Cities and Memory - remixing the world

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

Recorded by Christine Renaudat.

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

Recorded by AJ Born.

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

Recorded by Kamen Nedev.

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

Tirana mosque reimagined by Radio Hummingbird.

"admittedly, i had a few quite different tracks on my wish list

before breaking it down to my two favourite choices with both

tracks in my final selection being hugely different to one

another. one featuring very quiet and subtle sounds within a

natural environment whereas my final choice features an urban

environment with a rather outward call to prayer. an important

factor for my interest in a piece has not only been its actual

sound but the sound in context with its location.

i have never been to albania but the images of this country which

appeared in my imagination are rather intriguing. a place as

familiar as inconceivable. specious and overwhelming. a challenge

of extraordinary beauty (like so many other places on this

planet).

i am not a great believer in anything other than spirituality and

mutual respect. however, at a time in which most connotations of

islamic practice are being feared and treated with deep suspicion

i felt it is important to focus on the actual beauty each and

every culture is able to create since the beginning of time.

deeply musical chants being released as wavering melodies

constantly filling space and perception. melodic and spherical.

unique. it is time to immerse ourselves in the diversity of this

world again instead of erecting cultural walls and national

boundaries. this used to be practice of the past. and it would be

better for all of us if it would stay this way......

apart from using and modifying the source track in a variety of

ways, i also included a variety of my own field recordings from

different locations of this planet as well as using a modular

synthesizer to emanate the principal melodies to create additional

soundscapes influenced by the source. this is intended to capture

my sonic imagination of a simple walk down the road somewhere in

tirana at a random day whilst just being immersed in my own

thoughts. nothing else."

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

Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral reimagined by Scott Lawlor.

"I used that sound because I am a big fan of church bells and I enjoy creating ethereal otherworldly audio excursions for the mind.

I took the sample and ran it through various Vst plugins, then reversed the sound, added reverberation, reversed it again, pitch shifted it by 35%, blurred the sound by running it through paul stretch by setting the stretch value at 1 and the resolution at 8, and finally added more reverberation using the adaptiverb plugin. After all that, I took out some midrange frequencies, increased the highs and created a second copy of the track which I then increased the speed of by 75%. I then added random panning to this second track, time stretched it by a factor of 2 with a resolution of 1 and then gradually mixed it with the first track.

After doing all that, I made a second copy of this mix, ran it through a filter and another reverb plugin, then mixed it with the first copy which I reversed beforehand."

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

Reimagined by Antonia Bustamente. "I cut some pieces of the file and made loops to create a rhythmic sequence. I used also some delays and Logic fx."

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

Reimagined by Paul Verschooten (Mind.Divided).

"I wanted to keep it short and sweet for this one, and drew inspiration from the album I currently have in production.

The result is a two minute track with live trip hop drums and a lot of tape trickery, experimental but fun to listen to."

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

Male voice chanting inside cavernous church interior. Recorded by Kostas Loukovikas.

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

Recorded by Cities and Memory, with thanks to the Churches Conservation Trust. Church of St Mary the Virgin, Yazor, Herefordshire.

This Victorian church has a needle-sharp spire that overlooks the Wye Valley. The church was built at the expense of the Price family of nearby Foxley between 1843 and 1855. The architect was George Moore but the spire and remarkable fittings were completed by the rector, The Reverend R L Freer.

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

Recorded by Cities and Memory, with thanks to the Churches Conservation Trust.

In a pretty setting on a bend in the River Wye, looking across to the Herefordshire hills, this delightful church is well worth a visit just to enjoy its rich collection of monuments. The Scudamore family were patrons of the church from Medieval times until the twentieth century, and their monuments are a spectacular treasure. The church also has monuments to the Lucas-Tooth family who bought the estate in 1909. John Scudamore, who died in 1571 lies beside his wife on a tomb chest, decked out in full armour. James Scudamore, who died in 1668, wears Roman costume in a great wedding cake of a wall monument - possibly by Grinling Gibbons. There is also a Victorian monument to a naval captain shows a fleet of fully rigged ships. There are even some twentieth-century monuments - in the churchyard is a memorial to Edwyn Scudamore Stanhope, who died in 1933, pictured as a heroic knight in armour. Beautiful stained glass also delights the eye. Most of it is nineteenth and twentieth century, though the chancel north window is made up of fragments of medieval glass. In the nave is a striking window showing two of King Arthur's knights, given in memory of Archibald Lucas-Tooth, who died in World War I. His father, Sir Robert, is commemorated in the wonderful glass in the great east window, showing St Michael weighing souls. Other treasures to look for include the unusual seventeenth-century font, with its elegant stem and richly decorated bowl, and the carvings on the medieval stalls, showing angels, men, a horned demon and a dog.