Cities And Memory

"In the famous Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris, next to one of the most famous graves, that of Edith Piaf, with a quiet, contemplative soundwalk among the alleys and rows of tombs, among them some of the most famous figures of history." Recorded by Cities and Memory.

 I put a microphone in my backpack and recorded my walk to school. I cut out a few parts of me inside the bus and inside the rec center for privacy reasons of others. Recorded by Zach Dial in Boulder, Colorado.

The Budapest Castle Hill Funicular or Budavári Sikló runs up the hill to Buda Castle - it was opened on March 2, 1870, and has been in municipal ownership since 1920. It was destroyed in the Second World War and reopened on June 4, 1986. This recording is taken from a pedestrian bridge crossing the track halfway up, as the funicular passes back and forth beneath us.  Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

Thousands of murmurating starlings flying above us at sunset, on a cloudy evening in November 2023 at the RSPB Otmoor nature reserve in Oxfordshire, UK. Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

 Japan's culinary culture has its own unique style, with both food preparation techniques and dining practices continually evolving through exploration and innovation. The recording location for 'Omakase - Dining Environment' is at an Omakase restaurant in Tokyo. The literal meaning of Omakase is 'I leave it to you.' The chef presents a series of dishes, starting from the lightest to the heaviest, and ending with dessert. During this experience, customers do not need to place orders; they simply wait for the chef to serve what they have prepared.  Patrons who choose the Omakase style expect innovation and surprises from the chef's menu selection, turning the meal into an artistic performance. Some may even view it as a form of 'gambling' because customers do not know what the next dish will be.  Throughout the dining experience, there is minimal communication between customers and the chef. The chef informs the customer of each dish's name, and the customer enjoys the meal. Recorded by Zion Bai.

 "Musique concrète / sound collage. I was interested in isolating and exploring the 3 most prominent sounds in the recording: the sizzling sounds of cooking, the conversation, and the noises from various objects being moved around and being used.  "I was able to split the audio out into 4 separate channels with the help of Demucs. In places I have integrated some samples from my own field recordings too. Who is Mr. Ōizumi? You'll have to ask the people in the restaurant."  Osaka restaurant reimagined by Shaun Malone.

"Moors have always been mysterious places to me. Maybe it is because of its role in Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles, or because of my interest in railways, that made me discover the most remote station in Great Britain, in the middle of Rannoch Moor, Scotland. "Starlings murmurations are a mystery about collective behaviour. Their shapes always catch us by surprise. Their how, why and what are always fascinating.  "For this piece I have processed the original murmurations recorded in Otmoor (Oxfordshire), by means of different transformative pipelines. I wanted to create something slightly mysterious, maybe menacing but not so much, as some murmurations and moors can be at times.  "May the music help listeners see and feel how those flocks become like a single massive entity, not only because they make a shape in the air but because, in this track, they are affected by a kind of transmogrification that turns them into otherworldly creatures. They then move the air, the whole sky fabric,

"As the combination of the titles of the original field recording (recording trip home inside bag) and my reimagined track (Odyssey) suggests, I was thinking about the novel Ulysses by James Joyce. Using my own field recordings and recordings of resonances made during a study of the acoustics of an empty room of 3x5 meters, I tried to create a sound canvas that was practically devoid of events and at the same time continuously transformed in many nuances." Rucksack field recording from Boulder, Colorado reimagined by Vladimir Bocharov.

"I liked the evocation of the place with the original recording and have tried to reimagine it to create a chorus of funicular sound worlds." Budapest funicular reimagined by Mary Hooper.

"When I first think of Spring, I instantly hear birdsong filling the garden and woodlands, evoking a sense of renewal and rebirth. It also has as certain therapeutic quality giving me a feeling of relaxation and calm. When I heard the ‘Melody of Birds’ recording, I had a sense of the birds being engaged in conversation and wondered what they might be discussing.  "Of course, Spring is the time when chicks hatch and fledge which got me thinking about what parent birds might say to their young to encourage them to leave, whilst at the same time becoming saddened because of the inevitability of an eventual empty nest.  "I wanted ‘Fledge My Child’ to reflect this conversation, presenting the piece as a secular hymn representing that moment of leaving from the point of view of the parent bird.  "The lyrics attempt to mirror the birdsong as if directly translated, each verse representing a stage in that process of leaving; from teaching, encouraging, loving farewells and finally being left bereft and childless,

Reimagined composition based on tannoy announcement at Boston Logan Airport. Contains excerpts of Susan Howe reading Barbara Guest's Seeking Air, recorded at the Ear Inn, January 25, 1986. [https://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Howe.php] Reimagined by Thomas Martin Nutt.

"For this short audio piece, I drew inspiration from the rooftop bar ambiance and live music, recreating a social atmosphere where you'd want to get up and dance. The music, with its seductive rhythm and and sense of push and pull, felt like the perfect backdrop for a crush story.  "Here, it serves both as background and as a metaphor for the dance-like nature of a girl-meets-boy scenario. Combining personal experiences and fictional elements, the story reflects on how flirting is like a universal language where each gesture (or step) speaks volumes—or at least you hope it does."  Peckham rooftop bar band reimagined by Eloïse Bertil.

 "This piece was inspired by the wonderful musicality of the home appliance collectors voice. He has wonderful sense of phrasing and rhythm that must have come from much practice. Pretty well most of the instrumental parts are directly based on the man's call for appliances. Later in the composition, one hears the actual voice of the collector and the singing birds.  Home appliances salesman in Suzhou reimagined by David Leith.

Taken at Pat Busch, a reserve situated high up in the mountains about two hours outside of Cape Town, this recording captures something of the dramatic beauty and expansiveness of the mountainous areas of South Africa.  One can hear the reserve’s rich bird life, which includes fish eagles, nightjars, sugarbirds, cuckoos, coucals and hundreds more species; a late winter breeze; and weaver birds building their nests in the reeds alongside a dam, while in the background teenagers run and jump off the dam's wooden deck into the freezing cold water. Recorded by Catherine Boulle.

 Announcement piped over the PA system in Terminal E at Boston Logan Airport, as mayor Michelle Wu proudly extols the virtues of "the city of champions and the birthplace of revolutionary ideals.. where people come to do good in the world". Her speech is cut short by the clatter of suitcases, trolleys and arriving travellers.  Recorded by Cities and Memory in Boston, USA. 

A Latin jazz and funk band plays a rooftop bar in the multicultural district of Peckham, South London on a lazy Saturday afternoon.  Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

A home appliances collector advertising in Xinqi village, Suzhou, China. Recorded by Tõnis Kimmel.

"Newly-hatched frogs in the dozens croaking intensely to one another in an area of special scientific interest in an urban centre in Oxford. There are housing estates on all sides, with a small strip in the centre with a fen habitat that allows for all kinds of rare plant and animal species to thrive - the delicate protection of nature in a city space." Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

Mid-autumn festival weekend buzz at Hoan Kiem, Vietnam, which is full with people celebrating, chatting, playing, eating together.  Recorded by Kit Wilmans Fegradoe.

"Festivals bring people together: they gather, they chatter, they group up and disperse. The sound recording caught a relatively peaceful moment in a Vietnamese Festival. We captured our own sound recordings of traditional folk music and generic beats, gathered from discos and clubs.  "We then recorded the beat of a traditional bell stick. Weaving these together, we created a piece that blends the murmurings of a gathering with the beat of an individual.  "This pulse suggests there is an outsider in the midst of this tranquil moment. That outsider is trying to find their own beat in the world." Festival sounds in Hanoi, Vietnam reimagined by Caroline Grimshaw and Stephen Mugford.