Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Inside Gare du Nord, an unusual sonic addition - the fake sounds of birdsong piped in from speakers in the ceiling. The intention, I'm sure, is to bring a little nature into the station and to help travellers feel more relaxed.  However, the combination of the huge station space, the volume of the bird calls and the speaker position leads 90% of travellers to ignore the sounds, 5% to look extremel...

At the famous "animal hole" in Bremen, a drain cover with a difference! Pop a coin in and the sounds of animals from the famous Brothers Grimm fairy tale "The Town Musicians of Bremen" play in turn - first the cockerel, then the cat, then the dog, then the donkey.  This binaural recording was late at night when the square was deserted, meaning the sound travelled clearly out into the night air, in...

Inside the Klimahaus museum, which is dedicated to telling the stories of climate and the environment. The exhibition called "The Journey" takes you around the world on a line of longitude from Bremerhaven with interactive installations and exhibits that make extensive use of sound to be as immersive as possible.  Here we are inside an artificial rainforest experience based on Cameroon, with rain,...

"‘This is not a simulation?’ - raises the question what is real, am I dreaming, are we in an alternate reality? "For the Cities and Memory Spring Project I found myself drawn to an audio recording made on the platform of the Gare Du Nord in Paris. Interestingly a key feature of the recording is some fake birdsong perhaps being piped over loudspeakers onto the platform whilst everyday passengers ar...

"How can humans stay human when we’re far away from our home planet?  "How does it affect us when there are no familiar animals nearby? "As the countdown begins, we take off, heading for the moon base. Once there, daily tasks turn routine and we begin to miss the sounds of Earth. But, the engineers of Bremen have hidden a control panel in the habitat with unexpected outcomes. ""Bremen to Moon" is...

"The base recording was thick with sounds, but light on texture. In order to create some space to let that texture through, I took a sample of the whole piece, slowed and tuned it down a bit, and ran it through multiple granular synthesizers. This created a pulsing, almost breathing sound, around which I added some aleatorically generated rhythmic lines as a kind of frame or dramatic container." B...

Recorded in the shallows of Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda.  The microphones sit low, really close to the hippos resting in the mud. What defines this recording is mass. Around fifteen hippos, mostly stationary, but never still. Their presence registers through pressure, slow exhalations, submerged movement, and low frequency vocalisations that travel through both air and water. The surface...

The Golden Triangle - the point where Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet - attracts many visitors. They can be heard in this soundscape along with crashing of the Mekong river.  Recorded in Ban Sop Ruak, Thailand by Jake Edwards.

This was recorded inside The Blue Temple in Chiang Rai, Thailand. It is filled with people marvelling at the large Buddha and people singing.  Recorded by Jake Edwards. 

This is Ao Nang night market, Thailand, where an announcement for Muay Thai can be heard along with musical instruments and the buzz of people. Recorded by Jake Edwards. 

"Watching the World is a generative composition which was performed live and built from the recording which was processed through granular synthesis and other effects. The textures, harmonic material were inspired by the recording with a sense of movement and transition which I wanted to capture.  "The piece used a system based on four-part harmony (SATB) to organise the arrangement of the granula...

"Some time in the future. Humanity has expanded beyond. You sit at the edge of the market, feeling the hum of the space station below you. It's late, only a few of your fellow travellers mill about, seeking out food, drink, company. Staring up, through the glass of the Starport, you see infinite, unthinkable galaxies. Everything feels too big and too small all at once. You are part of The Machine....

"A constantly shifting atmospheric track that interplays with a wildlife field recording of grunting hippos. The intention behind this track was to layer gently microtonal hypnotic sounds with the insects as a rhythmic underlay and the hippos' growls blended in as if they were sniggering." Hippos in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda reimagined by Michael Agar.

 Jeff: "My intent was to create a dreamy walk down a street of an unfamiliar city in an unfamiliar part of the world. Working with yamo is a collaboration in spirals and poetry; she filters the world through a soft daydream. I put textures and incidental events inside her world that are like a radio broadcast from an open doorway or from a busker on the sidewalk as you wander around." yamo: "Regar...

Four or five people work with lawnmowers and strimmers around the restoration of a cabin in the Dolomites - the sound travels wide and far, and reverberates off the rock faces to give a very particular mountain soundscape of work. Recorded in the Dolomites, July 2025 by Cities and Memory. 

Locals in Chongqing call these steep stairways “long ladder steps.” This recording captures one such corridor, still tread by “bangbang” porters. It’s morning school rush: vendors hawk, footsteps echo, delivery station chatter booms, and schoolkids’ jabber rings from afar—all swirling in a hundred-step passage. Cities with Z-axis terrain stack buildings vertically, weaving complex, layered echoes...

This sound is a field recording taken a public transport bus, on the "Huipulco - Six Flags" bus line, in Ajusco, Mexico City. The recording features a clown who boarded the bus and gave a performance for its passengers. Also audible is a traditional Mexican song, featuring instruments and vocals, played by the bus driver on the bus's speaker.  Noises from the transport and passengers can be heard...

"In the original field recording, I was drawn to the acoustic space of the vendor's calls, and decided that was enough of a springboard to create a piece. Other than that, I was going in blind with no preconceptions. I began by adding edits of percussion recordings from my archive, some of which were processed.  "The piece developed as I added enough elements and it found its form by a process of...

"I was drawn to the recording because the sound of the mowers felt like spring. I enjoyed the noise of the mowers and wanted to work with it. The mowers cut in an out, processed by my modular synth, with a noisy drone in the background from the synth. Some tape noise shows up too. Recorded in Ottawa, May 30 2026 (Drone Day!). Mixed and mastered the next day. Pls wear headphones, there's some funky...

"My piece imagines the clown beyond his public role. The piece is divided into two parts: the first focuses on his life in the street — moments of joy, chaos, conversations, advice to strangers, and the strange energy of constantly being surrounded by people. In the second part the clown is alone, the noise of the street fades, and sadness and an angry kind of nostalgia begin to surface.  "Using g...

"It was strange and daunting to select a church service as my starting point, but I was drawn to it. My main focus thematically was on struggle and renewal, and how we try to explain the inexplicable." Oslo Domkirke reimagined by Eulipion Corps.

A liturgy service in Norwegian, taking place in Oslo's Domkirke cathedral, featuring service readings, hymns sung by the congregation and passages of organ playing. This service takes place at 5pm every Friday afternoon.  Recorded in September 2025 by Cities and Memory. 

In late December, the Christmas season in Venice is in full flow. Mass bells peal out in a backstreet next to the excellent Marco Polo bookshop in the Dorsoduro district, with occasional passing footsteps ringing out into the crisp evening air. Recorded in December 2025 by Cities and Memory. 

Aboard the Oslo inner fjord ferry from Lindoya island to Gressholmen, with engine sounds and Norwegian announcements.  Recorded in September 2025 by Cities and Memory. 

"I used recordings from Norwegian ferry and ferries in Bainbridge Island and the San Juan Islands. I have been in love with ferries and the sea since childhood. I used harmonics from wind sound through metal guardrails in boat for base harmonies and synthesizers to build in these harmonies and accentuate movement on the water and the cabin of the ferry." Grssholmen ferry, Oslo reimagined by Robert...