Cities And Memory

"My first ever Cities and Memory track was a response to a very similar recording; that one, too, featured chimes. For that first track I re-sequenced the ringing and built my response on that 'quantised' structure.  "Some five years on I have changed very little to this original recording, leaving most of the irregularity in the ringing in place and working with and around its rhythm, embracing the imperfections and allowing some push and pull between the recording and my response. "In building my response I have worked much like I often do; searching for anything the recording insinuates, singing back to it and composing as I go along." Untuned Bell installation in Oslo reimagined by de Velden.

The Untuned Bell sound installation in Radhusplassen in Oslo. This 1.4-ton bell (anno 1949) was removed from the bell tower of Oslo City Hall because it was no longer in tune with the other 48 bells.  The artist found the bell lying silent on the ground and restored its voice. From its new home on Radhusplassen, here outside the City Hall, the bell can once again interact with the bells in the tower. By putting your foot on a Cry Baby wah pedal nearby, you can activate the untuned bell.  Recorded in September 2025 by Cities and Memory. 

In McCaig's Tower, overlooking the bustling harbour town of Oban, finches call out from all sides as we walk around the inside of the tower walls, while the hum of the harbour rises up the hill from below us. Recorded in Oban, Scotland by Cities and Memory in April 2025. 

"The piece takes its cue from McCaig’s Tower in Oban, Scotland—not as an architectural curiosity, but as an acoustic world. It begins and ends with the finches that inhabit the open structure, their calls forming the work’s natural frame.  "The music moves through evolving motifs: a peaceful drone and the suggestion of bagpipes represent the quiet of the unfinished enclosure overlooking the town and bay of Oban and a little of the builder’s proud, almost overreaching ambition; a more measured, tread-like pulse created from footsteps in the field recording, suggests generations of visitors drifting through the space; and a light, agile texture depicts the birds’ restless motion.  "Finally the pipes return as grandeur brushes against melancholy. The finches, ever-present, attend to their own concerns." Finches in McCaig's Tower reimagined by Martin Gregory.

"In approaching the project I was struck by the evocative and ethereal quality of the original recording, in particular the call to prayer, and have tried to retain that in the three sections of this piece. There is also a timeless quality to the original, which I wanted to retain and develop. "The piece is intended to present those sounds in different yet related contexts; the first section is melodic, while the second darkens and the third tends more towards the filmic or abstract (it hasn't ended up as abstract as originally planned!). Each section is distinct in nature, yet at the same time bound together by the use and reuse of the original sample material, running through the entire piece and providing continuity. "In the first section, I have taken a cut of the call to prayer in the original recording, which has then been pitch-shifted to fit in the key of the piece, which was based on the interplay of the opening electric piano arpeggio and the call to prayer sample. I have also taken elements of t

A call to prayer at the Bang Phat floating village in Thailand, known for its "floating" houses on stilts and a simple fishing community. Recorded by Jake Edwards. 

"I used the cuckoos as a backdrop for a story about death in the forest, of disappearing back into the earth and how that would feel. I wanted it to sound sort of dreamy and slightly off balance." Cuckoos in Tomintoul, Scotland reimagined by Dermot Fitzsimons.

A soundscape of a particularly misty morning, recorded at 4.12am during late spring from the observing window of the Tomintoul Bird Hide. The hide sits on the edge of the highest village in the Highlands of Scotland.  The calls of cuckoos create an eerie presence that gives depths to the length of the surrounding valley. Along with the days awakening dawn chorus, loud insects chirping, a brash pheasant interrupts the scene as well as slight interior noise from the bird hide. Recorded by Rachel Larsen-Jones. 

"Beneath the swell, she echoes emerged from Marcelo Carneiro’s evocative field recording of the Iemanjá Day celebration—its textures, rhythms, and atmosphere opened a doorway to memory. I was drawn to create it through a long-standing connection to Brazilian music and culture. Many years ago, while singing with a Brazilian percussion group in Scotland and collaborating with Brazilian musicians and dancers, I learned a chant to Iemanjá—the mother of the sea. I have reimagined this chant among the waves, voices, and living pulse of the celebration. "The track carries that lineage: the swell of water, the pulse of distant drums, and the enchanted movements of a water spirit echoing between drifting textures and electronic sound." Praia Vermelha, Brazil reimagined by Aileen Ogilvie.

This is the first edition of a recording I've made in the 2024 summer afternoon at the beach. It was made at Praia Vermelha (Red Beach), Urca, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It was a hot weather, the beach was crowded: children, families, young and elder people, vendors selling drinks and refreshments (water, cold mate, coconut water, popsicle, and so on). People are talking, laughing, shouting. Waves are breaking continuously on the sand.  Recorded in Rio de Janeiro by Marcelo Carneiro de Lima.

"The sound of a train in the distance on a quiet beautiful morning makes me think of possibility and freedom. But I was thinking about how others may hear something different, or it might not be a positive association for everyone, depending on how free you are, or what's truly possible. In the old days I had an idea of America and its wide open spaces as a place where people were free and everything was possible. Maybe it still is and maybe it never was.  "There's a little musical sound, some kind of alarm maybe, that I brought into the piano part. The sound isn't quite tuned to the notes of the piano, and you can hear it in slightly different keys, and as major or minor. I tried to build on that sound to create a thread through the music, but use the ambiguity it creates to allow a couple of changes of direction, between uncertainty, hopefulness, and melancholy."  Savannah Garden City soundscape reimagined by Andrew Hayes.

It’s early morning in what seems to be a quiet suburb of Georgia. People are still asleep, but you the rumble of industry never stops, cars flying down nearby highways and the signalling and occasional hoots of trains passing through. The birds wake up and follow suit.  Garden City is a city is known for its industrial hub and proximity to the Port of Savannah. The rumble of trains reminds you of this in the early morning in what would appear to be a very leafy suburb, with long verges, and tall trees.  I spent a few nights in Savannah Garden City while visiting Savannah during Autumn 2023.  Recorded by Marg Laing.

"This piece struck me because of the background drone of echoed speech and mechanical sounds with some melodic content (possibly an elevator chime, since looking into the site I found that the Hannover Rathaus has a well-known arched elevator that curves with the dome of the building).  "I built the fundamentals of the piece around those notes and some audible German and English phrases, including the unlikely phrase that serves as the piece’s title. Somehow during the process, I got the notion that this was a Christmas ghost story; some of the wall of noise in the middle section is made up of a drowned spoken word piece, from a “cut-up” of the snippets of speech in the original field recording and phrases from my research into the location." Neues Rathaus, Hannover reimagined by John Savarese.

A soundwalk around the heavily-reverbed impressive interior of Hannover's Neues Rathaus. Huge, reverby echo caused by the voices and footsteps of just a few visitors.  Recorded by Cities and Memory, May 2025. 

"Scotland has always had a strong pull on my imagination and I've always wanted to visit. This sound file was my first choice from the many offered by Cities & Memory for their Autumn Project. Coincidentally, this past summer, while vacationing with my family in Assateague, Virginia, I made a recording of the ocean shore while standing on the beach. When I began the Autumn Project, I decided to use both as a sort of bridge between my real life in the United States and my imagined life in Scotland.  "Most of the music here was from an ambient piece I came up with during a Sunday morning session a week or two ago. My working title for it was Midnight Mariner. Other sonic elements added for this new piece evoke the bell of a buoy rolling in the waves, the ethereal singing of the Cocteau Twins' Elizabeth Fraser, and a muffled, indistinct drum pattern that sounds as if it is being played underwater.  "This submission was composed/assembled on my iPad inside the host software app AUM. I used a variety of iOS

A dawn soundscape in the heart of Vietnam’s lowland forest, where the awakening of countless birds marks the start of a new day. The air fills with the diverse chorus of chirps, calls, and rustling, as various species gradually come to life. Cat Tien Park, Vietnam recorded by Rafael Diogo.

"For this remix, I pulled out the most musical fragments of the original, like the bicycle bells, and turned them into looping motifs, then built an entirely new drum and bass track beneath them. I also reshaped the vocal sample into another loop and wove in select sound effects, like the crowd noise and a car starting, to preserve the atmosphere while giving the piece a fresh identity." Drum and bass at the 420 parade, Vienna reimagined by Rebecca Goldberg.

This is the recording I made by complete accident - we were coming back home with my girlfriend and when we came out of the metro station we heard loud music from behind, so we went to see what it was. I remembered that I'd seen the posters around town about the Drum and Bass on Bike event, which was supposed to be in support of the general 420 parade (cannabis legalization movement in general), and that was it. I quickly turned on my Tascam recorder and recorded what I could, as it was quite an unusual soundscape for the area and the time. Recorded in Vienna, Austria by Tomasz Buga.

This is a brief recording in May 2022 of the music from Jane's Carousel in Brooklyn, NY. I was just looking up the history of the Merry-Go-Round, which was built in 1922 for the Idora Park amusement park in Youngstown, Ohio. So, by sheer coincidence this recording was made 100 years after the creation of the carousel. Recorded in Brooklyn, New York by Bill McKenna.

"Resampled bit of carousel from my former home of Brooklyn gets a new life as this plaintive melody." Carousel in Brooklyn, New York reimagined by Anne Pope.