Cities and Memory - remixing the world

"Years ago, at Algonquin Provincial Park, we lined up along a dark campground road in total silence along with hundreds of other campers. The Naturalist howled three times, but only received silence in return. Then two Naturalists called together. The forest on both sides of the road erupted in deafening howls from many, many wolves. One of the coolest things I've ever experienced." Coyotes and ra...

Based on a recording made atop the tallest peak in Thailand, Doi Inthanon, this piece evokes the wonder of looking out across the entire country, with the sounds of birdsong reverberating around you. The slightly clipped bass sounds, and the whole mix being sent through a tape doubler, gives a woozy sense of height and breathlessness, while the synth pads and manipulated guitars are an expression...

A lively resident crow is the star in this walkthrough of Gare de Lyon in Paris - while we can hear the usual hall reverb, trolley bags, travellers chatting away and platform announcements, this crow is letting his presence be known to everyone, cawing loudly and persistently as if to say "hey, this station is mine too, you know!".  Recorded in Paris, France in February 2026 by Cities and Memory. 

"Four years in France, regular trips From near Lyon to Paris, via the Gare de Lyon and my familiars — the crows — the track evoked those memories." Gare de Lyon, Paris reimagined by Dennis Moser.

Hiking at the Kew Mae Pan trail, Chiang Mai, Thailand. With the perfect view of nature things at the top of the mountain. A little bit tired but it was such a happy day. Recorded by sound_of__memories. Photo by Ash Edmonds on Unsplash .

"When I received the field recording by Daniel Mackenzie I thought 'what an absolute gift!' All the elements to make a remix are all contained in the original field recording. I used a Roland SP404 mk2 to sketch out the fundamentals, and to focus on what parts to sample, and mastered in Ableton.  "Rudimentary effects were used (filters, eq, delay & reverb) but no synths whatsoever; the piece o...

A recording taken which captures a moment of life away from the intensity that Hong Kong is associated with. Lamma Island is a short boat ride away and has a unique calm that is almost unimaginable when you've spent several weeks in the nearby city.  The sounds of children playing are atmospheric and contrasting against passing vehicles, and occasional sounds of wildlife. Recorded by Daniel Macken...

"The tranquil atmosphere of the field recording, the birdsong and the soft cooing of the pigeons in the background immediately appealed to me. "First, I spectrally cleaned the recording in an attempt to distil its acoustic essence. The next step was to isolate individual distinctive sounds and rearrange them in time. These form the intro and outro of the piece. "Secondly, I was faced with the ques...

We can hear the "noises" coming from the garden of the house. This house is located at the entrance to the city, right behind a commercial area. It is around 10:30 this Saturday, February 22, 2025. The sun emerging from the gray morning mass, birds, light and other small elements are taking possession of the place. The walls cut off the sounds coming from the commercial area, the garden extends to...

| This recording captures the Maasai people living in one of the most remote regions of Kenya, near the invisible borders with Tanzania in the Loita Hills. It focuses on various Maasai widows as they work, their movements intertwined with the melodic songs they sing in their native language.  Their voices carry the weight of experience, tradition, and resilience, echoing across the village and sur...

"The moment I received the sound file, I was pretty assured I knew exactly what I was going to do. While the words of the tribal song change, the melody alongside the call & response from the widows of the Maasai tribe of Kenya spoke to me in its repetitious, looped like fashion, and as such, I wanted to treat the file a bit like how Reich did his seminal minimalist "Come Out" (1966) compositi...

"The original sound recording immediately reminded me of peaceful moments spent watching light glinting on the water. I improvised to the birds, the sound of the water lapping against the dock and what I imagined to be the sunlight shimmering on the water.  "Each time I sat at the piano, I listened out for a different element to respond to and then played around with the sound of each part. I want...

The recording is from April 7, 2025 and was made at Lake Chiusi located in the Val di Chiana in the province of Siena, Tuscany. A small floating dock was chosen as the audio recording point. The banging of the dock accompanies the listening of the lake soundscape. It is the lake itself that, with its movement, 'plays' this dock. The random rhythm generated is grafted onto the very rich acoustic en...

The day is coming to an end for the small port town of Cabusao, with most bamboo boats securely tied to the seawall bordering the makeshift and cement homes of the people to restless horizon of the San Miguel Bay. High tide approaches, so two biologists take a battered old tricycle to catch their boat home before the waves get too strong for their ride to dock safely for boarding. From the guttura...

"The recording I chose was quite full on, noise-wise, but also incredibly evocative. It felt like a travelogue, and inspired by this and an old audio montage technique used by 'Bomb The Bass' on their debut album 'Into The Dragon', I decided to create a kind of jangling, noisy audio travelogue, featuring localised Filipino radio broadcasts, classical Filipino music, youth-oriented TV interviews, a...

"For this project, I've chosen a recording that was - very appropriately- named "Loud morning walkers on quiet street". Between other choices, this was the only recording, that made me pause to think about human nature. I became interested in its sonic layers, that oscillated between serenity and chaos.  "My idea was to study this interplay, to dissect the parts and to re-imagine a new sonic lands...

The random summer sounds include bird song, dog walkers, a truck, a garden sprinkler and a cough. However, the event (7:28) is the loud Cantonese-speaking group of woman passing by on their daily walk – always around 9:30 am and always very animated! I do not know what they say to one another.  Recorded in Vancouver, Canada by Emiko Morita.

"The piece is made up entirely of samples from the field recordings, chopped, filtered and mangled, with the exception of "Game Over". The overall piece sounded like a retro computer game. Further research revealed that the dashboard software on S-Bahn trains is Windows 3.11!" S-Bahn trip in Berlin reimagined by Simon Woods. 

An S-bahn journey from Savignyplatz to the Hauptbahnhof in Berlin - train sounds, doors opening and closing, announcements in German, September 2025.  Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

"I transformed the original field recording into a more dronish soundscape and added some subtle guitar layers over it. The result feels like a warm atmospheric cinematic piece. I think the edit of this field recording offers further opportunities for more (de)compositions..."  Lake terrace in Lummen, Belgium reimagined by Marco Vanoppen.

Recording of the ambient sounds on a terrace by a lake called "Schulensmeer". Noisy visitors, so almost none of the nature sounds are audible. Recorded by Lummen, Belgium by Marco Vanoppen.

"Taking the original background noise of a Columbian protest and treating it like a drone, but adding reverb and delay on certain higher pitched sounds within it, I built a reggae bass loop and drums with some dub effects, building to a more dance 4/4 track. The piece then progressing to bring in brass to reflect the carnival vibe of South America." Protest in Bogotá reimagined by Dubberrookie.

Binaural recording of a protest in Bogotá Colombia from my porch. Birds, traffic, protest. Recorded by Seth Power. 

The Rialto fish market in Venice is an incredible piece of history, dating back to the 1200s. Sometimes when you're in Venice, it feels like little has changed (other times, conversely, you're well aware of the march of time!).  Once the fish market is close to closing, what we hear is the sound of workers shovelling up the ice and leftovers from the ground to be taken away.  For hundreds of years...

The sample of the workmen shovelling the ice to cleanup the market space has this rich, raw, physical and rhythmic texture, and an overall flow from start to finish. It's a story of a changing states - and I felt like accentuating these changes  would be an interesting direction. Of course, ice itself changes state, and that sparked the idea to use various states of water - rain, frost, snow, melt...