Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Cities and Memory - remixing the world

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Cities and Memory - remixing the world episodes

  • Reimagined by a football fan
    By AJ Born.
    Some time ago, in July last year, I had decided to re-imagine a sound from my favorite football club FC St. Pauli. "Forza St Pauli" is a tune that is quite often heard in the Millterntor stadium. Therefore, it is not surprising that I had also recorded this tune some time before, and I got another version from a friend's video. So I had three recordings of different games of FC St. Pauli, which all included "Forza St. Pauli".
    When I started, my idea was to capture the good mood that I associate with this club (beeing a supporter for a long time), and transform it into a sound. I mixed the three recordings so that they should sound like a typical football game with an extended version of "Forza St. Pauli". For some reason, I didn't finish it that day.
    Plenty of water went down the river Elbe and lots of things happened, until I got back to this project at the end of November 2015. I was not in a cheerful mood this time, and created some dark sounds from the recordings. I mixed this with the happy song I started before and the result didn't make any sense. So I decided to split it and make two versions: A happy one, that sounds like a typical FC St Pauli football game. And an unhappy version, that might sound like the feeling I have, when the club is loosing a game.
    5 min
  • Supermarket Christmas chaos
    Recorded 24th December 2015 by Gavin Morrow (Grey Frequency).
    Supermarket Christmas chaos.
    The electronic ping of barcode scanners.
    The sound of coins clattering in and out of self-service checkouts.
    An automated Father Christmas Ho-Ho-Ho-ing through the constant babble.
    Tension and pressure in the air.
    Consumerism overdrive.
    Mindless and joyless.
    This piece was constructed from a very short field recording, made at a local supermarket on Christmas Eve (2015). From this, random sections were recorded onto a tape loop using a portastudio. Without any monitoring, brief bursts of sound were recorded through each of the portastudio's channels, producing a four-way audio cut-up or collage.
    This was then recorded in one take through a Korg Monotron - utilising the delay, feedback and cut-off functions. This created an added dimension of abstraction to the sounds, but also allowed for a small element of control. The rather old and worn analogue tape produced a wonderfully lo-fi sound which bound everything together.
    Despite its random starting point, the final piece has certain rhythmic qualities as sounds tumble over each other. As they progress, the looped segments become blurred and hypnotic, before finally shifting to a crescendo of distorted harsh noise. I felt that this reflected the chaos-filled atmosphere in the supermarket and the whole accelerated hype which surrounds the Christmas season.
    Part of our Dada Sound project (February 2016) - see more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/dadasounds
    14 min
  • Tesco, Nottingham - Scan, pack, pay
    Recorded 24th December 2015 by Gavin Morrow (Grey Frequency).
    Supermarket Christmas chaos.
    The electronic ping of barcode scanners.
    The sound of coins clattering in and out of self-service checkouts.
    An automated Father Christmas Ho-Ho-Ho-ing through the constant babble.
    Tension and pressure in the air.
    Consumerism overdrive.
    Mindless and joyless.
    This piece was constructed from a very short field recording, made at a local supermarket on Christmas Eve (2015). From this, random sections were recorded onto a tape loop using a portastudio. Without any monitoring, brief bursts of sound were recorded through each of the portastudio's channels, producing a four-way audio cut-up or collage.
    This was then recorded in one take through a Korg Monotron - utilising the delay, feedback and cut-off functions. This created an added dimension of abstraction to the sounds, but also allowed for a small element of control. The rather old and worn analogue tape produced a wonderfully lo-fi sound which bound everything together.
    Despite its random starting point, the final piece has certain rhythmic qualities as sounds tumble over each other. As they progress, the looped segments become blurred and hypnotic, before finally shifting to a crescendo of distorted harsh noise. I felt that this reflected the chaos-filled atmosphere in the supermarket and the whole accelerated hype which surrounds the Christmas season.
    Part of our Dada Sound project (February 2016) - see more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/dadasounds
    4 min
  • Heideldada
    The source recording was made in January 2015 at the John Jarrold Printing Museum in Norwich. It’s an old printing machine that was used on this site a number of years before. The machine is called The “Heidelberg” Automatic Platen.
    Using Ableton Live 9 I extracted a ‘drum’ sample from the short recording and applied various vowel sounds using the Soundiron Olympus Elements Pack along with an Acoustic Plastic Bass track.
    The first movement includes the original field recording before it gives way to a fairly random mix of vowel tracks and bass started at different times.
    Final they all come together and are joined by the sound of the machine being switched off.
    By Richard Fair. Part of our Dada Sound project (February 2016) - see more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/dadasounds
    7 min
  • Heidelberg Automatic Platen, Norwich printing museum
    The source recording was made in January 2015 at the John Jarrold Printing Museum in Norwich. It’s an old printing machine that was used on this site a number of years before. The machine is called The “Heidelberg” Automatic Platen.
    Using Ableton Live 9 I extracted a ‘drum’ sample from the short recording and applied various vowel sounds using the Soundiron Olympus Elements Pack along with an Acoustic Plastic Bass track.
    The first movement includes the original field recording before it gives way to a fairly random mix of vowel tracks and bass started at different times.
    Final they all come together and are joined by the sound of the machine being switched off.
    By Richard Fair. Part of our Dada Sound project (February 2016) - see more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/dadasounds
    3 min
  • Black Friday
    The first thing that struck when I looked if the Dada movement was the Polemic nature of their inception. How the horrors of the first world war and the inhumane rule of the bourgeoisies had led these men and women to question where the society of the time was heading. It isn't hard to see the parallels in our own time.
    However deeming the current geopolitical situation beyond my remit I chose instead to polemicise on the state of rampant consumerism that now pervades our society, no more so of course than at Christmas.
    I've ostensibly used two Dadaist techniques in the piece. Firstly I used the Lords prayer to create a cut up poem. I then took a recording of a recitation from Wells Cathedral and "cut up" the track accordingly. I then used these fragments to "over-paint" a recording from a supermarket checkout queue.
    From this I moved to perhaps the ultimate modern incarnation of the cut-up aesthetic, Granular synthesis. The granulation of another supermarket recording is overlaid with a reading of my cut up poem.
    Other supermarkets and belief systems are available.
    By Daniel Williams. Part of our Dada Sound project (February 2016) - see more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/dadasounds
    6 min
  • Wells Cathedral
    The first thing that struck when I looked if the Dada movement was the Polemic nature of their inception. How the horrors of the first world war and the inhumane rule of the bourgeoisies had led these men and women to question where the society of the time was heading. It isn't hard to see the parallels in our own time.
    However deeming the current geopolitical situation beyond my remit I chose instead to polemicise on the state of rampant consumerism that now pervades our society, no more so of course than at Christmas.
    I've ostensibly used two Dadaist techniques in the piece. Firstly I used the Lords prayer to create a cut up poem. I then took a recording of a recitation from Wells Cathedral and "cut up" the track accordingly. I then used these fragments to "over-paint" a recording from a supermarket checkout queue.
    From this I moved to perhaps the ultimate modern incarnation of the cut-up aesthetic, Granular synthesis. The granulation of another supermarket recording is overlaid with a reading of my cut up poem.
    Other supermarkets and belief systems are available.
    By Daniel Williams. Part of our Dada Sound project (February 2016) - see more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/dadasounds
    6 min
  • Dada in Miami
    By The Doll, Auckland.
    A description of how you applied the Dada techniques to the sound to produce your piece:
    I chopped the file into pieces and numbered them.
    The samples became progressively shorter. This was an accidental occurrence as I was deleting each section after renaming it, but cutting the wav up visually & ignoring the actual length.
    I was left with 74 samples varying from 1 - 7 seconds.
    I then wrote the numbers on a sheet of paper, cut them out and put them in a bowl.
    I blindly drew each number out and reassembled the track in that order.
    Part of our Dada Sound project (February 2016) - see more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/dadasounds
    6 min
  • Cha Chapinero
    By Melissa Vargas. Part of our Dada Sound project (February 2016) - see more at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/dadasounds
    5 min

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Cities and Memory remixes the world, one sound at a time - a global collaboration between artists and sound recordists all over the world.