our world after the vote to leave, and how closing our borders and stopping immigration was the (in my view misguided) obsession of so many during the EU referendum. This piece places Gatwick airport in the context of the motivations for a leave vote among British voters, and British ex-pats living overseas.
    4 min
  • 1584: The madness of crowds
    Reimagined by Cities and Memory. This piece considers hearing a crowd from a distance, and how it's unclear from that range if you're hearing a protest, a celebration or some other gathering. Here, football derby day in Sofia blends with political protests in Oxford, Athens, Istanbul and Hamburg to create a 'hall of mirrors' of protest, confrontation and celebration.
    4 min
  • 1583: Derby day in Sofia, Bulgaria
    Field recording taken in Sofia, Bulgaria before the match between CSKA Sofia and Levski Sofia (full time score: 1 - 1). Recorded by Mark Baldwin on Edirol R-09 for citiesandmemory.com.
    3 min
  • 1582: The conference of the birds
    Beihai Park, China, reimagined by Richard Watts.
    "The inspiration for this piece came from a work by Persian poet Farid ud-Din Attar called ‘The conference of the birds’.
    I used samples of the various birds calls, some of which I slowed or reversed. The background ‘pad’ sound is a very slowed sample of the original recording put through various effects."
    5 min
  • 1579: Masjid India mosque and bazaar, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
    Recorded by Martin Kay.
    "This is a unprocessed (apart from some gentle de-noise processing) solid vibration stereo recording. Two contact microphones were placed on a metal plank that covers a gutter at the exit of a bazaar in the Masjid India area of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The sounds captured are amplified recitations of the Quran projected throughout the area before the Adhan (call to prey), as well as the footsteps of general shoppers and tourists, and worshipers responding to the recitations by making their way out of the bazaar and towards the mosque situated directly at its exit."
    6 min
  • 1578: Looped Bazaar
    Loop-based reimagined version of the sound of stringed instruments being played in a bazaar in Uzbekistan. Reimagined by Gavin Morrow, April 2017.
    "First of all, a small musical section of the field recording was put onto a homemade cassette loop. The one I used was particularly battered, and the tape produced a soothing analogue hiss. This was then pitched right down, as I wanted to create a the whole new atmosphere – from jaunty and effervescent to something more reflective and sombre. I created layers of drones using tiny sections of instrumentation, which were time-stretched digitally, recorded onto audio cassette, then slowed down on a multi-track recorder. Once all the layers were recorded onto tape, they were fed through effects pedals, with plenty of reverb, and just a touch of distortion in places.
    The original field recording is of a lively, bustling and thriving market. My re-imagined piece is of the same location, but suggests a different mood and time. Maybe the early hours of the morning, when the traders and shoppers have long gone home, with just the echoes of the day's excitement swirling in the wind."
    8 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.