Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Field recording from the London Underground by Jase Warner.

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

Blackfriars to Cannon Street reimagined by Paul Lewin.

"I have worked with recordings from the environment in my sound pieces for a few years now but these are more usually from the rural locality I inhabit. The idea of using a recording of the London Underground was a pleasing challenge and the recording “Blackfriars to Cannons Town “ immediately inspired on a first listen due to the variety and quality of sounds in the recording. I was particularly taken by the rising and falling tones of the trains entering and leaving the stations and I have used these to create some pitched musical elements to my piece. The whole recording was first put through Melodyne and “tuned” subtly which gives a slight choral effect and then it was chopped up and re-arranged in Live. I have used some drum sounds, a piano and a bell sound from lives instruments, but the rest of the piece was made entirely from the recording, looped or put into a sampler. I also used an impulse response ( thank you Ben! http://www.tunnelsounds.com ) of the underground with lives convolution reverb, I wanted a feel that the piece arrived through a tunnel and then disappeared back into one at the end. The tempo was varied through the piece to reflect that of a tube journey. ”

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

Tower Hill reimagined by Christoph Niggemeyer.

"I put it together using samples from Tower Hill. The bass drum was made from these samples, too. I had this little melodie I am (or the sequencer, rather) playing which I think is really nice and somehow reminds me of the children's program 30 years ago. So, having decided to use this melody I tried to use other sounds from the field recording, altering them in a way a little child might encounter them or someone else who is unaquainted with sounds of a city. Therefore I used delay, played tracks backwards, pitched them etc. Percussion wise I tried to imitate a rolling, continuous sound imitating a train, a sound that might make you fall asleep when riding on a train."

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

Reimagined by Matthew Williams.

"This piece was inspired by Whitechapel's famous but dark past. I didn't want to just do a, 'Jack the Ripper' composition as the exhibition is to celebrate the underground , but wanted to give it a dark, almost dream like feel.

It's quite a subtle composition (in places), more of a soundscape and relies on the dynamic range of the sounds to create the feelings and emotions. In my mind, the piece starts off at the present, inside the ticket hall of Whitechapel Station. The piece slowly starts to drift in and out of consciousness, gradually going back to Whitechapel's dark history. Towards the end, we start heading back to modern day, ending back in the ticket office....and a twist.

Almost all of the sounds and drones used were made from recordings of the area which were then manipulated into other things such as drones and pads. As well as the supplied recording, there are pieces made up from ambiences in the famous Ten Bells pub, some from the underground, and the 'bang' sounds are from stamping on a grid in the Greenwich Foot Tunnel."

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

Wembley Central reimagined by James Mann.

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

North Greenwich reimagined by Gavin Morrow.

"

I set out to create a piece reflecting those moments on a journey where the weary commuter allows their mind to wander and slip into a daydream - a realm between consciousness and sleep. The thunder of the train carriage, the clatter of wheels on tracks, the roar of air rushing through tunnels and station din all smeared into a hazy canvas of echoes, reverb and disjointed voices.

The original field recording was dubbed onto tape and pitched down several times to produce a deep, rumbling backdrop. Over the top of this I used the Landscape HC-TT to hand-manipulate sections of the station announcements. Played through a delay pedal this generated a string of wonderfully quirky abstractions and distortions. Additional layered sounds were played through multiple reverb pedals to create the impression of air being forced along tunnels or the deep exhalation of breath. A small looped section of the station escalators was introduced towards the middle of the piece, hinting at the repetitive nature of commuter travel. The march of time. Running like clockwork."

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

Field recording from the London Underground by Cities and Memory.

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

Earl's Court reimagined by Benjamin Finger.

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 reimagined by Conor O'Toole.

"The original recording was of a busker playing a woodwind instrument (clarinet it sounds like) in Bank station. It’s a beautiful recording so I wanted to keep the original track untouched and add to it. I tried to match the early languid section with loose guitar chords and the later anguished, more frantic mood with filtered, repetitive guitar, clarinet and vocal loops, hopefully sounding a bit like a train."

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

Reimagined by Robert van Riel.

"I have listened to the original recording of the Edgeware Road Station ticket hall quite few times and was convinced that there were a few stories in it. There are two people who can be heard quite clearly and some voices in the background. And a lovely announcement at the end. One of the great samples is of a passing train with a beautiful rhythm.

But the asking manner in which a man call: “Laura?” and a woman and her friend exchanging (apparent) disappointments, ending with the outcry “You must be joking", are two of the lines I immediately combined. I thought about a blind date on the station, where a man finds Laura, who, in turn, is somewhat disappointed by his appearance and first ideas about what to do next.

Instead of editing and sampling the original sound file, I decided to just sample the voices and edit those, and leave the rest of the sound file unaltered, except for some volume adjustments and fades at the beginning and end.

I added a piece original music to it, which had to have a bit of sadness in it, because of the date going wrong. The music is made on an iPad, with an electric piano app, an arpeggiator and effects.

And that is: Laura, Joking on Edgeware Road Station."

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