Cities and Memory - remixing the world

"I listened to the busker a lot here and loved his energy. It then made me think about how much I travel to and from work on the train daily and how attached I am to train travel, the same sounds and words I hear every day. The comfort of it. So I wanted to give it a quiet eulogy. I brought the busker in to help."

Parisian metro busker reimagined by Dermot Fitzsimons. 

"One of the first things that jumped out at me about this recording was the sheer joy it conveyed, slight warts & all. I love the off note in the initial section of the piece, and started off with the notion of taking that discordance & slowly bringing it into harmony. That was stymied however, by initial processing of the discordant note resulting in something beautiful.

"The other striking aspect of the recording is that although the brass band is the main focus here, at points extraneous sounds - conversation, handling noise, wind - end up louder than it. I wanted to extend that experience, and deliberately hide the delightful main point of focus behind other sounds which might or might not match or harmonise.

"To this end, I extracted and processed lots of sound from the recording, added some synthesiser lines & extra percussion, and arranged to taste."

Multicultural celebration parade in Oslo reimagined by Andrew Tulloch.

"I've always been captivated by the organic quality of atmospheres... so the meaning of FX soon became completely intertwined with it... and that's exactly what happened this time too..." 

Sermon in Dundas Square, Toronto reimagined by Lajkó András Bence/ACiDBENCI.

IMAGE: Kang-min Liu, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Nothing unusual in hearing the plaintive song of a busker on the Parisian metro, and this one has a nice voice. What strikes us as we leave the carriage is how even buskers now give out their Instagram and TikTok handles at the end of songs. Tag us on social or it didn't happen. 

Recorded in Paris, France in February 2026 by Cities and Memory. 

At Aker Brygge on a Saturday afternoon in Oslo, a parade kicks off celebrating the muticulturalism of the city, with representation from many different groups and countries, all of whom are communities living there. The parade sets off to walk through the city centre with a celebratory tone, and in this recording many different groups walk past, with multiple forms of music including a brass band, drum troupe and various other types of percussion and music from around the world.

Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

Dundas Square is a major intersection in downtown Toronto. It has a high population of buskers and other entertainment. This particular evening turned into a sermon. 

Recorded in Toronto by Scott Bennett.

IMAGE: Kang-min Liu, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

"Built around a recording of the feminist collective Nous Toutes in Paris, who formed in 2018 to speak out against and draw attention to gender-based violence. For one hour every Saturday, the group speaks while sounding a klaxon at regular intervals; these intervals reflect the findings of a 2022 survey by the Ministère de l’Intérieur, which states that there is a rape or an attempted rape in France every 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

"It felt important to step back and let the speaker’s words and the accompanying klaxons remain prominent and as clear as possible, so I added instrumentation gradually and with restraint. I initially focused on smoothing out some of the background noise, before moving on to building textures and drones until the voice steadily fades from the recording and the klaxon sounds once more.

"With Bb clarinets, noise box, Dvina, and daxophone."

Feminist protest, Les Halles, Paris reimagined by deptiva.

"When I heard this field recording it reminded me of a similar recording my wife and I had done several years ago where we played an Iron bridge with mallets. I took this as a perfect opportunity to graft pieces of each together to create a cohesive recording of similar elements. 

"The playful running of the children on the bridge formed the central musical theme which suggested the direction of the harmonies heard in the final composition."

Vibrations on La Villette Folie L5, Paris reimagined by Gerald Fratzl.

"I have been working on some piano miniatures inspired by Kurtág's Játékok, Bartok's Mikrokosmos and technical exercises such a A Dozen a Day. This piece fits into that body of work. 

"I edited and manipulated a short section of the bells so that it was far more intense than the original and put some slow, relaxed arpeggios and chords beneath that. I inverted that idea in the second part to include the recording of people inside the church but added faster, more intense arpeggios."

Saint Sulpice, Paris reimagined by Simon Belshaw.

A feminist collective outside Les Halles in Paris protests against violence against women. They sound a klaxon every 2.5 minutes to symbolise how often an act of violence is perpetrated against women, and deliver a speech through a megaphone to passers by. 

In the first half of the recording we also hear the rubbish collection truck and workmen going about their business around the protesters. 

Recorded in April 2026 by Cities and Memory.