
500 episodes

Cities and Memory - remixing the world Cities and Memory
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- Arts
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4.7 • 6 Ratings
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Cities and Memory remixes the world, one sound at a time - a global collaboration between artists and sound recordists all over the world.
The project presents an amazingly-diverse array of field recordings from all over the world, but also reimagined, recomposed versions of those recordings as we go on a mission to remix the world.
What you'll hear in the podcast are our latest sounds - either a field recording from somewhere in the world, or a remixed new composition based solely on those sounds. Each podcast description tells you more about what you're hearing, and where it came from.
There are more than 5,000 sounds featured on our sound map, spread over more than 100 countries and territories. The sounds cover parts of the world as diverse as the hubbub of San Francisco’s main station, traditional fishing women’s songs at Lake Turkana, the sound of computer data centres in Birmingham, spiritual temple chanting in New Taipei City or the hum of the vaporetto engines in Venice. You can explore the project in full at http://www.citiesandmemory.com
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The trees of fantasy
Birds in an Azorean garden reimagined by Cities and Memory.
The interlacing lines of different species of bird all competing with one another for sonic territory was the immediately attention-grabbing aspect of this recording.
For the reimagined piece, we've taken different routes to effecting parts of the birdsong, so the various rhythm generators, effects and modulations represent the different species of bird who are all jostling for the attention of the listener. The chorus coming from these two trees becomes an electrified chorus. -
A carpet of birdsong
In the gardens on Ponta do Sossego on São Miguel in the Azores, two imposing trees frame the entrance.
In the thick canopy of these trees, dozens and dozens of birds of all kinds of species sing frantically, creating a carpet of birdsong that greets visitors entering the garden on this quiet morning.
Recorded by Cities and Memory. -
Cities and Memory interview on CBC Canadian national radio
Interview with The Current on CBC, 9 June 2022.
Stuart Fowkes, the founder of Cities and Memory, explains why preserving what our world sounds like is as important as protecting what it looks like. -
Covid home alert, Quebec
Recording of the Québec Alert Ready – Emergency Alert for the January 9th, 2021, home curfew. Both English and French versions are recorded.
Recorded by Georgios Varoutsos.
Part of the #StayHomeSounds project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of the global coronavirus lockdown around the world - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/covid19-sounds -
Rendezvous
Estacio do Oriente, Lisbon reimagined by Synnax.
"This is based on further exploration with the new Rrreeaaa Timestretch algorithm built in to Reaper. It chops up two minutes of a track by Karhide from their Feb 2022 Project and then extending it out to just under 30 minutes and mixing it with the Estacio do Oriente field recording. Both of the tracks we heavily processed with plugins including Quadravox (Eventide), TAIP (BABY Audio), Eos 2 (Audio Damage), ShaperBox 2 (Cableguys), smartEQ3 (sonible), StereoSavage (Plugin Boutique), Spaced Out (BABY Audio) and Crystalline (BABY Audio)." -
Estacio do Oriente, Lisbon
Ambience, people chatting and hall reverberation at the Estacio do Oriente station in Lisbon, Portugal, recorded by Marcel Gnauk.
Customer Reviews
This is a gift
Wow keep up the great work. This series is truly a gift!! Hope this project continues, would love to see what obscure sound archives they tap into. It feels like when you’re a little kid, and you just pass the picture book age. When your mind feels so alive with the mental pictures, based on l what you’re hearing your parents read. It’s exhilarating.
Awesome Sonic Mapping!
Wow what a great podcast —thanks