Cities And Memory

Attention please! Attention please! The sound of the emergency alarm being tested in an empty shopping centre - shades of post-apocalyptic movies or Dawn of the Dead, as the emergency announcement echoes out across the cavernous space, which is deserted this early in the morning.Recorded in Oxford, UK in November 2025 by Cities and Memory. 

"By filtering the waves to focus on the deep, rhythmic pulse of the water, I’ve made out a space for the ethereal pad.Its a place where the digital and the organic blur into one."Waves in Faros, Greece reimagined by Substak.

"he Westgate shopping centre is deserted and subject to an unknown threat that must be dealt with by: seeing, saying and sorting. There is the ticking or an unreliable clock and the mixed up sounds of a public announcement that will be familiar to users of UK railways."Westgate Centre alarm, Oxford reimagined by Roland Pyle.

"In this piece I created an ambient soundscape on top of the initial recording this was to add to the relaxation of the waves slowly crashing against the shore."Koh Rong beach in Cambodia reimagined by Jake Edwards. 

"I composed this piece imagining the observational or listening perspective of the field recordist Anders Vinjar in the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan, after decades of war in Afghanistan. The recording is from inside the upper part of Shah Mama, near where the head used to be. "While composing I tried to imagine the vastness of the region and the passages once used by monks moving through the statues and surrounding caves."Soundscape from Shah Mama, Bamiyan Valley reimagined by Atul Giri. 

Peaceful ambient sound from the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan, post 45 years of war in Afghanistan. Recordings from top of inside Buddha Shah-Mama, where the head used to be.Recorded in Bamiyan, Afghanistan by Anders Vinjar. 

"In this piece I wanted to make an ambient soundscape layering different textures on top of the recording. To make a composition the listener can just zone in to."Borneo rainforest reimagined by Jake Edwards.

This beautiful recording of nocturnal crickets in Ghana opened up the night to me - I wanted to create a piece that had something of the warmth of a long summer evening, gazing up at the infinite sky as the crickets sing. The arpeggios grow and develop, with more instruments entering throughout the piece, representing the growth of the cricket chorus as more and more insect voices join the song each night.The title is from an Emily Dickinson poem, "The cricket sang":The cricket sang,And set the sun,And workmen finished, one by one,Their seam the day upon. The low grass loaded with the dew,The twilight stood as strangers doWith hat in hand, polite and new,   To stay as if, or go. A vastness, as a neighbour, came,— A wisdom without face or name, A peace, as hemispheres at home,—    And so the night became. 

Faint cricket chorus at night, Ghana. Subtle night activity of crickets in a suburban community in Ghana. Human movements, voices, autos and textures can be observed in distinctive stereo fields.  Recording format: Binaural. Please wear headphones. Recorded in Koforidua - Bonya, Ghana by Samuel Kudjodzi.

"The core of this reimagining lies in the steam engine’s rhythmic inconsistency. I wrote this piece after listening to the sounds of an uneven, mechanically gasping engine: an exercise in translating industrial unpredictability into a structured yet fluid composition. "The process mirrored the engine's own struggle - a push-pull between rigid mechanics and the faltering quality of a machine that isn't quite running true."Steam engines at Coleford Festival of Transport reimagined by Philip Gibbs.

Stationary steam Eegines at the Coleford Festival of Transport. The stationary steam engines at the Coleford Festival of Transport always attract attention with their mechanical symphony of rhythmic chugging, the high pitched hiss of steam, and the clanking of rods and flywheels. The sounds of this engine were particularly beguiling. It sometimes faltered, and for a moment it seemed like it would stop and die, only to start up again with renewed vigour.Recorded by Paul Stephens-Wood.

Artists in conversation with the Pitt Rivers Museum curatorial team at the Century of Sounds launch event in Oxford on 27 February 2026. Featuring: Ilaria Boffa Salma Ahmed Caller Neil Spencer Bruce Panel presented by Philip Grover, Pitt Rivers Museum A Century of Sounds is a partnership between Cities and Memory and the Pitt Rivers Museum, inviting listeners to explore compositions created by 100 artists from a century of incredible recordings from the museum’s sound collections.Explore the full Century of Sounds project at https://www.citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

Artists in conversation with the Pitt Rivers Museum curatorial team at the Century of Sounds launch event in Oxford on 27 February 2026. Featuring: Laura Irving laura dymphna Nick Drake Panel presented by Christopher Morton, Pitt Rivers Museum A Century of Sounds is a partnership between Cities and Memory and the Pitt Rivers Museum, inviting listeners to explore compositions created by 100 artists from a century of incredible recordings from the museum’s sound collections.Explore the full Century of Sounds project at https://www.citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

A Century of Sounds feature on the Battiti show on Rai Radio 3 in Italy, broadcast on 26 February 2026. Featuring:- Drawn to the circle by Ana Habesh- Mwana wevhu by Ndinibeatz- Kinnaur calling by Sonic SomaPlus discussion of the project and our partnership with the Pitt Rivers Museum. 

When I first heard this recording of men gathered around a guitar, singing fragments of traditional songs and inventing lyrics on the spot, with women and children laughing in the background - it hit me: music isn’t just sound, it’s connection. It's a reminder of the timeless beauty in coming together, sharing stories, passing down traditions, and creating something meaningful in the moment.Curious about what the singers were saying, I reached out to people from Central Africa, and the response was surprising - those improvised lyrics were built from single words in regional slang. In this kind of music-making, it often starts with one word, then another, and before you know it, a whole verse is born. It’s spontaneous, alive, and beautifully organic.For my remix, I used the main melody of the original field recording as the foundation, blending in those improvised words as fillers. I also incorporated the traditional rhythm of Soukous - a guitar-driven genre from Congo, often referred to as Congolese rumba,

This piece is built around a field recording from the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum of Berber beggars singing for charity.Listening to this recording, across time, what struck me was not difference but familiarity. Themes of begging, homelessness and poverty recur in traditional songs from all cultures, spanning the centuries. Despite differences in place, language and technology, poverty, hunger, social injustice, and the vulnerability that comes with these things, remains constant.Through my organisation in Whitby, Flash Company Arts, I frequently work with people experiencing homelessness and fragile economic circumstances. Hearing this recording, made more than 60 years ago, felt uncomfortably relevant to my daily work. These voices could belong to anyone, anywhere, right now.The lyric “A Begging I Will Go” is borrowed from an ancient English folk song, first printed on a black-letter broadside in 1684. And still today, all over the world, people wake each morning to the same words: A beggi

"Sapeh (type of three-stringed boat lute) being played": the instrument was recorded in Sarawak by collector Leslie Bennett.From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being one of a small number of recordings of the musical instruments in the institution's collections being played or discussed.Recorded by W. Leslie Bennett.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of Berber (Ait Haddidu) music and soundscapes made by members of the Oxford University Expedition to the Atlas Mountains of Southern Morocco in 1961.Recorded by Audrey Butt, Michael R. Emerson or Ralph Hudson Johnson.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a large collection of cassette tape and digital audio tape recordings of Bayaka music and soundscapes made by ethnomusicologist Louis Sarno mainly in the Central African Republic (and the Republic of Congo) between 1986 and 2009.Recorded by Louis Sarno.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

I listened to the piece and researched any historical links between Plymouth, my home town and Sarawak, were the original recording by Leslie Bennet was made. It turns out there were three white "Rajahs" of Sarawak and they were members of the Brooke dynasty: James Brooke, who founded the rule in 1841; his nephew Charles Brooke, who succeeded him; and Charles' son, Charles Vyner Brooke. Although not from Plymouth, all three of the “Rajahs of Sarawak” are buried in the small churchyard of St Leonard's at Sheepstor on Dartmoor, just outside of Plymouth. James Brooke did at one time set sail from Plymouth in 1838, arriving at Sarawak the following year.The name for Sarawak means the land of the hornbill. This piece is an ode to this journey. I listened to the recording of the Sapeh and learnt the rough pentatonic scale used. I isolated a few segments and tried them on guitar to get the ideas flowing. The recording of the Sapeh is sampled and utilise throughout the piece. At times I have used it to double the ba