Cities and Memory - remixing the world

A naturally reverberant amphibian chorus with a wide stereo image.  Trumpeting frogs can also be heard throughout the composition. Apenkwa is a new addition to areas in and around Koforidua where wetlands have been highly affected by building and construction activities. Recording by Emmanuel Baffoe, Ghana. Monitoring, Editing, and Mastering by Samuel Kudjodzi, Germany.  Emmanuel Baffoe is one of...

Recorded in 2025. I recorded the sounds of the forest near my house. This is a walking trail for the neighbours. There is running water side the path and you can hear the communication of birds. This is my first field recording work. Recorded in Inokashira Park, Mure, Mitaka City, Tokyo by Minami Kamada.

Intense traffic noise recorded from directly under an underpass at Queen's Quay, next to the Lagan River in Belfast.  Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

"The amphibian music is complete and beautiful, including both melodic and rhythmic elements, so then what? What could I possibly add?  "I kept the raw nature recording unaltered and layered on a variety of synth instruments, providing a tension and interplay that questions, what is natural?" Ghana amphibian chorus reimagined by Heather Spence.

"I wanted to keep the original field recording intact, and juxtapose it against a treated version. I feel with a project like this that it's important the original field recording can shine through and be part of the music.  "The piano is actually two improvised solos playing against each other and glued with a drone from a Serge modular system."  Inokashira Park, Tokyo reimagined by Cole Dano.

"Breath, bodies, river, smog. "When I first heard this field recording I immediately heard a melody. I imagined the river carrying layers of song, remnants of the past softened and polished by the water over time.  "The imagery of an overpass with the river flowing beneath reminded me of a thread or rope twisting, starting from one point and ending up in another. The traffic sounds serve as a back...

"The hypnotic sound of a fountain in Oslo becomes a moment of wonder, inviting the listener to enter another reality. Using recordings from UbuWeb, we were fascinated by what Lacan thought about Alice in Wonderland.  "We combined the original sound of Oslo's fountain with music by Lazzaruolo/Villanova and Lacan's words creating a dialogue between voice, imagination, and atmosphere." Oslo fountains...

This recording features a cappella chants from the Breton tradition performed in solo within the historic chapels of Ouessant island - a unique acoustic setting where complaints, canticles and popular songs resound in French and Breton.  Recorded on Ouessant Island, France by Florent Picollet.

The recording is from April 17, 2025. The recording point was chosen under the iron bridge that crosses the Tiber River near the town of Pretola a few kilometers from Perugia in Umbria. Interesting reflections and resonances are created under the bridge. Water is certainly the dominant acoustic element but its veil is constantly torn by a multitude of sounds.  The bridge, despite being located in...

A surreal discovery in a deserted motorway service station in Lazio. Behind the gas pumps stands a small, post-modern chapel, empty and silent. Inside, hidden low-fi speakers broadcast a bizarre loop of farm animals (goats, roosters) and distorted Christmas carols.  The recording captures the haunting reverb of this lonely, sacred space, where kitsch sounds and motorway melancholy collide in a gli...

Tourists strolling on the foggy night, we could hear men singing in a courtyard just beyond the bridge. Using my iPhone with a Rode Me-L, I walked to the circle of men, paused, and then exited down a narrow pathway between two buildings. Subsequent research confirmed that we were in an historic Jewish ghetto and the occasion for song and feasting was Lag BaOmar.  Recorded in Venice by Emiko Morita...

"The haunting chants from this recording are so powerful, at first I was intimidated. I really wanted to preserve the integrity of the voices while also creating a new sonic experience. I also wanted to explore the type of communion that happens in a space such as this historic chapel.  |So utilising a lot of stretching to mimic waves on the sea I hoped to express the expanse of time across genera...

"A surreal discovery in a deserted motorway service station in Lazio. Behind the gas pumps stands a small, post-modern chapel, empty and silent. Inside, hidden low-fi speakers broadcast a bizarre loop of farm animals and distorted Christmas carols. The recording captures the haunting reverb of this lonely, sacred space, where kitsch sounds and motorway melancholy collide in a glitchy, suburban lit...

"While I was exploring the recording, I noticed a small pulsating noise, almost like the beating of a heart. It made me think about the interconnectedness of nature — no living being is truly separate, there is the same pulse that runs through every fibre of this planet.  "I started to play with the idea of turning the river into something bodily while maintaining a feeling of abstraction and flui...

"I was captivated by the collective choral singing and the way the melody naturally became fractured and glitched through the layering of voices and their echoes bouncing through the streets. "The main vocal melody became the backbone of the piece, with alto clarinet framing and responding to the voices before drones and distortion gradually emerge. The rhythmic clapping provides momentum for the...

"My response to the field recording started with appreciating the every-day sounds in the recording, and recognising that sometimes it is in the every-day-ness of those sounds there is something special: when we can pay attention to all the detail is where I personally find moments of quiet revelation, dappled sunlight, the light on clouds or time to listen to birdsong. From there it was embroider...

"My great-grandfather was a glassblower. He was gone long before my time, but I grew up feeling his presence in my grandmother's house. Hearing this field recording felt like a way back to him, and to something older. Molten glass has always reminded me of primordial earth and creation myths. I built the piece from fragments of the recording, layered with synthesizers. I hope you find something co...

"I shared the quiet, non-mechanical sounds from old town Shanghai with Ruth Tsang to prompt her childhood memories of leaving the city in May 1949. Rhythmic patterns extracted from the field recording were used to shape a loose structure for the oral history."  Shanghai street soundscape reimagined by Emiko Morita.

"When I heard the field recording of people milling around Gloucester Cathedral, the choir rehearsing with the organist, I liked to think of the many ghosts that (probably) reside in the cathedral and them weaving in and out of the congregation and choir, possibly into the organ as well, unbeknownst to anyone but themselves.  "The organ samples have been retuned/detuned against an waltz time drum...

"The clanking of the flagpole was what piqued my interest initially. Being from a smallish town in England originally, it's a sound I am very familiar with - this was then compounded with the pigeons and the bin trucks; again, all very familiar sounds, and ones that are mostly missing in my current home of New Zealand.  "With the approach of the memories this triggered in me, I also wanted to incl...

This is the sound of a master glassblower, Marcin Czepiga at The World of Glass. He is blowing and shaping glass for the museum shop after the visitors have left. The sound is unique as usually, only the glassblowers at the museum will hear the process as it is in the recording. During public glassblowing demonstrations, there would be talking therefore a different sound to what is heard here.  St...

The chosen location of Port Colborne, Ontario, Canada, signifies the opening of the Welland Canal in late March of 2025. The constant hum of the freighters and lakers, which ply these waters on the Lake Erie coast, are mixed with those of a nearby playground, gulls, Canada Geese and Red-wing blackbirds. As the ice on the coast is partially frozen, there are few sounds of water along the shoreline....

Kongjia Nong Lane may be the last patch of lilong old district in Shanghai’s city center, with its iconic passageway buildings—a classic snapshot of the city’s past—recently demolished. One resident returned to their old home to gather final belongings, murmuring to themselves.  In summers past, they might have set out small tables and bamboo chairs at the doorstep for cooling off, dining, or ga s...

 | A congregation waits in Gloucester Cathedral on Good Friday for the Easter liturgy to begin. The hubbub of voices echoes in the vast space of the nave. Then the Cathedral choir and organ begins to practice before the service. Recorded by Paul Stephens-Wood.

Home to both the village hall and quoits club, the Holbrook village green sits almost slap bang in the centre of the village. With the COOP supermarket, Methodist Hall, Swan public house and an independent butcher all nearby, this area of the village is the central hub of village life.  What interests me sonically about the the present day village green is its flagpole, upon which the union flag i...