Cities And Memory

The Angkor Wat temple complex is huge. In addition to the temples, enter villages and communities live within the temple area. This recording shares the sound of jungle birds combined village life with voices and some scooters. UNESCO listing: Angkor Wat Recorded by Paul Virostek. ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

This is a recording I made during the Surva Festival in Pernik in 2018. I was walking along Pernik's main street (Krakra Pernishki Sq.) in the late afternoon/early evening during the main day of the festivities. This is one of the many folk bands accompanying "kukeri", who are presenting their costumes during the festival. UNESCO listing: Surva Festival in Pernik Recorded by Anna Nacher. IMAGE: Sjordanov, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

Inside the Tower of London castle keep, we join a tourist group and listen in to the dramatic introduction from the tour guide, as he describes some of the illustrious - and bloody - history of the famous Tower through the centuries.  UNESCO listing: Tower of London Recorded by Cities and Memory.   ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

Gray Whales at San Carlos Lagoon (Sanctuary of El Vizcaino). Stereo 48kHz 24Bit. UNESCO listing: Whale Sanctuary of El Vizcaino Recorded by Erick Ruiz Arellano. ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

Zocalo in the morning at Puebla's downtown. Mono 44kHz 16bit UNESCO listing: Historic Centre of Puebla Recorded by Erick Ruiz Arellano. ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

Night insects at Calakmul. Stereo 48kHz 24bit. UNESCO listing: Ancient Maya City and Protected Tropical Forests of Calakmul, Campeche Recorded by Erick Ruiz Arellano. ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

"I've never been to Mexico City or Zócalo de Puebla, but I do know the feeling of sitting in a small city park, in a city full of parks—a brief moment of pause in the midst of a hectic megacity. I think about my day, the week gone by, the month, the year. A rare moment of stillness. "As I listened to the recording, I wondered how the soundscape of Zócalo de Puebla has changed over the years, just as Delhi’s has. The sparrows from my childhood are long gone, but I still hear peacocks in the distance, their calls drowned out by the sound of grinding stone and the constant hum of construction. Even in the parks, there is little respite. But I am hopeful. Soon I'll be sitting in Puebla, listening to the birds go about their business and children calling out to their friends, as if nothing has changed. "To create the piece, I ran the field recording through multiple iterations of envelope followers, processing each layer differently. Some layers were then played through a Buchla Music Easel, creating an organic

"A Whale Song came about in a few stages.  "In 2019 I was fortunate enough to take a trip out to sea with my family to watch the Humpback Whale migration. We were out there for a while with not a whale in sight, so had the feeling to sing one to us. So I started to sing. And lo and behold, a whale appeared. This magnificent creature stayed by our boat for over an hour, going under and around us. I sang to it the entire time. I wished I had a hydrophone that day to record our duet. What an honour it was to be in the presence of such ancient majesty! I wrote a short poem, out on the boat, after the whale departed. That poem became the lyrics to this song.  "I recorded the track about 4am in the morning, in the quiet of pre-dawn. Later on I thought it interesting I had chosen to record it then, when I recalled the lyrics speak of being woken from sleep to hear a whale’s first song. To create the track I sang and played my dear old pump organ. Afterwards I added the wonderful recording of Laguna de San Carlos i

"When I visited Mexico in 1994, I didn't think to bring a tape recorder to document the environmental sounds, but we were high up in the dry mountains south of Monterrey; sounds beside the wind may have been scarce. Calakmul is a thousand miles away as the snake-grasping eagle flies and we certainly would not have heard anything like the insect soundscape that Erick Ruiz Arellano collected.  "My initial approach to working with Arellano's recording was to play along with my clarinet; it's what I do to Vanessa Gelvin's recordings in our Bricoleurs project. But clarinet did not seem to fit and I turned instead to my primary instrument, the prepared guitar. The buzzes of metal against the strings seemed to blend in with the buzz of insects, and unexpectedly, the sudden whine of controlled feedback at the end recalled the very clarinet I had rejected. Finding the aspects that fit in together delights me to no end; it is the Artist's Touch I strive to find." UNESCO listing:  Recorded by  XXXX reimagined by bre

The sounds of footsteps on the Rialto bridge, footsteps, snippets of conversations from passersby and vendors, the lapping of water at the footsteps to the bridge, the cry of gulls, and the sounds of passing boats. This is a field recording I took of walking over the Rialto bridge, an heritage space of culture, bartering, and tourism for centuries. This is a preliminary recording in which I was testing my methods for my own project on tourism, mapping the city, and the interaction between the human and more-than-human world in tourist spaces that we traditionally associate with the human only.  UNESCO listing: Venice and its Lagoon Recorded by Flora Sagers. ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

Toy train at Darjeeling, recording happens onboard train. Stereo 48kHz 24bit. UNESCO listing: Mountain Railways of India Recorded by Erick Ruiz Arellano. ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

"I was struck by the phrase in the description of the field recording—human and more-than-human—which is a philosophical concept at the core of my artistic work. I saw this coincidence as a sign of fate, and, in complex and sometimes contradictory ways, I feel deeply connected to Venice. "We exist within complex soundscapes where the boundary between human and non-human is more fluid than we often perceive. My project explores this relationship through sound, recording and transforming the acoustic environment of urban and tourist spaces to reveal the interactions between voices, architecture, natural elements, and machines. "I begin with the idea that places are not merely backdrops for human activity but sonic ecosystems in which materials, atmospheric phenomena, and non-human presences play an active role. "Human voices are fragmented into textures, the sound of water becomes a rhythmic pulse, architectural surfaces reveal hidden resonances. This process is not merely a sonic manipulation but an attempt

"At the heart of this sound recording was the sound of footsteps walking through Þingvellir National Park. As I listened to the recording it got me thinking about how many feet must have walked through the landscape over the years and how many stories those footsteps would tell. As the site of the Alþing (the Icelandic Parliament) since the 900's, I can only imagine the ceremonies, rituals and happenings that the place has witnessed. I wanted to draw on world rhythms, particularly frame drums, and organic instruments (such as pizzicato strings and cymbalom, whilst echoing the juxtaposition of ancient and modern.  "There was a particularly rhythmic section of the recording which caught my ear and leant itself to a triplet feel. I looped that section to create a rhythmic bed and then orchestrated around this to build up themes, rhythms and soundscapes. The track has a very filmic feel and blends traditional world instruments with more modern electronic textures to highlight the meeting of ancient and modern. 

"The toy train is the unsung workhorse of the Himalayan mountain railway and is synonymous with the heritage of Darjeeling. I felt it needed its own little celebration and hence, hearing its whistle in the field recording, I thought it would make an ideal instrument. Isolating its whistle I did a bit of pitch shifting to create the chords of the fanfare. The whole piece is solely composed from the original field recording with no other instruments or sounds added. Hooray for the toy train, a sonic hero." Toy train, Darjeeling reimagined by Moray Newlands. ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

This is the classic warm evening soundscape high up in the mountains. Crickets, edible dormice, mountain dogs combine stridulations and vocalisations to form a rich and evocative ear massage. On this recording a wild boar briefly visits my microphones right by our garden fence.    In the past you might have heard distant goat or sheep bells ringing as the flocks graze in the upland summer pastures. Only one flock is left so this musical and occupational voice fast disappearing.  UNESCO listing: Zagori Cultural Landscape Recorded by Peter Annear.  ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

Midday bells chiming at the 14th-century Matthias Church in Budapest. The church has 7 bells. Six of them are located in the bell tower and the last damaged bell hangs in the cavalry tower. Three of the tower's bells are historic bells (from years 1723, 1724 and 1891). The church received four new bells in 2010, and at that time the St. Károly bell sound correction took place. The sound is colossal and impressive.  UNESCO listing: Budapest, including the Banks of the Danube, the Buda Castle Quarter and Andrássy Avenue Recorded by Cities and Memory.  ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

"The evocative sound of a bell has long fascinated me, the field recording I chose is a superb recording of the chime of large bells which I was drawn to because of its open possibilities. The piece I have submitted was composed and performed on a modular synthesiser using bell inspired sounds and some dark ambient textural pads that play off the original recording, the whole piece is very dark and reflective of the political climate at the moment where the sound of war is threatening to replace some of our most important sonic heritage." St Matthias, Budapest reimagined by Paul Lewin.  ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

"I found the overall feel of the recording, especially the regular chirping of the crickets, to be very relaxing, and this led me into thinking that I needed to produce something calming and meditative. "I wanted to keep the field recording running throughout, but after a few trial runs I felt that I needed more room to play with, so extended the recording by replicating a section from the middle and seamlessly blending the joins. "The synth of choice for this was the Audrey 2; it uses feedback synthesis to produce wailing screeches reminiscent of howling guitars, but which with practice can also be nurtured into organic drones that can take on the form of low level choral chanting. I ran the primary stereo output of the Audrey back into an additional audio track, but pitch-shifted down 2 octaves in order to provide a low-level bass track and thus adding some warmth to the overall texture. "The final flourish was to add in some intermittent ‘twinkling’ using a midi keyboard into some Eurorack modules." Mi

"The Message is built upon a popular urban legend which has circulated for years about what was recorded when Russian scientists drilled a nine mile hole into the ground in Siberia, lowered microphones into it and recorded what they heard. This legend is known as the Siberian Hell Sounds or Well to Hell.  "Art Bell, an American broadcaster who hosted a show called Coast to Coast AM about the paranormal and other phenomena during the 1980’s to the early 2000’s, popularised this myth by replaying a tape many times on his show. This tape was the alleged recording captured by the Russian scientists - a cacophony of wild human-like screams. The recording is now in the public domain via the Internet Archive.  "In the late 90s, a friend of mine in the United States, knowing that I was a collector of aural oddities, sent me a cassette tape he recorded of one of Art Bell’s radio shows in which Bell introduces the so-called Siberian Hell Sounds recording to a talk back caller to the radio station.  "In approaching T

"Inspired by Colin Hunter’s field recording from Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park—a UNESCO World Heritage Site and home to nearly half of the world’s wild mountain gorilla population—Gentle Giants is a sonic exploration of this remarkable environment. Once classified as critically endangered, the mountain gorilla’s population has grown to over 1,000 thanks to dedicated conservation efforts. "Colin’s recording captures a rare moment with the Oruzogo group, led by Bakwate, a powerful silverback, accompanied by two females. Their vocalisations, intertwined with the rustling bamboo and cracking undergrowth, became the foundation of this piece. "I sought to immerse the listener in the dense, living rainforest—its beauty, its fragility, and its raw power. The dramatic opening unfolds with layers of thunder, rain, and flowing water, evoking the pulse of the wilderness. Every other sound in the piece originates from the original sample, transformed and layered to shape an evolving soundscape. At 2: