Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Westminster station reimagined by Jessica Beechey.

"This piece explores the concept of ‘future’, venturing ‘into’ as well as ‘back’, taken from a point of discussion between an adult and children in the original recording. The piece draws inspiration from the recording location, Westminster. ‘Future’ imagines a dystopian fate for our politics, with fragmented speech becoming drowned out by the crescendo of aggressive drones, to an ominous and unknowing conclusion."

Part of our project The Next Station, reimagining the sounds of the London Underground and creating the first ever tube sound map. August 2016 - for more information see www.citiesandmemory.com/thenextstation

Royal Victoria reimagined by Jon Nicholls.

"I've always been struck by how passengers on the Underground (myself included!) seem very easily to fall into interior, introspective states while in transit. I've treated the journey from Royal Victoria DLR as a sort of dreamscape, in the course of which reality is inter / under-cut by abstract interludes which take fragments of real sound as their points of departure.

The structure of the piece very simply follows the structure of the source material, anchored around a few key recurring motifs. It's also inspired by the wave-like energy of the arrival and departure of the trains themselves, and the voices of the passengers / dreamers."

Part of our project The Next Station, reimagining the sounds of the London Underground and creating the first ever tube sound map. August 2016 - for more information see www.citiesandmemory.com/thenextstation

Waterloo reimagined by Mark Williamson.

"I worked for a while in Waterloo and took the Waterloo and City line to and from work each day. As I was travelleing away from the City in the morning and towards it in the evening the trains were usually fairly deserted. I wanted to show, then, not the rhythmic, crowded chaos most users associated with the Waterloo and City, but the calm at the centre of the storm that it was in regards to my commute. With that is mind I simply found a nicely pitched screech of wheel on rail and worked with that and some other aspects from the original recording to create this piece."

Part of our project The Next Station, reimagining the sounds of the London Underground and creating the first ever tube sound map. August 2016 - for more information see www.citiesandmemory.com/thenextstation

Euston Station reimagined by Nick Yulman.

"In this piece, I recast Euston Station as a concert venue. The station's public address announcers are pressed into service as emcees, introducing a serious of acts at an imaginary festival. The music is entirely made up of sounds sampled from the original source recording."

Part of our project The Next Station, reimagining the sounds of the London Underground and creating the first ever tube sound map. August 2016 - for more information see www.citiesandmemory.com/thenextstation

Bank to Waterloo reimagined by Rob Smith.

"When creating the piece I tried to use as little instrumentation as possible, limiting the project to two synths and creating all percussive elements by honing in on the moaning and clattering of the tube. I commute regularly though London and always feel like I’m passing through Thea Von Harbou’s Metropolis, the pounding mid-section is a reflection of this.

“The machines of Metropolis roared; they wanted to be fed.”"

Part of our project The Next Station, reimagining the sounds of the London Underground and creating the first ever tube sound map. August 2016 - for more information see www.citiesandmemory.com/thenextstation

Westminster reimagined by Richard Fair.

"I wanted to get the rhythm of a train with the beat but was also fascinated by the children's voices. They always seem to echo around the underground stations, like the musical instruments from buskers. The announcements seemed to act as good jumping on and getting off points for the various chapters in the piece."

Part of our project The Next Station, reimagining the sounds of the London Underground and creating the first ever tube sound map. August 2016 - for more information see www.citiesandmemory.com/thenextstation

South Kensington reimagined by Sofia Botero.

Part of our project The Next Station, reimagining the sounds of the London Underground and creating the first ever tube sound map. August 2016 - for more information see www.citiesandmemory.com/thenextstation

Victoria tube station reimagined by Marinna Guzy.

"A daily commute—few things are as monotonous as this in life. As time passes, the sound of a train becomes so commonplace that it begins to lose all meaning, descending into abstraction, acousmatized, as the mind divorces the sound from its point of origin. I wanted to capture and highlight this abstraction through process. I began with the original recording, worldizing it by recording it played back in a sonically interesting space. I repeated this until the recording became completely divorced from its original sonic quality. As the piece progresses, the listener travels backward, beginning with the most abstracted recording, and concluding his or her journey with the original recording. "

Part of our project The Next Station, reimagining the sounds of the London Underground and creating the first ever tube sound map. August 2016 - for more information see www.citiesandmemory.com/thenextstation

Shepherd's Bush reimagined by Conor McCafferty.

"My aunty lived in Shepherd's Bush for many years, having moved over from Ireland when she was young. I visited her there several times, and got to explore London as a teenager, getting to know the Tube system, streets, neighbourhoods, markets and museums. Visiting in 2000 with my brother, we crossed the swaying pedestrian bridge to visit the new Tate Modern, I got my picture taken with ET in the Millennium Dome and we bumped into John Humphrys in the lift on a tour of Television Centre.

There were so many options with this recording. The density of the original recording resonated with my experience of Shepherd's Bush: lots of movement and music on the street; heavy bass from the soundsystem of a moving car; never-ending chatter, clamour and confusion; unseen action and possibilities. As I was working through the material, I tried out a number of different things, either embracing the mess or reducing down. I wasn't planning on something so melodic, but in the end the short fragment that drew me in (it seems to be an orchestral or chamber work amplified, maybe for a street performance) set me off in that direction. This fragment had its own momentum already built in, and I liked layering in new conflicting, out-of-phase rhythms. The piece turned out a little more forward and sharp-edged than I was expecting, and not quite as ambient and subdued as I had intended, but that's something to develop for another day.

In my research I listen to a lot of field recordings from all over the world, mainly urban scenes, exploring how sound mapping can be used to understand architectural and urban space. Aside from my research, I also make music — as you might be able to tell, I quite like arpeggiating basic synth sounds. But the two worlds don't usually meet, and I wouldn't often mix synthesisers with this kind of sampling. So making the piece was a nice change and it gave me a new perspective.

"The man who is tired of London is tired of life," my aunty used to tell us, quoting Samuel Johnson, and it's something I took to heart. I still have friends and family living in different parts of London, and I still visit often, finding new connections to add to my personal map of the city — it's a wonderful puzzle of a place for me. For her own part, my aunty loved getting back to the quiet, peace and fresh air of the Donegal countryside where she lived her young life. The fleeting burst of one of my own field recordings at the end of the piece is a nod to that. I remember telling her I was so bored by the country and loved the action and bustle of the city — but as time goes on, I understand a little better how she felt."

Part of our project The Next Station, reimagining the sounds of the London Underground and creating the first ever tube sound map. August 2016 - for more information see www.citiesandmemory.com/thenextstation

Euston tube station reimagined by Johannes Gruber.

"This track was arranged solely on train-rides due to lack of other time.. so it´s mainly samples and recordings from other tracks mixed together and fxd without any further hardware."

Part of our project The Next Station, reimagining the sounds of the London Underground and creating the first ever tube sound map. August 2016 - for more information see www.citiesandmemory.com/thenextstation