Ships on the Bosphorus
"Ambisonic recordings on the Bosphoros, with the sound of large ships' engines, carrying grains from Ukraine to the world. All accompanied by distant calls to prayer by the muezzins." This soundscape is part of the HEYR project, presenting 3-dimensional soundscapes from special locations, connected to special events. Find out more by visiting https://www.heyr.no Recorded by Anders Vinjar.
10m Oct 13, 2025
10m
A colossal Sunday morning sound
Huge pre-communion service bells ring out from the Berliner Dom cathedral across the Mitte district of Berlin. A solid eight minutes of impressively full bell sounds that reverberate through your entire body. As the bells fade, we walk towards the fountain in front of the cathedral. Recorded by Cities and Memory, September 2025.
10m Oct 13, 2025
10m
Endlosigkeit
"I wanted to dive inside the sound of the bells and reimagined the drones as a kind of symphony. As a counterpoint to the location, I added waves of sounds so we can drift on a sea of drone." Berliner Dom cathedral bells, Berlin reimagined by Gareth Evans.
15m Oct 13, 2025
15m
Sites of hope
This is the sound of a midday call to prayer at the Zangi Ota Memorial Complex. The complex, located just outside Tashkent (20 km), is very popular pilgrimage site as it houses Zangi Ota and Anbar bibi mausoleums. Visitors from all over Uzbekistan and neighboring countries Anbar bibi or Anbar Ona Mausoleum is quite special, as it is dedicated to a woman, the wife of a prominent Sufi Sheykh, an...
1m Oct 12, 2025
1m
A pilgrimage
"The recording made me think of a journey through the darkness, trying to find the light, to find the thing that has been searched for. I had the field recording playing throughout the track, blending in and out of the pads playing, until finally at the end when you can finally hear the singing, when you make it to the end of your quest. :It was very enjoyable working with a sound from somewhe...
8m Oct 12, 2025
8m
Berliner Mauer
"My composition, titled “Berliner Mauer,” draws inspiration from ambisonics recordings made by Anders Vinjar at the Berlin Wall. "The Berlin Wall, officially known as the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart, was a fortified concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989. It physically separated West Berlin from East Berlin and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). Construct...
14m Oct 08, 2025
14m
At the Berlin Wall
Ambisonics recording at the wall, physically separating Eastern Europe from Western Europe in Berlin during the Cold War in the years 1961 to 1989. This recording is part of the HEYR project, presenting 3-dimensional soundscapes from special locations, connected to special events. Find out more by visiting https://www.heyr.no Recorded by Anders Vinjar.
10m Oct 08, 2025
10m
Shanghai interlude
"I liked the space in the recording, and used it to slot in percussive and electronic elements to create a composition where all elements had parity of presence." Sanlin Old Street, Shanghai reimagined by Fergus Kelly.
2m Oct 08, 2025
2m
Nomme
"Estonian autumns arrive with shortening days, cooler air, and long, unbroken stretches of rain. There is also a particular sound to this small country — quiet, restrained, and deliberate. Voices fall softly; movement slows; even the strings of daily life seem slightly muted. In such an atmosphere, time itself can begin to blur. "This recording, made in Nõmme, Estonia, tries to capture that se...
8m Oct 05, 2025
8m
Nighttime In Sabah rainforest
Estimated to be more than 130 million years old, the ancient rainforest of Sabah comes alive in sound as night descends. The air vibrates with the calls of nocturnal creatures, forming a chorus in the darkness. From the steady hum of countless insects to the distant cries of animals hidden, the forest pulses with life. Within this vast wilderness dwell some of the world’s rarest and most remar...
12m Oct 05, 2025
12m
The ice on Son Kul lake
The ice on Son Kul lake, Kyrgyzstan melting with spring coming. Recorded by Melissa Aubin.
21s Oct 05, 2025
21s
Nomme's daily fruit and veg market
At the fruit and veg market in the Nomme district in Tallinn, with shopper buying their weekly groceries on a windswept day. Rain starts midway through the recording and we shelter beneath the canopies and listen to the rain beating down above our heads. Nõmme is a natural district of Tallinn. Some of the most beautiful residences from traditional wooden to art nouveau styles stand underneath ...
8m Oct 05, 2025
8m
Rainy traffic noise, Trabzon
In this recording, traffic sounds increase during thunderstorms and rainy weather. In wet conditions, vehicle engines and tires are more audible. These sounds can be heard as a form of white noise and are sometimes accompanied by thunder. Recorded in Trabzon, Türkiye by Ugur Aslan.
4m Oct 05, 2025
4m
Humidity and haze passing thoughts
"I kept the original recording and a filtered it a bit and afterwards I added a pad. Humidity & Haze capturing the feeling of the air and the rain-streaked city, while the "Passing Thoughts" introduces the human element (the traffic). The combination of pad with the detached sounds of the rainstorm and traffic creates a feeling of lonely movement or stillness in a noisy world." Rainstorm in Tr...
4m Oct 05, 2025
4m
Sabah boreal Borneo radio
"The original piece had a feeling to me of drifting through the rainforest canopy, so I thought it would be interesting to contrast these sounds with the "jungle" of empty space between radio signals." Borneo rainforest recording reimagined by {AN} EeL
6m Oct 05, 2025
6m
Lake ice meltdown
"Sitting among the glaciers in the living room, my ears are carried away by the enchanting sound of tectonic movements... my mind floats, my eyes glimpse this sonorous place..." Kyrgyzstan Son Kul ice lake reimagined by Philippe Neau.
4m Oct 05, 2025
4m
A better day will come
"Listening to the sound of the market in Ramallah just a week before it was attacked and burnt was a powerful experience - but to hear that later after that the market was repaired, regenerated and back in action was an even stronger feeling of the power of resistance. "The beautiful poem "A better day will come" by Afghan poet Hosnia Mohseni seemed to me to strike the perfect tone of hope and...
5m Oct 03, 2025
5m
Diamond I am
When I first listened to the recording of the depopulated village in Jerusalem, what really stood out was the bird song sounding like a voice of hope. I decided to use this as my focus as it was in keeping with the Echoes For Palestine Project theme ’hope, healing and a reimagined future’. I wrote the lyrics from the point of view of the village itself longing for inhabitants to return. The vi...
5m Oct 03, 2025
5m
All lands, one voice
"All lands, one voice drifts like breath through every place at once. "Choral fragments rise and dissolve inside an ambient field, evoking a world without borders. Robert Lax’s line — “the same moment in every place” — guides this sound: a single moment, stretched to gather all lands in one voice." Jerusalem apartheid wall recording by Anders Vinjar reimagined by Paul Beaudoin.
11m Oct 03, 2025
11m
Pomegranates and prose
"It takes Palestinian prayer and thoughts with repeated phrases including 'so hasten to all that is good' whilst encouraging the people of Palestine to march forward despite the conflict. Using loops and samples from recent news reports to build a picture of the current situation against a backdrop of hope." Dubberrookie creates ambient dub sounds often with a back story to each composition. O...
6m Oct 03, 2025
6m
Echoes at the wall
"A meditation on life, disrupted by injustice. I listened to the location recordings and was inspired but saddened by the sounds of life as it goes on under conflict. The two field recordings were used both relatively unprocessed, but also through a feedback network of resonant delays. Location recording by Anders Vinjar." Wailing Wall, Jerusalem reimagined by Logickal.
12m Oct 03, 2025
12m
Seven days before
"Built from a field recording by Anders Vinjar of Ramallah’s Al-Hisba market, captured one week before Israeli soldiers set it ablaze, Seven Days Before transforms the market’s voices, footsteps, and ambient bustle into a slow-moving reflection on memory, loss, and the fragile beauty of everyday life via modular synthesis. "The source recording is processed through Make Noise Morphagene and ac...
8m Oct 03, 2025
8m
Mount of Olives
"For this track, I used the field recording made by Anders Vinjar on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. This place has always had a mythical resonance to my ears, it sounds like a place of sacred peace, but obviously it is no longer. "What I tried to express through this piece is how a land of peace gradually transforms into a place of conflict, how what was once a sacred site has become a batt...
6m Oct 03, 2025
6m
Wailing Wall, Ḥā'iṭ al-Burāq
"The sound of Jews performing a ritual at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem on a special day during Jewish Easter celebrations. The recording is done in the middle of the crowd of bystanders, mostly children and family of the praying men." This soundscape-composition is part of the HEYR project, presenting 3-dimensional soundscapes from special locations, connected to special events. Find out more...
10m Oct 03, 2025
10m
Al-Hisba market, Ramallah
The famous market Al-Hisba in Ramallah. Sounds of busy buying and selling. This Ambisonics recording was done exactly one week before Israeli soldiers lit the whole place on fire, destroying everything. This soundscape-composition is part of the HEYR project, presenting 3-dimensional soundscapes from special locations, connected to special events.  Find out more by visiting https://www.heyr.no...
10m Oct 03, 2025
10m
Aṭ-Ṭūr, Mount of Olives
Recordings of ambience from Aṭ-Ṭūr (Mount of Olives) overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem. The Al Aqsa temple-mount in the distance, the jewish graveyard close by, site of important historic and contemporary events. The recording is from April 2024, while the catastrophic war in Gaza was going on full speed. This soundscape-composition is part of the HEYR project, presenting 3-dimensional sou...
8m Oct 03, 2025
8m
Dreams not realized
"Dreams Not Realized | 17,000. 17,000 children have died in Gaza since the beginning of the war. Their voices have been silenced. Their dreams will never become realized. Why children? Did they even know why any of this is happening? Why they died? Who will speak for the children? Who will mourn their loss? “The morning birds that sing so sweetly are ’out of a job’ when there are no childr...
5m Oct 03, 2025
5m
Echoes of memory and silence
"The children of Gaza encounter violence, displacement and deprivation every single day of their lives. Sifting through rubble and debris and fallen bodies, while dodging bombs and bullets and witnessing loved ones murdered right before their eyes, has caused enormous emotional distress and relentless mental anguish. These are innocents with no access to food, medicine and clean water. All hope...
17m Oct 03, 2025
17m
The ghosts of Lifta
"Lifta is a historic Palestinian village located near Jerusalem, notable for being the only Arab village evacuated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that has not been destroyed or repopulated. It stands as a poignant symbol of the Nakba (the 1948 Palestinian exodus) and a physical reminder of the displacement and loss experienced by Palestinians. The village, with its well-preserved stone buildi...
5m Oct 03, 2025
5m
Threnody of birdsongs
Foregrounding Anders Vinjars field recordings of Palestine; the hum of birds, street life, voices, and of hymns and calls to prayers - a Threnody for Echoes for Palestine. Golgotha recording from Jerusalem by Anders Vinjar, reimagined by Elissa Goodrich.
8m Oct 03, 2025
8m
1: Lifta, depopulated village 1948
Ambisonics recordings at ruins of Lifta, outside Jerusalem, a village depopulated and destroyed in 1984 during Israels ethnic cleansing of Palestinian arabs from their land. Recorded by Anders Vinjar.
10m Oct 03, 2025
10m
Golgotha
"Ambisonic recordings inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Gholghata, a fourth-century church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. The site where they say Jesus was crucified and as well the location of Jesus's empty tomb." Recorded by Anders Vinjar.
10m Oct 03, 2025
10m
Cities and Memory interview on ABC Radio Australia, 10.08.25
Interview with Cities and Memory creator Stuart Fowkes on the Nightlife show on ABC Australia, diving into Sonic Heritage as well as the ten-year history of the project. "They say a picture tells a thousand stories, but how far does audio go? That is exactly what Stuart Fowkes has set out to achieve over the last decade involving the contribution of more than 2,000 artists who are putting tog...
15m Aug 11, 2025
15m
The ghosts of protest
"Taksim Square in Istanbul has a history of protests and social activism, most notably the Gezi Park 2013 protests, in which 22 people were killed and more than 8,000 were injured, many critically. "Listening to the soundscape from Taksim Square, life is going on as normal, with bustling crowds, but periodically we hear a police siren, which echoes through the square almost like a spectral rem...
5m Aug 05, 2025
5m
Taksim Meydani soundscape
Ambisonics recording at Taksim Meydani, site of the Gezi Park protests in 2013, a very busy city square, people jazzing around. This soundscape-composition is part of the HEYR project, presenting 3-dimensional soundscapes from special locations, connected to special events. Find out more by visiting https://www.heyr.no Recorded by Anders Vinjar.
10m Aug 05, 2025
10m
Acrospire
"This track started with an idea to use the title converted to Morse code and then to MIDI, using an online tool I wrote (https://constantpool.co.uk/morse-code-to-midi/). The raw field recording, captured inside the Pohjala brewery, was then chopped up and layered with effects to build a "wall of sound," which was all structured to create a shoegaze/alt-rock style track." Pohjala brewery, Tall...
5m Jul 16, 2025
5m
Beer-making inside the Pohjala brewery
On a visit to the Pohjala artisan brewery in Tallinn, Estonia, we were invited behind the scenes into the brewery itself to record the sounds of beer being made. This soundscape records the beer-making process, with loud industrial noises, drones and hisses coming from large brewing tanks and machinery. Recorded in September 2024 by Cities and Memory.
9m Jul 16, 2025
9m
Funicular
"My field recording was a cable car journey to the top of an old town. In amongst the hubbub of voices there was snatches of music played on a telephone. I decided to use the duration of the cable car journey as a start and end point, placing the listener in the environment, and planting the melodies and rhythms as if caught almost out of ear shot on phones around the space. "The human ums, aa...
4m Jul 04, 2025
4m
The cable car to San Marino
The cable car is the only sensible way to travel up to the precipitous heights of the old town in San Marino, which today is hosting a ComicCon-style festival for lovers of all things sci-fi and fantasy. Recorded by Cities and Memory.
3m Jul 04, 2025
3m
The same today (Echoes of the Holocaust)
"The piece opens with Anders Vinjar’s recording of the stark ambiance outside Auschwitz's crematoriums. A voice notes a chilling continuity: "the acoustics are the same today as it was in 1942". Holocaust survivors then share their stories, interwoven with supporting music. Abrupt cuts jolt listeners back to the haunting recording at Auschwitz. As the piece progresses, survivors' warnings blen...
10m Jul 04, 2025
10m
Crematorium ovens in Auschwitz 1
"The sound is the ambience close to the crematorium ovens in Auschwitz 1, used to exterminate 340 humans per hour. The acoustics is the same today as it was in 1942, when the mass-murder was going full speed. "This soundscape-composition is part of the HEYR project, presenting 3-dimensional soundscapes from special locations, connected to special events. Find out more by visiting https://www.h...
9m Jul 04, 2025
9m
Peaceful gardens in historic Mantua
This recording captures birdsong and locals passing through a quiet public garden in central Mantua. The recording was made on the 29th May 2012, about five minutes after a strong earthquake had struck the Emilia Romagna region, causing significant damage to the UNESCO World Heritage property of the Cathedral, Torre Civica and Piazza Grande. Recorded by Cities and Memory.
2m Jun 27, 2025
2m
Emilia
"In May 2012, two major earthquakes struck Northern Italy, causing 27 deaths and widespread damage. The events are known in Italy as the 2012 Emilia earthquakes, because they mainly affected the Emilia region. "The field recording captured birdsong and locals passing through a quiet public garden in central Mantua, five minutes after the Emilia earthquakes. I wanted to depict the contrast betw...
5m Jun 27, 2025
5m
Henal mariacki
"The transitioning nature of the field recording made for some melodic transitioning in the background. The trumpet call ends abruptly but returns again and again." Krakow trumpet call reimagined by Moray Newlands. IMAGE: Oliszydlowski, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
4m Jun 25, 2025
4m
Hejnal Mariacki
Probably Poland's most iconic sound, the hejnał mariacki (literally "Saint Mary's dawn") is a trumpet call that sounds every hour on the hour from the highest tower of St Mary's Church in Kraków's rynek glówny (main square). The bugler plays the same call four times, once in each of the cardinal directions. This tradition dates back to medieval times, when the call was used to signal the openi...
4m Jun 25, 2025
4m
In concrete corridors
In March 2025 we made a series of recordings in and around the Barbican Centre, with the idea of those sounds being folded back into the Observatory Station sound installation, so that the sounds of the Barbican itself become part of the stories being told by sound from around the world. This recording is a walkthrough of some of the exterior concrete tunnels and walkways that make up this bru...
4m Jun 25, 2025
4m
EC2Y 8DS
"I chose to work with a recording made at the Barbican centre in London. This complex has fascinated me for many years, and I have always been curious to seek out new nooks and crannies there. I took my curiosity about the place into how I approached the work. "The rhythmic footsteps are the core motif of the piece, even though they are not the most dominant sonic aspect, they are the anchor p...
5m Jun 25, 2025
5m
Train tracks
"In my area of North America, train journeys are relatively rare. Taking a train feels like a special occasion because I only have the opportunity when I’m far from home. I’ve always enjoyed the exploratory feel of train rides: a train journey feels almost like stolen time, where normal responsibilities are paused and you are given freedom to simply be, if you choose. "I was inspired by the F#...
4m Jun 23, 2025
4m
American trains
This recording features train horns as the trains pass by a level crossing just outside Palo Alto train station. The tonality of the train horns and the level crossing warning alarms are clearly identifiable as North American trains, and the sonic identity of the trains themselves as they pass are typical of Californian trains. Palo Alto is a small town and these sounds can be heard from most ...
9m Jun 23, 2025
9m
Ember
"Listening to the original field recording, I was engrossed in the dichotomy of the space - the waterfall and open area versus the man-made sounds of jet and helicopter fly overs. In this scenario, the man-made sounds overtaking the environmental quiet have an intentionality to preserve the space of the forest and the livelihood of people within it. The tension, persistence, and resilience of t...
8m Jun 23, 2025
8m