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Cities and Memory - remixing the world
Cities and Memory - remixing the world episodes
- Lonesome Blues on the Burgaz IslandPart of our Prison Songs project - see www.citiesandmemory.com/prisonsongs for full details.Reimagined by Mehtap Caglar.""While reimagining Lonesome Blues, giving the man singing some peace and freedom at least in his mind and dreams was my main intention. Vastness of the sea, seagulls, waves, children playing along the beach, a clear sky and a summer sun. I had all of them on a field record I did last summer on Burgaz Island, Istanbul and started working on the piece. Those were enough to make him feel free while making his music or doing the prison work, despite the bars around him. Or, so I thought.Reaching a total freedom on a utopian island, or being held captive on one. Relaxing by the sea under generous and warming sun, or rotting due to high humidity. Being isolated, or being secluded. Walls, wars, borders, shores, fantasy islands, prison islands, refugee islands, ghettos, suburbs, gated communities, smart cities. But still...LETTERS FROM A MAN IN SOLITARY3.Sunday today.Today they took me out in the sun for the first time.And I just stood there, struck for the first time in my lifeby how far away the sky is, how blue and how wide.Then I respectfully sat down on the earth.I leaned back against the wall.For a moment no trap to fall into,no struggle, no freedom, no wife.Only earth, sun, and me...I am happy.Nazim Hikmet - 1938Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)"4 min
- Lonesome BluesPart of our Prison Songs project - see www.citiesandmemory.com/prisonsongs for full details.Recorded at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in 1947 by Dr. Harry Oster. Courtesy Archive.org.4 min
- My Baby Got To Go (Life mix)Part of our Prison Songs project - see www.citiesandmemory.com/prisonsongs for full details.Reimagined by Richard Fair.""I found this one quite a challenge. Then I remembered that I’d found some old recording from the 1980s of some prison officers on some old tapes I bough a couple of years ago. There quotes about prisons. Mixed with samples from the original music recording I feel that the whole piece comes together really well."3 min
- My Baby Got To GoPart of our Prison Songs project - see www.citiesandmemory.com/prisonsongs for full details.Recorded at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in 1947 by Dr. Harry Oster. Courtesy Archive.org.4 min
- Rear Window Jumpin' JudyPart of our Prison Songs project - see www.citiesandmemory.com/prisonsongs for full details.Reimagined version by Paul Collins."I am a painter. I make paintings. Working with my hands and with my eyes has left my ears free to listen. I have spent decades painting while listening to music, to sound, to poetry, to BBC, CBC, NPR. Listening to whistling while I work. This recording, “Rear Window Jumpin’ Judy” documents my work environment. We hear my neighbour, a song-writer (Peter Kingsbery aka Cock Robin) practicing. My son clicks a mouse at the computer. I put the prison song, “Jumpin’ Judy” onto the stereo and get down to work. As I slap gesso onto raw canvas, the rhythmic striking of the prisoners’ hoes keeps the beat.I am reminded of the opening and closing scenes in Hitchcock’s Rear Window, a composed field recording of neighbours’ sound-making : radios and hi-fis play, a song-writer plays and sings, the city rumbles."7 min
- Jumpin' Judy (Rodo Ramos reimagination)Part of our Prison Songs project - see www.citiesandmemory.com/prisonsongs for full details.Reimagined by Rodrigo Ramos.""I made a blues and I kept some beats out of time to preserve the dynamics and feelings of the original track."5 min
- Jumpin' JudyPart of our Prison Songs project - see www.citiesandmemory.com/prisonsongs for full details.Recorded at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in 1947 by Dr. Harry Oster. Courtesy Archive.org.5 min
- Duckin' and Dodgin' (Poor Reception)Part of our Prison Songs project - see www.citiesandmemory.com/prisonsongs for full details.Reimagined version of Duckin' and Dodgin' by Christian Hagelskjaer From."From the beginning, my idea was to mess with the somewhat joyful vibe of the song. Even if the lyrics of the first two verses aren't really party material, the whole thing still boogies quite a bit. I played around with a few different ideas all aimed at getting more "prison" and less "song". I tried isolating the vocals and replace the grooving guitar with something more somber, but it didn't quite click.Then I had the idea of filtering the track to make it even more "old-radio" sounding than it already is, while varying the gain, in a slightly erratic way - reminiscent of poor radio reception.I mean, what are the odds of getting a good, strong signal, behind the steel bars and reinforced concrete of a prison?To add to the vibe, I whipped out a little contraption of my own making: two springs from a Luxo lamp, suspended over an empty 19 inch rack enclosure. Makes great steely reverb sounds when bowing the springs with a cello bow, and works well as a percussion instrument too."4 min
- Trapped in the Void: No Way HomePart of our Prison Songs project - see www.citiesandmemory.com/prisonsongs for full details.Reimagined version of Duckin' and Dodgin' by Mark Taylor."This was a tricky project – so many possibilities! I experimented with numerous ideas including a full on expansion of the track involving drums, bass, organ, horn section etc!This more ambient version is based around the simple concept of being trapped somewhere unfamiliar and not being able to get back home.It was created in Reaktor 5 using various granular modules. No new audio has been added - everything in the piece is taken from the original recording.The pulsing strand was created from a short clip of the strummed guitar.The two deeper threads were created by manipulating fragments of the original vocal line."6 min
- Duckin' and Dodgin'Part of our Prison Songs project - see www.citiesandmemory.com/prisonsongs for full details.Recorded at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in 1947 by Dr. Harry Oster. Courtesy Archive.org.4 min
About Cities and Memory - remixing the world
From the publisher's feed
Cities and Memory remixes the world, one sound at a time - a global collaboration between artists and sound recordists all over the world.
The project presents an amazingly-diverse array of field recordings from all over the world, but also reimagined, recomposed versions of those recordings as we go on a mission to remix the world.
What you'll hear in the podcast are our latest sounds - either a field recording from somewhere in the world, or a remixed new composition based solely on those sounds. Each podcast description tells you more about what you're hearing, and where it came from.
There are more than 8,000 sounds featured on our sound map, spread over more than 140 countries and territories. The sounds cover parts of the world as diverse as the hubbub of San Francisco’s main station, traditional fishing women’s songs at Lake Turkana, the sound of computer data centres in Birmingham, spiritual temple chanting in New Taipei City or the hum of the vaporetto engines in Venice. You can explore the project in full at www.citiesandmemory.com