Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Part of the Sacred Spaces project - find out more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sacredspaces

Reimagined by Lambros Taklis.

"Inspired by this prayer recorded in Stanford, i decided to compose an ambient music in three parts. For this composition i used as a Sound Palette, some personal recordings from ''Sacré-Cœur'' and ''Notre dame'' in Paris and also live vocals and instruments like the psaltery, the Sheng (mouth organ from china) and the saz from Turkey.

The word Kyrie, is a transliteration of the Greek Κύριε from the prayer, "Kyrie, eleison," "Lord, have mercy"."

Part of the Sacred Spaces project - find out more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sacredspaces

Reimagined by Paolo Zuniga.

"I selected this track by Christine Renaudat because she captured moments that to me encompassed the experience of being in a church: the sounds of people whispering, children crying, sounds of old benches, prayer and music. All these elements reminded me of times I sat quietly in church and lost myself in these sounds echoing around me. I wanted to reimagine this track in a way that reflected that memory."

Part of the Sacred Spaces project - find out more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sacredspaces

Recorded by Christine Renaudat. Mass and music played through PA speakers.

Part of the Sacred Spaces project - find out more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sacredspaces

Reimagined by Aengus Friel.

"This piece I’ve created is influenced by a postcard given to me by my mother around Christmas time. It was a postcard she got as a child from an old woman who lived down past the glen within the parish we grew up in. The postcard is from 1939 which contained a brief short English folklore tale about ‘The Legend of the Lincoln Imp’. The words transcribed from the postcard say “The Legend runs that one day the devil was in for a frolic, and let out all his young demons. One jumped into the sea without getting wet. Another into a furnace and was in his element, one rode on a rainbow. Another played with fork lighting. Another went up in the breeze and was carried to the old Lindum. The Imp said “Take me into the Church and I will knock over his Lordship and blow up the Dean, Organist, and singers, and knock out the windows and put out the lights.” The angel angrily cried “Stop! You shall not”. The Demon, with derision replied “Such as you are better outside. You shall wait here for me till I have finished my fun.” He jumped about the transept, climbed on an altar , and amidst his devilment, some angels appeared whom he mocked with derisive laughter, when one of the little angels said in dignified toned “Wicked Imp, be turned into stoned.”

I chose the recording by Maria Papadomanolaki titled ‘number 43’ (Southwalk Cathedral) because of the texture of the warm sound of the organ, and the background sound of the people, as they walk, scuffle about. I knew I could get some interesting results whenever I re-sample the sound and begin to experiment by looping certain elements within the original audio by reimagining and trying to implement the story behind “The legend of the Lincoln Imp”. I wanted to make something experimental and along a dark ambient path. My idea for this piece was have a possessed haunting sound compared to the original audio, the idea being that the church has been possessed by the devilish imp. I began sampling the original audio using Ableton, completely perverting it from its original form. Used a lot of effects processing such as reverb and distortion, and feeding the results of the re-sampled audio using pitch shifting granular reverse echo’s and using filters to add more depth and colour to the finished sound. The finished piece has got 3 sections to signify Peace, Chaos and Reconciliation."

Part of the Sacred Spaces project - find out more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sacredspaces

"I chose the recording "Yazor church - pulling out the stops on the organ." The recording starts with the clatter of movement in the church. Once at the organ we hear, gently, a beautiful and richly textured chord. Gradually, we hear all the stops being pulled out as the chord dissolves into booming dissonance. Finally we come back again to that gentle chord, and the clatter.

I picked this because I loved the narrative and the constituent sonic themes. I knew I wanted to make pad sounds with the gentle chord, a more ominous atmosphere using the dissonance, and percussive texture using the clatter. In the end, I made an electro track using these elements and an additional drum kit, as well as bass, and sub bass instruments. I also made a second bass instrument and a bleepy pitch-bent instrument from the recording using some extreme EQing."

Part of the Sacred Spaces project - find out more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sacredspaces

Reimagined by James Kent.

"The original recording of Interior of Hagia Sophia interested me because of the attached memories and the attachment of visitors looking on and wondering about the history, people, noises that were present in it original use. I chose to immerse and dissolve the piece as a way to illustrate the changing and re-planting of memories.

With the sound of original recording being re-imagined by being immersed and then dissolved in the Dee Estuary the piece creeks and splutters as the small speaker becomes engulfed with salty water. Unfiltered and unedited this original recording re-positions the notion of a sacred memory and remembering past events. Such as with the Interior of the Hagia Sophia, Istanbul the recording offers an alternative use of the echoes that previously existed from this sacred place."

Part of the Sacred Spaces project - find out more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sacredspaces

Reimagined by Anthony Lyons.

"Can we ever escape the signals and sounds of ourselves and our electronic devices? Listening to the source recording from the Sadan Caves in Myanmar, I was struck by how prominent the interference seemed to be from people and their mobile devices in this special place - intruding on the natural sound ecology of water and insects in the cave. Sacred Signals manipulates, reconfigures and reclaims small parts of these signals, blending them with the natural sounds of the cave to forge new patterns, beats and dense textures - a kind of magnified electronic forest-cave results! Some bell sounds are incorporated from #6: Two Gongs, also from Myanmar and recorded by Stephane Marin."

Part of the Sacred Spaces project - find out more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sacredspaces

Reimagined by Myrornas Krig / Cadlag (Simon Serc & Neven M. Agalma)

www.cadlag.net

Part of the Sacred Spaces project - find out more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sacredspaces

Recorded by Kamen Nedev.

"This is a "sacred place" only up to a point - the Hagia Sophia was desacralized a long time ago, and is nowadays a museum. This is a sound ambience recording done right under the dome of the basilica - so, no chants, no calls to prayer, just the sound environment of about a hundred tourists scrolling under the dome and gazing upwards."

Part of the Sacred Spaces project - find out more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/sacredspaces

Reimagined by Sequencial.

"This is an electroacoustic piece created to wrap around and accompany the evocative sound of the cicadas in field recording 32. This is the imagined sound of the air between spaces, the shifting of elements, the molecules of the delicate membranes creating their song in the slowed down delirium heat of Sicily."