Cities and Memory - remixing the world

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

Reimagined by Cities and Memory. Almost every sound in this piece is built from the original field recording - the piece explores the interior of the church organ, as if we are hearing from deep inside it, experiencing the history and memories of the organ through its internal sounds.

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

Recorded by Tolga Balci.

Reimagined by Stephanie Merchak.

"I wanted to reimagine the field recording of Sule pagoda in Yangon, Myanmar by making it a call for meditation, giving it this otherworldly mood that would transmit the spiritual dimension of the place.

I worked in Ableton Live.

I cut the recording, separating the background ambience from the woman voice reading the prayers.

I then used the background ambience as some sort of evolving drone, processing it through effects (Resonators, reverb and delay).

The voice is also processed using effects.

Those are, in no particular order: reverb, convolution reverb, ping pong delay, resonators, eq and compression

I also used my Korg Volca Keys analog synth going through a Zoom MS-70CDR effects pedal to record a pad as well as a few synth notes that I added here and there to fill the space between the different voice sections."

Reimagined by Andrea Chang.

"One of the inspirations for this piece was a photo I saw online of what Syria was like before and after the wars and turmoils occurring in that area. https://i.imgur.com/nOBzhrM.jpg The first half of this track represents the dark and tumultuous effects of war on a country. This was done through taking the original recording, starting with the section with the bells clanging, which I reversed the audio of that whole section until the end. So if you listen to the recording, at 0:12, that is the sound of the clanging bells reversed with an added delay. Then I composed an unsettling music ambience that creates a sense of uneasiness with its unstable meters and eery sounding textures. The percussive nature of the piece starts off with some more organic sounding hand drums that grow into loud booming drums, into exploding distorted electric booms panning back and forth, representative of flying explosions and the destruction that occur in wars. The piece then unravels a little bit and you get from 1:20- 1:48 little after shocks of the war that haunt you a little (with the usage of the short snips of reversed materials). Then the second half of the piece until the end is reminiscent of the land before being ruined and a sort of emerging from the ashes toward a more hopeful future. I took the original recording with it cleaned up and enhanced and played it forward (instead of backward/reversed like in the first section) to indicate that this is how things should be. The city sounds healthy with its natural energy and bustling and there is music I composed below it that represents a sense of serenity and hope. It is in essence like a tale of two cities. "

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.

Improvisation on the church organ. St Peter's is a beautiful medieval church, located in an attractive tree-filled churchyard in Rutland, England. Its great treasure is its Norman arcade, dating to around 1160 and fabulously carved with zig-zags and lozenge shapes. This was rescued from serious decay and respectfully restored in 1862.

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

Recorded by Piotr Jaroszynski.

"It is a very crowded place, located on a busy roundabout. The women is reading prayers of people, who are placing their wishes (together with money of course). This does not sound as a spiritual, as it is, but in a very busy city, this temple is somehow a place of rest and silence."

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

Recorded by Nick St. George.

Playing on the church harmonium at Dilton - the hymn "Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken".

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

Dilton Church, reimagined by Ian Haygreen.

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

Recorded by Kamen Nedev.

"This is a call to prayer recorded at the Firuz Aga Mosque, located in the same area as Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. The call attracted me due to its sense of melody and its length (just over 9 minutes)."

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

Reimagined by Philippe Neau:

"I chose this sound for the voice. I would like to work with a voice over the sounds and noises. I would like to play with the opposition of the melody of the voices and noises from the city, the world.

I used this sound and field recordings from my place and I reworked everything with software."