Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Durei-na-mbwe (song) by the Broken Consort, with Samuel on bu-wahr-wahr (panpipes), accompanied by Dominique, Erine, Ferdinand and Marineau. From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a large collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of music and soundscapes made by ethnomusicologist Raymond Clausen mainly on the island of Malekula (Malampa Province) in...

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of Berber (Ait Haddidu) music and soundscapes made by members of the Oxford University Expedition to the Atlas Mountains of Southern Morocco in 1961. Recorded by Audrey Butt, Michael R. Emerson or Ralph Hudson Johnson. Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxfor...

The archival field recordings of Bayaka hunters captured by Louis Sarno were the starting point of this work, not only for their sonic richness, but for their ability to convey life and presence across time. The voices, full of rhythm, laughter, and communal energy, immediately suggested the potential to create a composition that honours their vitality while exploring cross-boundary cultures and b...

“Durei-na-mbwe 2.0” plays with notions of time, decay and transformation; with it, I wanted to capture the embodied experience of me listening to and imagining the original recording through a contemporary lens. I listened to the original Durei-na-mbwe by the Broken Consort (1961) on repeat for about three weeks before I started to work with it; the haunting melody of the vocals and panpipes becam...

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of Chocó music and soundscapes made by students Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith in Colombia in 1965. Recorded by Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith. Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. ——— Part of the project A Century of Sounds, r...

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel recordings of music and spoken language (principally Thulung Rai) made by anthropologist Nicholas Allen in Nepal and India between 1970 and 1981. Recorded by Nicholas Justin Allen. Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. ——— Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimag...

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel recordings of music and spoken language (principally Thulung Rai) made by anthropologist Nicholas Allen in Nepal and India between 1970 and 1981. Recorded by Nicholas Justin Allen. Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. ——— Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimag...

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a large collection of cassette tape and digital audio tape recordings of Bayaka music and soundscapes made by ethnomusicologist Louis Sarno mainly in the Central African Republic (and the Republic of Congo) between 1986 and 2009 Recorded by Louis Sarno. Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. ——— Par...

A reflection on distance, time and listening. Morning sounds captured on reel-to-reel tape in Chocó, Colombia in 1965 meet digital recordings made sixty years later in Forest Gate, East London. Morning soundscape among the Chocó people reimagined by Asher Levitas. ——— Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum a...

The production process centred on preserving the integrity of the original field recording from Lokhim, Nepal, while building a modern arrangement around it. Spectral Layers was utilised to isolate the vocal line from the background noise and original percussion, allowing the singer’s performance to remain the focal point without destructive editing. Once isolated, Melodyne and a custom built MIDI...

For this project I challenged myself to create every sound directly from the original recording. Drum hits, textures, bass and even a cowboy guitar were all manipulated extracts from the sample. The recording contains vocal interjections which I reused as percussive elements. The jaw harp has a rich timbre and a compelling rhythmic drive, but it often required careful processing to soften harsh me...

Inspiration came from both the sound recording itself, and my impressions of the Pitt Rivers Museum. I was struck by the many objects and collections of musical instruments in the museum – giving me the phrases "surrounded by..." and "all around us..." As a wind player I was interested in all the different objects that could be blown through including some very simple pipes with one or two holes....

The recording I chose is over 50 minutes of cassette tape recordings from the 1970s, capturing interviews and recordings of live music performed by communities living in the Andes in Peru.  For the Indigenous communities of Peru, the Andes are living, sacred beings that sustain and protect life and they call the Mountain Spirits Apus. These powerful spirits of the Andes watch over communities and...

"Noriya": a men's generation song from South Sudan ("Praise the guinea fowl Nyitamo/ He's always hard-working"). From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of cassette tape recordings of music and spoken language (principally Laarim) made by anthropologist Patti Langton in South Sudan during 1979 and 1980. Recorded by Patti Langton. Copyrigh...

Noriya is a men’s generational song celebrating and praising Ngitamo, the guinea fowl. The original recording of the Larim people in South Sudan in 1979 was from a time of relative peace, with the Ngitamo generation existing alongside the Nyoletiang (gazelles) and Nyitulabok (sheep). The melody, compound rhythm and tempo reflect this balance and resonate as song of celebration and joy, even one to...

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being one of a number of miscellaneous or individual ethnographic field recordings (rediscovered during a recent research project). Unknown recordist. Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. ——— Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt R...

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of wax cylinder recordings of songs and spoken language made by anthropologist Northcote Thomas in Nigeria and Sierra Leone between 1909 and 1915. Recorded by Northcote Whitridge Thomas. Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. ——— Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100...

I tried to stay true to the recording, at the same time reimagining the setting. It is a threshing song; I changed the setting to be more geared towards sitting around a fire and singing; or a wedding.  Even in the mix, I opted for the percussion instruments to be overpowering as it is usually the case in such settings. My idea was not to manipulate the recording as much as to re-adapt it; picking...

Initiation into the Poro, or secret society, constitutes the rites of manhood for the Mende people in Sierra Leone. As a means to develop the emotional landscape of this piece, I sought to put myself in the shoes of initiates, attempting to capture their feelings of excitement and anticipation. I was particularly intrigued by the call-and-response singing between the leader and choir.  This inspir...

For this creative project, my starting point was an archival recording of a Yoruba chant from Nigeria, recorded around 1911. I chose to work with this sound because, living in West Africa, these sonorities immediately resonated in me. They echo my daily environment, my personal history, and my fieldwork, which lies at the intersection of culture, music, and museum practice. In my creative process,...

Cockerel crowing: morning soundscape among the Chocó people of north-west Colombia. From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of Chocó music and soundscapes made by students Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith in Colombia in 1965. Recorded by Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith. Copyright Pitt...

Musical boxes and cylinders: recording of European musical boxes and cylinders in the Pitt Rivers Museum's collections being played, including English, German and Swiss examples. From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being one of a small number of recordings of the musical instruments in the institution's collections being played or discussed. Unknown recordis...

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of wax cylinder recordings of Zande songs, dances and spoken language made by social anthropologist Edward Evans-Pritchard in South Sudan between 1928 and 1930. Recorded by Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard. Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. ——— Part of the project A Century of Sounds, r...

This is a process-based piece, exploiting the conceptual connection with water. I applied a series of transformations to the original cassette recording, beginning with chopping and looping fragments of the sample, which I "played" back on a MIDI keyboard. I then collage the results, recording them on a multitrack cassette tape, next playing back and manipulating those recordings via a variable sp...

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of Berber (Ait Haddidu) music and soundscapes made by members of the Oxford University Expedition to the Atlas Mountains of Southern Morocco in 1961. Recorded by Audrey Butt, Michael R. Emerson or Ralph Hudson Johnson. Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxfor...