Common sensory overload
"Vocal samples can be really fun to work with in musical pieces. This is what stood out to me in this particular field recording. There was a lot vocal material to choose from that included interesting phrases and ideas that were very thought-provoking. I wanted the vocals to sort of lead the piece and have the music moving around them to create a dreamlike feel to them that lingered, represent...
6m May 11, 2023
6m
Campo San Barnaba - all in
"When I listened to the source field recording, which contains many different voices, it became clear that I wanted to add more voices, singing voices, my voice. Then a man in the recording says " Können Sie das nochmal machen" (it is german and means : can you do it again) "Sure!" I thought and of course I had to repeat parts of the file. I did not use any equalisers or filters on the original...
4m May 11, 2023
4m
Koforidua
"An ongoing pulsating nature buzz that dominates the recording portrays a rich sonic environment. This textural richness is gradually demonstrated in the work, which consists of spectrally analyzed parts. The work unravels through fragmented narrative references to suspicious activity near a marshland. The piece could work as a three-movement soundtrack to a short film that involves a script wi...
7m May 11, 2023
7m
Confluences
For a while now, I have been strongly pulled towards investigating the possibilities of using feedback from natural sources combined with digital sound-tools in order to trigger and generate collaborative bio-melodies. So this remix brief seemed like an excellent excuse to begin to tentatively explore some of these ideas further. Using a fair bit of persistent coaxing and with a combination of...
3m May 11, 2023
3m
Video installation at Home, Manchester
A video and sound installation at Home in Manchester, February 2023, with an interesting accompanying soundscape crested by a member of 808 State. Recorded by Cities and Memory.
5m May 11, 2023
5m
Suburban Ghana soundscape - the pond
Binaural recording at dawn: Melodious vocalisation of frogs and insects in diverse densities and depths of field, granular textures of individual toads and frogs in the foreground. Subtle prayer calls of a Muezzin in the right channel. *Intense melodious calls of frogs join in for a short period in the 9th minute. Recorded in Koforidua, Ghana by Samuel Kudjodzi.
18m May 11, 2023
18m
Campo San Barnaba, Venice on Good Friday
The typical sounds of a busy piazza (known as a campo) in Venice, with two or three bars full of customers, passers-by, dogs and occasional boat traffic. Binaural recording. Recorded by Cities and Memory on Good Friday, April 2023.
2m May 11, 2023
2m
Binaural layered stream, Vicenza
A binaural recording of a weir stream that runs at two different levels, in Parco Querini in the city centre of Vicenza, Italy.
3m May 11, 2023
3m
Harmonia
"I felt inspired by the unusual bird call in the original recording and used it as a starting point, editing it into distinct notes and making a melody out of it. Then adding some instruments, such as electronic vibraphone, and vocals to harmonize with it, as well as harmonica and recorder to make different melodies that would fit. I also used sounds of cicadas and other birds from the original...
5m May 10, 2023
5m
Waiting for the T train
"I wanted to use the recording as a whole unedited. I set myself a limited amount of time to respond to the work in the moment, using the source sound like another musician. I found that I focused on echoing, shadowing and building on the sounds that were there.  I feel like I definitely had in mind the idea of waiting, there's a slightly eerie mood, those echoes and shadows bringing to the for...
5m May 10, 2023
5m
Birdsong in the Thai jungle
In the jungles of Thailand, in the center of Koh Samui, we hear not only the singing of a bird, but also other sounds: some kind of transport, other animals, but the singing of a bird remains unchanged against the background of all other sounds. Recorded by Grigory B.
2m May 10, 2023
2m
Waiting for the T train, Boston
Waiting for The "T" at Copley Station, Boston. Wind, mechanics, bells and light conversation fill the air in the middle of the day waiting for the train. Recorded by Rebecca Goldberg. IMAGE: Adam E. Moreira, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons
5m May 10, 2023
5m
Already I have told you about the wide rivers
"A watery theme runs through this, with a title taken from Joan Didion's 1965 essay “Notes from a Native Daughter”. My first recordings with a stereo guitar effects set-up seemed to fit the hydrophone recording made in February 2022, in addition to which I grew up on a riverbank." Winkwell Lock reimagined by Plastic Beam.
6m May 08, 2023
6m
Hydrophone at Winkwell Lock
An underwater recording made at Lock 59 of the UK’s Grand Union Canal via a home-made hydrophone. Recorded by Andrew Petrie.
1m May 08, 2023
1m
The conjuror
"The recording's focus on sound was an inspiration, as was the tour guide's description of himself as a conductor and the museum visitors as instruments. He seemed a bit like a magician conjuring a thunderstorm, so I augmented the sounds of the participants with recordings of rainstorms to enhance the effect. I added some piano to create a bit of tension and lend a slightly sinister air to this...
5m May 08, 2023
5m
Under Heaven
"The First Pass Under Heaven is a stronghold near the eastern end of the Great Wall of China. The percussion here is built from hammer blows on scaffolding and the drones from the calls of workers. A major pentatonic scale and Chinese instrumentation were chosen to evoke the feeling of the location, although no attempt was made to emulate traditional performance techniques." First Pass Under H...
4m May 08, 2023
4m
Birdsong in the ancient stone
"The recording from Karnak is a startling display of different scales of time, contrasting transient birdsong and human sound with the deeper, patient history of the temple complex in which it occurs. “Birdsong in the Ancient Stone” is a composition grounded in the appreciation of these two times. "An accordion was used to produce the dominant frequencies from the spectrum of the original reco...
10m May 08, 2023
10m
Iceland rap
"Refugees in Turkey want to go to different parts of the world due to poor living conditions in Turkey. I have been collecting the conversations of refugees that appear on the streets or in the media for a while now. I mixed a sound recording that reflects the bistro atmosphere in Iceland with a rap beat and a refugee's confessions. "A refugee near the Turkey border speaks to BBC News Turkish:...
55s May 08, 2023
55s
Creating thunder at The Noisy Show, Manchester
Inside the Science Museum in Manchester, a sound-based entertainment show for children called "The Noisy Show" teaches them how to imitate the sounds of rain, thunder and storms using their hands. Recorded by Cities and Memory.
6m May 08, 2023
6m
Scaffolding at the First Pass Under Heaven
Scaffolding being erected at the the first pass in the east part of the Ming Dynasty Great Wall of China. Recorded by Mark Wilden. IMAGE: Caitriana Nicholson from 北京 ~ Beijing, 中国 ~ China, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
1m May 08, 2023
1m
Bryggjan Brugghus, Reykjavik
The noise in a brewhouse in Reykjavik, Iceland. Recorded by Richard Watts.
2m May 08, 2023
2m
Alexandria (in dub remix)
"The original recording had a very etherial and meditative resonance to it. I replicated this ambience using synthesizers and lined it up with the recording. A rhythmic beat brings the entire thing together and fades out with a merger of electronics and recorded ambience." Sunset in Alexandria reimagined by Rebecca Goldberg.
4m May 07, 2023
4m
Aquasonic cityscape
"This piece uses a field recording of the ‘Fontana dei Cavalli Alati’ from Vicenza, Italy. "The original sound can be heard as the piece opens, the sound soon becomes increasingly processed and synthesised using granular synthesis of the original fountain audio, combined with short melodic passages from the piano and harp and a layer of ambient synthesiser. The listener can experience an immer...
3m May 07, 2023
3m
Horns and bells, Alexandria
"The cafe in the source field recording is warm and complicated and full of character. The car horns and conversations and everything else that sticks out are somehow woven together. I got to thinking about convolution reverb, a new-ish addition to the workstation I use that allows the acoustics of a space to be reverse engineered. “Horns and Bells, Alexandria” is the introduction and integrati...
7m May 07, 2023
7m
Stari Most/memory "real"
"Footage of Stari Most being destroyed was, for many years, instilled in my memory in a misconstrued way. A time capsule in which the recollection and the reality was distorted by nostalgia, restructuring and rearranging narratives to create psychological bridges to the past. It was only later that I found out that my own memory of this footage was misguided, initially believing it to have take...
7m May 07, 2023
7m
Fontana dei Cavalli Alati, Vicenza
A gushing fountain in a park in central Vicenza, Italy. Recorded by Cities and Memory.
2m May 07, 2023
2m
An echo of a lost place
"This piece was inspired by the faint sounds of insects and birds in the original recording. When I listened to it, I could imagine the real location in which the recording was made. In fact, I chose this sounds because I am from the Midwestern USA and have spent many fond summer evenings in Wisconsin forest and prairie preserves. "To create the instruments, I took the original recording and c...
3m May 06, 2023
3m
Aleatoric museum (Kanagawa metal mix)
"This piece arose as a search for "loneliness and coldness" took hold. The first listen to the ambience felt cold, concrete, metal and sterile. The principle of "Aleatory emergence" began occurring as the composition was forming and was followed gently with the embrace of chance minimalist ideas surrounding the disruption and editing of normality." Hakone Kanagawa museum reimagined by JDC.
6m May 06, 2023
6m
Conflict is now forgotten
"Our piece is inspired by a recording of the Lake Kivu Fish Market in Rwanda. We incorporated sound recordings from Crossbones Memorial Garden in London and intertwined a piano melody and additional guitar strings and bells. Crossbones commemorates and honours the outcasts of society and the birdsong from the garden presents an evocative reminder of the souls buried in the unconsecrated ground ...
1m May 06, 2023
1m
Memories with children at noon
"These types of recordings always take me to a dreamy place. The original recording is there in its entirety, unaltered. Almost every sound besides the recording is taken from the original and modified with pitch and granular synthesis and dreams." Piazza dei Signori, Vicenza reimagined by Timothy Kahn.
5m May 06, 2023
5m
High noon in Piazza dei Signori
Bells at 12 noon recorded in the magnificent Palladian Piazza dei Signori in Vicenza - binaural recording also featuring the surrounds sounds of passers-by and children playing. Recorded by Cities and Memory.
4m May 06, 2023
4m
Lake Kivu fish market, Rwanda
A fish market on the shore of the Lake Kivu, mostly populated by women: constant and loud women talk, subtle water sounds and fishermen's voices on the background. Recorded by Maria Conterno.
5m May 06, 2023
5m
Wildlife in Dell Creek
Crickets and other distant things from within a state wildlife area at Dell Creek, Wisconsin, USA. Recorded from a stationary location with a pair of LOM MikroUsi microphones by Daniel Braun.
9m May 06, 2023
9m
Museum drone ambience
"The Pola Museum of Art in Hakone has an atrium, a space characterized by a stretched reverb. Distant sounds of children's voices, dishes from the café, and footsteps are tactile and induce a micro-sleep." Recorded by Padartha.
3m May 06, 2023
3m
Walk the path
"When I heard the bell ringing sounds of Notre Dame I immediately imagined a drone and tight sound scape. As my grandmother decided to leave this planet just a few weeks ago, the words formed while improvising with this field recording and over the sound scape of this many bells. So I want to dedicate this track to life with all its facets." Notre Dame bells reimagined by Steffi Baron-Neuhuber.
4m May 06, 2023
4m
Calle Salamon
"I used a small piece of the sample as a pulsating backbone, as well as some other clips fed through Tone Transfer to add a deeper throb and some wistful noises. I added in some violin as a nod to the scale and history of Venice but I also wanted to capture the oppression of the industrial mechanical nature of the original recording. There is conflict here, do we love the city or are we simply ...
2m May 06, 2023
2m
Alicanta
"Then somebody spoke and I went into a dream… The original recording, with the long reverb from the tunnels, and the way the singer fades in as we approach, felt dream-like, and I wanted to emphasise & build on that. Since childhood I’ve been a fan of strange dreamy interludes and effected/modified recordings. "I loved the loose timing and tuning, and didn’t want to “rectify” that, or try to m...
4m May 06, 2023
4m
Cicadian rhythms
"Listening to the pure sound of recorded cicadas, I was struck by the way sonic interference could sometimes cause pulsing, phasing and even clapstick type toned clicks – all rather reminiscent of traditional Australian musical instruments. It made me wonder just how much the sound of those instruments may have been influenced by mimicry of the cicada sound – cross-species cultural appropriatio...
9m May 06, 2023
9m
Drilling works in Venice
Drilling work in Calle Salamon, one of the narrow streets of Venice, Italy. Industrial, noisy sounds. Venice is constantly undergoing maintenance, repair and regeneration - though the city remains broadly the same in terms of how it looks, the sounds of industry and construction remain common across the island. Recorded by Cities and Memory.
3m May 06, 2023
3m
Metro singer, Lisbon
"I was in Roma metro station in Lisbon, Portugal; and there was a woman walking around the station singing and I started to record it." Recorded by Hossam Hilal.
1m May 06, 2023
1m
Cicadas in Wollongong, Australia
"Cicadas chirping outside my window at dusk." Recorded in Wollongong, Australia by Jake.
1m May 06, 2023
1m
One nil
"I loved the football recordings that were available from Cities and Memory to reimagine. There is so much in a football chant; collectiveness, connection, emotion, belonging, passion. I used parts of this recording in its original state, processed others and used parts of some of the tunes of the chants more tonally utilising virtual instruments." Arsenal vs. Brentford reimagined by Laura Hills.
4m May 05, 2023
4m
We've got Super Mik Arteta
The home crowd at Arsenal celebrates wildly after a goal against Brentford, February 2023 - huge loud cheering plus selected Arsenal songs and chants, including "we've got Super Mik Arteta", a chant popularised from 2022 in honour of manager Mikel Arteta. Recorded by Cities and Memory.
3m May 05, 2023
3m
Astr
"The track "Astr" was made entirely from the sample sound, (a recording of a train station in Egypt, with trains, trainhorn, people talking and hammering or perhaps chiselling),  using only the Elektron Digitakt sampler. Using a combination of sampling techniques the sound was sculpted into this little concrete banger at 139.2 BPM." Train journey in Aswan reimagined by Yoni Den.
8m May 05, 2023
8m
RER to Luxembourg
"This was based on an imagined trip to the Jardin de Luxembourg on the RER B from the south of Paris. The sound was cut up and stretched to create the background sound of the RER B and then I wrote a piano part over the top." Jardin du Luxembourg reimagined by Tim Waterfield. Michelle Maria, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.
11m May 05, 2023
11m
Copper bazaar
"Clark Smithy reveals hidden aspects of sounds by slowing them down. These elements are further enhanced by the use of reverbs and echoes." Kujundziluk in Mostar reimagined by Clark Smithy.
5m May 05, 2023
5m
Angle of repose
"Field recording, aeroplanes taking off at Gatwick: distancing the listener from the traveller (the passenger taking flight). Reinforcing a sense of being left behind. Separated. A narrative emerged once I'd added the piano loop, of melancholy. Of words unsaid." Gatwick Airport runway reimagined by Rachael Adams.
4m May 05, 2023
4m
Medina memories
"The piece was inspired by my own memories of traveling through the medinas of North Africa and the Middle East, whilst the recording was a repeat phrase, I chopped it up into various sections which were then manipulated using pitch and distance to create an immersive dream like space, where voices rise and disappear into memory. The underlying drone was also made from the original clip by pro...
9m May 05, 2023
9m
This could be the sound of us
"I wanted to use what I saw as the two very distinct feelings of the original field recording to make a contrasting piece. In the first part using the background voices and sounds I wanted to make something mellow and melodic to go along with the friendly sounding chatter. Not knowing what the voices were saying also made me want to try and somehow make a neutral accompanyment. I then used a se...
3m May 05, 2023
3m
Tube dreams
"Most of the percussive sounds here are samples from the original field recording. To me, train journeys feel like slightly strange spaces filled with endless possibilities, where time stands still whilst also moving forward incessantly." Blackfriars tube trains reimagined by Kitty Turner.
5m May 05, 2023
5m