Satori in Orange
"When I was listening to original recording, some pleasant memories instantly came to my mind. Moments of epiphany, when everything is clear, spotless and matches perfectly. A certain deja vu, which felt like belonging to this particular place and this moment. Seeing into one's own true nature. Satori in the midst of an orange sunset. The basis for composition is bits and pieces (deja vu's) of...
8m Feb 25, 2021
8m
Horti Amoris
"This piece called 'Horti Amoris' and is based on the Elvis Presley song in the original field recording. I have taken the original chord structure, slowed it down to 55bpm and chopped up and reordered the melody lines.  I've used some glitchy sounding synth sounds and processed some samples from the original recording. I'm hoping that it still has the same journey feeling that the original ha...
5m Feb 25, 2021
5m
Why did he take me here?
"Listening to the sound from the Roman gardens and reading the description of the day in which it was recorded, it did sound a bit too perfect. I thought that it would have been fun to turn the entire scene upside-down." Piece by Cristina Marras as part of The Orange Garden project by Cities and Memory, in which multiple artists create a new composition using the same original field recording ...
4m Feb 25, 2021
4m
Der Orangengarten
"Upon my first listen of The Orange Garden field recording, I felt like it was full of many micro worlds of sound waiting to be explored.  I imagined myself traveling from one sound world to another, recording my travels along the way.  My composition “Der Orangengarten” is a document of this journey through the sounds of this new world. One where my imagination took me to new experiences of ...
6m Feb 25, 2021
6m
Guitarists in orange, rearranged
"The piece is simply made up of cuts and pastes from the original recording. The cuts were pitched up or down, EQed and rearranged.  No synths were used in the making of this piece." Piece by Simon Woods as part of The Orange Garden project by Cities and Memory, in which multiple artists create a new composition using the same original field recording as source material and inspiration - see t...
3m Feb 25, 2021
3m
Monet's Orange Garden
"This piece is unusual in that it does not contain the original field recording, but attempts to reconstruct it as accurately as possible using field recordings from our own database, a technique of "reconstructed field recording". Thus we have recordings of planes flying overhead in Oxford, walking on stones in Sicily, church bells in Italy, fountains in Seville, car alarms from somewhere els...
6m Feb 25, 2021
6m
Tagliatelle all’arancia
"When I think of Italy I think of pasta: I’d made noodles by hand the previous night for a classic Italian dish so I thought of treating the audio as dough.  Stretched the sound four times its original length, flattened it with compression and equalization, then folded it so the first layer and third layers are heard forward and the second and fourth layers are heard reversed. Named the work f...
6m Feb 25, 2021
6m
When I heard you there
"A beautiful spot invites me in, sounds of birdsong, and waterfall, and a voice drifts across, drawing me in,  his voice welcomes mine and we meet for a few minutes before drifting off to our respective worlds. An organ coda echoes what just took place and we are back to experiencing the beauty and natural sounds of this place." Piece by Michelle Breslin as part of The Orange Garden project by...
6m Feb 25, 2021
6m
Tessuti organici
"Music and sound as ultimate tools for creating and modeling reality. The moments and spaces are chosen, sculpted and assembled to create infinite new images. In this period of maximum closure and containment, music is the tool to unhinge the bars of everyday life  and get closer to sounds and visions now denied." Piece by Marco Marongiu as part of The Orange Garden project by Cities and Memo...
9m Feb 25, 2021
9m
Aranciata/Persephone awakes
"Aranciata is one of my favourite words, with the years it has expanded to encompass many personal things besides orange drink. Aranciata, arancia, orange, naranja, naranjada. The sun, the light, traces of the past, a spring long ago in a city that, as mine, also grows in layers. The Orange Garden recording made me think about the phantasmagoric, evocative dimension of sound.  Ghosts, memories...
2m Feb 25, 2021
2m
Drowned in waves
"As I played this track on loop, I fell in love with the busker's weird voice, with the general atmosphere, with spontaneity... For almost a year now, I've been experimenting with the sound art form of "audio dreams". This magical atmosphere seemed like perfect material for a dream. Sounds in dreams are often not memorable, they are muffled, distorted, distanced - much like our everyday life r...
13m Feb 25, 2021
13m
Karhide Descending Orange Glitch Machine
"This started with cutting up lots of the audio from the Orange Garden sample and then creating loops from it to create the initial track.  This was then chopped up more and added to a new project where I came up with a chord progression and bass line.  This is the first track I have finished in Ableton 11 and makes use of the new Spectral Resonator and delay to warp the original sample." Pie...
4m Feb 25, 2021
4m
A musical afternoon in the Orange Garden
"Busking is very similar the world over. In most large cities you can find Peruvian flute players, Chinese erhu players, groups of drummers etc., besides the inevitable solo guitarists and violinists.  This version of The Orange Garden suggests that we not be lulled into ignoring the forces around us: forces of war, forces of all-pervasive surveillance cameras and drones (although maybe the ca...
4m Feb 24, 2021
4m
Evol ni
"I wanted the piece to reflect a walk through a garden and I have used various treated samples and synth sounds in it." Piece by Richard Watts as part of The Orange Garden project by Cities and Memory, in which multiple artists create a new composition using the same original field recording as source material and inspiration - see the whole project at http://www.citiesandmemory.com/orangegarden
5m Feb 24, 2021
5m
Grovewalk
"Grovewalk focuses on some of the more ambient sounds found in latter part of the source recording to make mix that moves between acoustic and electronic space.  This section of the recording has both myriad detailed sounds and one large one - the plane - and it makes for a good shift in focus between them. The recording was processed so that the sounds are present while they shift in and out ...
3m Feb 24, 2021
3m
Orange you glad
"My piece is based on the old Knock Knock joke punchline, “Orange you glad I didn’t say banana,” and  the childhood habit of repeating words at nauseum.  "As I listened to the recording I was drawn to the muffled sounds, of conversations and objects just out of reach and to the inadvertent memories that orange trees conjure in my own mind, of a childhood climbing them and being stuck by the th...
2m Feb 24, 2021
2m
Natural to quantised and back
"The piece starts completely naturally with footsteps and gradually moves to a strict quantised time, before relaxing into natural sound. All elements are created from the source material with no external instruments. I used the footsteps, water, jet, busker (reversed), birdsong and bells. I wanted to use the natural sound of the footsteps as a semi-rhythm and bring in the water on the exact be...
3m Feb 24, 2021
3m
Molgren Abascus
"Their is a rhythmic quality to the recording, in the sense that events happen quite regularly (even when not considering the guitar) which makes the whole recording some sort of a frame for a composition.  Thus, I used the first 3 minutes of the recording, treated it with a bunch of effects and used it as a grid to add some synth, with similar textural qualities and harmonics coherence." Pie...
4m Feb 24, 2021
4m
Topology of an anthropic landscape
"Of all the sounds from the garden I found the fountain to be the most appealing - fountains and fontanelle are so evocative of Rome. And then there were the birds and the busker and the tourists… The piece I have made was inspired by the shifting patterns of water falling in the fountain and the ebb and flow of people in the park. The jets become altered bird sounds which in turn become alter...
8m Feb 24, 2021
8m
Fruit flies
"What do you get if you give one field recording to a host of audio artists and sound reimaginers from around the world? A hundred different tracks, styles and reinterpretations. What do you get if you give a beautiful field recording of the Orange Garden in the eternal city of Rome to Museleon? You get a bunch of fruit flies buzzing around a lone orange in the said Orange Garden. Yes, all c...
3m Feb 24, 2021
3m
Fragments
Fragments  takes the original recording and tries to convey the essence of the listeners experience by focusing on the small things – tone, melodic textures and fragments of sound.  I began by listening several times to the recording and picking out the bare essentials – the recording has several parts but is mostly dominated by the busker so that is where I started. I like to take small amoun...
4m Feb 24, 2021
4m
All time is time
“All Time Is Time” is a contemplation on selective memory and controlled forgetting, where details of a fragment of experience are exaggerated, heightened, broken, obscured, suspended and eventually lost in the mind’s flow of time. Piece by Gabriel Edvy as part of The Orange Garden project by Cities and Memory, in which multiple artists create a new composition using the same original field re...
18m Feb 24, 2021
18m
San Giovanni Fortress - Kotor city sound guide
After the hustle and bustle from the market, there is nothing better than a great hike rambling up the hillside over the old town. Up the mountain, stone walls zig-zag their way up to the crumbling ruins of a castle which lead up to San Giovanni Fortress.  Visiting the fortress allows you to see the beautiful Old Town from above as well as the imposing mountains surrounding it. The walls are t...
1m Feb 20, 2021
1m
Perast - Kotor city sound guide
We all have our dreams about special places and it feels like my past self had the dream to visit the little seaside town of ​Perast​, an abandoned renaissance by the sea with the most beautiful retreat in Kotor Bay.  Perast is the right place to sneak away from the crowds at the marina where dozens of cruise ships arrive every day.  Today, Perast is mostly an abandoned town, with barely 350 ...
1m Feb 20, 2021
1m
Kotor farmers' market - Kotor city sound guide
Usually as soon as I arrive in new destinations, fresh street markets are the first thing I seek out. I enjoy all the colours, tastes and smells of the fruit, fish and cheeses.  Here in Montenegro I just love the popular coastal recipes made with sun-dried figs, olives, cheese, and huge pink tomatoes slow-cooked down to sauce. My favourite daily veggie treat is "Sir iz ulja", soft cheese prese...
3m Feb 20, 2021
3m
In the old town - Kotor city sound guide
Surrounded by fortress walls, the old city area of Kotor was the cultural and trade center of Kotor Bay throughout the centuries. Any walking route will lead you past palaces dating from between the 15th and 18th centuries.  Curiously all these paths also lead me to find the unfamous rakija (the local firewater of choice) in one of these many cafes which line the square inside the city wall. I...
1m Feb 20, 2021
1m
Kotor Bay - Kotor city sound guide
If you are not wandering lost in the labyrinth of the old town, you might just be exploring the vast stunning Bay of Kotor, or Boka for the locals. As you travel its length, the Montenegrin coastline had a great impact on me as it gave me that feeling of the  stillness and peace that I was craving. Along the walk alongside the Adriatic Sea, I had the privilege to enjoy the well-preserved medie...
1m Feb 20, 2021
1m
Kotor clock tower - Kotor city sound guide
As soon as I enter the city the memorable clock tower greets me as I walk into the old city. This old clock tower is beautifully kept as the focal point of the lower town area and rings every hour as you get a feel on this soundscape.  The tower is one of the first things that strikes you as you enter the old town through the main gate and curiously, was carved with the same stone as the city ...
2m Feb 20, 2021
2m
Lockdown piano practice: Chopin Nocturne in E-flat major, Op.9, No.2 excerpt
"I've been practicing this piece through the pandemic. Chopin is my favourite composer so his music brings me much comfort. I finished playing the whole piece when I was 13. Here is just an excerpt of it played now at 24. We're in a third national lockdown and it's almost been a year since lockdowns started. There's been more than 100,000 deaths in the UK and every day I watch the news, that nu...
2m Feb 19, 2021
2m
Waiting in line for a Covid-19 test, Malta airport
Malta airport, February 2021 - waiting in line for a Covid-19 health check, recorded by Marcel Gnauk.  Part of the StayHomeSounds project to map and reimagine the sounds of the Covid-19 lockdowns.
1m Feb 14, 2021
1m
Welcome, welcome
Saudi traditional music from Jeddah reimagined by Cities and Memory. For this, I wanted to convey something of the mesmerising aspect of the original track, which had me interested in the first minute, but by the ninth locked into the groove of the drums and singing.  A locked-groove of a drum sample with a lo-pass filter is the rhythmic undercurrent, over which a simple two-note synth line g...
6m Feb 12, 2021
6m
Traditional Saudi welcome song
On a trip to Saudi Arabia, we visited the KAUST university complex, about 90 minutes north of Jeddah. As part of the evening's entertainment, we were greeted by an hour or so of traditional Saudi music, driven principally by multiple drummers and two interacting singers running through a repertoire of what were apparently well-known songs. This, the first track, containing the English words "we...
10m Feb 12, 2021
10m
Lockdown in Lille
Sounds from the lockdown in Lille, France by Olivier Pichard. "I'm living in Lille, my house is about 350 meters far from the highway. It's usually very noisy even very early in the morning. At the beginning of lockdown in France, it was very quiet. I've made this recording in April 2020, the 19th around 8 am." Part of the StayHomeSounds project to map and reimagine the sounds of the Covid-19...
5m Feb 12, 2021
5m
Camacupa
Traditional community singing in a remote rural village near Camacupa, Angola reimagined by Richard Watts. "I wanted to contrast the African singing with something distorted and harsh."
4m Feb 08, 2021
4m
Traditional community singing, Camacupa, Angola
Traditional community singing in a remote rural village near Camacupa, Angola recorded by Mike Bingham. "I was fortunate enough to visit Angola with Oxfam in February 2010 on a story gathering trip. Angola was decimated by a 27 year civil war from 1975-2002 which killed over 500,000 people and displaced a further 1 million. Train lines, roads, airports and basic infrastructure were destroyed (...
3m Feb 08, 2021
3m
The bunkers - Tirana city guide
Many wouldn't think that Albania would become a great tourist destination one day and that these bunkers would have played a role in that. The major question that pops into our heads is why there are so many bunkers everywhere? Well, it was due to national propaganda perpetrated by the communist regime. Fearing invasion during the Cold War, Albania’s leader Enver Hoxha forced his country to bu...
4m Feb 06, 2021
4m
Bunk Art Museum - Tirana city guide
To understand Albania's history it is imperative to visit t​he ​giant bunker built to protect Enver Hoxha and his inner circle in the event of an atomic attack, the museum and contemporary art space Bunk Art museum. The bunker was built between 1981 and 1986 as a shelter for top interior ministry officials and was big enough to easily hold hundreds of people. Now The museum and art space refle...
2m Feb 06, 2021
2m
The mosques - Tirana city guide
Albania is a secular state, and therefore does not have an official religion. Albanians are known to be highly tolerant towards the religions of others, and therefore believers of various faiths peacefully coexist in the country. Arabs who raided parts of the region in the past introduced their religion to the area and gradually, Islam grew in the country and Albania became one of the two coun...
1m Feb 06, 2021
1m
Old Soviet Pyramid - Tirana city guide
The grotesque communist-era buildings are one of the main attractions in Tirana and inspire me to go looking for new intriguing sounds and exquisite reverberation textures. My first stop was the infamous old soviet pyramid. The pyramid is right in the middle of the city and personally was one of the buildings that attracted me the most, ​resembling an enormous UFO that’s broken down in the cit...
2m Feb 06, 2021
2m
Taxi ride - Tirana city guide
Driving in the centre of Tirana can be a frustrating experience. Heavy traffic jams can leave you stranded for hours. The Albanians also have a reputation for being quite eccentric drivers who like to throw the rule book out the window. In conditions like this and because the city is small, it often makes far more sense to walk. It is easy and quite safe to wander the city streets and this al...
1m Feb 06, 2021
1m
The hills - Sarajevo city guide
The Balkan identity has an interesting history. The origin of the word Balkan is obscure; it may be related to Persian bālk 'mud', and the Turkish suffix a 'swampy forest' or Persian balā-khāna 'big high house'. Related words are also found in other Turkic languages. The term was brought to Europe with Ottoman Turkish influence, where Balkan means 'chain of wooded mountains' in Turkic langua...
1m Feb 01, 2021
1m
Marsala Tita - Sarajevo city guide
Marsala Tita street is a great place to start your walking tour of the old city. The people of Sarajevo would undoubtedly agree that the city is like that one friend with whom you always have something to talk about. So, if you want to make friends with Sarajevo, here are a few  sights that you simply have to see and immerse yourself in and be guided by the intricate and mysterious sounds that...
2m Feb 01, 2021
2m
Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque - Sarajevo city guide
The city is sometimes affectionately called ‘Little Jerusalem’ or the ‘European Jerusalem’. Here you will find mosques, Serbian Orthodox churches, Roman Catholic churches and synagogues all nestled within close proximity to one another demonstrating the myriad of different faiths and beliefs that exist in this special city. Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque is located in the Baščaršija neighbourhood an...
1m Feb 01, 2021
1m
Ferhadija - Sarajevo city guide
People from Bosnia themselves are very diverse and different with many influences and it is difficult to stereotype these people. But when travelling across Sarajevo, you’ll notice that there are certain features that you encounter again and again, no matter what street you’re in. Bosnians are friendly people. Bosnians generally have a pretty relaxed sense of time and that’s why they easily sta...
1m Feb 01, 2021
1m
Bascarsija - Sarajevo city guide
"A lifetime is short for Sarajevo." Walking around the neighbourhoods is like travelling through time, especially ​Bascarsija​, Sarajevo’s old town. Bascarsija was Sarajevo’s centre of trade and commerce back in the days where each cobblestoned street had its own unique artisan sellers during the Ottoman era. These days Bascarsija has gone from fine artisan sellers and traders to become the cul...
2m Feb 01, 2021
2m
The woodpecker and the motorway
"Normally you mainly hear traffic noise here, but now the birds dominate, including a woodpecker. The recording was made in April 2020 during the 1st Covid-19 intelligent lockdown, during the morning rush hour, about 300 meters away from an 8 lane highway.  "The recording location is in a residential area in Waalre, near Eindhoven, in the south of the Netherlands." Recorded by Peter de Wit. ...
4m Jan 31, 2021
4m
Weymouth Bay in lockdown
"Weymouth is a seaside town on the Jurassic Coast of England. A popular holiday resort that normally resounds to all manner of activity all year round, especially on the beach.  "Recorded early afternoon, the only noticeable sound was the breaking of small waves on the sandy beach." Recorded by James R. Nicholson. Part of the StayHomeSounds project to map and reimagine the sounds of the Covi...
1m Jan 29, 2021
1m
Xiyi fang (Taiwan)
Taiwan laundry pit reimagined by Richard Watts. "This piece is called 'Xiyi fang'.  "I really like the purity of the original recording so have left that as is, apart from a little chorus and EQ on it. I've used a few Chinese instruments on this piece and wanted it to sound a bit haunting.  "The end section is about the rhythm created by doing laundry at the location (or what I imagine it wo...
4m Jan 25, 2021
4m
Traditional laundry pit, Taiwan
Recording from a traditional laundry pit in Fengyuan District, Taichung City, Taiwan by Fuji.
1m Jan 25, 2021
1m
Corona rotations
Kessel-Lo, Belgium during lockdown, recorded by Johan Krist. "Corona strongly contrasted the opposition between indoors and outdoors. Being outdoors became more valuable, and as cities remained fairly quiet, people flocked the countryside for a breath of fresh air or an exercise. Cycling, as the coolest outdoor sport, ranked number one in the corona activity ranking. The rural soundscape becam...
8m Jan 22, 2021
8m