Cities And Memory

This recording captures birdsong and locals passing through a quiet public garden in central Mantua. The recording was made on the 29th May 2012, about five minutes after a strong earthquake had struck the Emilia Romagna region, causing significant damage to the UNESCO World Heritage property of the Cathedral, Torre Civica and Piazza Grande.  Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

"In May 2012, two major earthquakes struck Northern Italy, causing 27 deaths and widespread damage. The events are known in Italy as the 2012 Emilia earthquakes, because they mainly affected the Emilia region. "The field recording captured birdsong and locals passing through a quiet public garden in central Mantua, five minutes after the Emilia earthquakes. I wanted to depict the contrast between the calmness of the Mantua gardens and the earthquakes that happened within close temporal and distance proximity of each other." Gardens in Mantova reimagined by Ben Hoang.

"The transitioning nature of the field recording made for some melodic transitioning in the background. The trumpet call ends abruptly but returns again and again." Krakow trumpet call reimagined by Moray Newlands. IMAGE: Oliszydlowski, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Probably Poland's most iconic sound, the hejnał mariacki (literally "Saint Mary's dawn") is a trumpet call that sounds every hour on the hour from the highest tower of St Mary's Church in Kraków's rynek glówny (main square).  The bugler plays the same call four times, once in each of the cardinal directions. This tradition dates back to medieval times, when the call was used to signal the opening and closing of the city gates at dawn and dusk. It was also played to alarm citizens of fires or enemy invasion.  The theme's abrupt end commemorates the Mongol-Tatar siege of 1241, when the trumpeter warning the city of the imminent threat was shot in the throat by an arrow mid-way through the call.  Or so the legend goes... I made this recording a couple of months after moving to Kraków as part of a project through which I attempted to reconnect with my Polish-Jewish heritage and, in a more general sense, to explore the experience of migration through sound. Recorded by Alex Roth. IMAGE: Oliszydlowski, CC BY-S

In March 2025 we made a series of recordings in and around the Barbican Centre, with the idea of those sounds being folded back into the Observatory Station sound installation, so that the sounds of the Barbican itself become part of the stories being told by sound from around the world.  This recording is a walkthrough of some of the exterior concrete tunnels and walkways that make up this brutalist masterpiece - footsteps, various mysterious drones, and the sounds of assorted passers-by.  Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

"I chose to work with a recording made at the Barbican centre in London.  This complex has fascinated me for many years, and I have always been curious to seek out new nooks and crannies there. I took my curiosity about the place into how I approached the work.  "The rhythmic footsteps are the core motif of the piece, even though they are not the most dominant sonic aspect, they are the anchor point from which to depart and return to.  "The footsteps are sometimes regular and at other times at odd with themselves when I have looped and doubled up aspects of the field recording. Both this tension in the footstep rhythm and my choice and creation of sounds and shape were guided with the controversy around the Barbican itself. Some people have a lot of love for the place, and others call it the ugliest building in London, and this is interesting to me, from an anthroplogical point of view.  "What makes us fond of, or repelled by a place, a building, an area? What resonates or repels us? I have tried to find s

"In my area of North America, train journeys are relatively rare. Taking a train feels like a special occasion because I only have the opportunity when I’m far from home. I’ve always enjoyed the exploratory feel of train rides: a train journey feels almost like stolen time, where normal responsibilities are paused and you are given freedom to simply be, if you choose.  "I was inspired by the F#-A train horn to create a harmonic home base of the broad key of B (be). Flute and alto flute depicts both the rhythmic train engine (with a nod to Steve Reich’s ‘Different Trains’) and the melodic way fragments of thoughts and ideas drift in and out when in a meditative state." Trains in Palo Alto reimagined by Margaret Fischer.

This recording features train horns as the trains pass by a level crossing just outside Palo Alto train station. The tonality of the train horns and the level crossing warning alarms are clearly identifiable as North American trains, and the sonic identity of the trains themselves as they pass are typical of Californian trains.  Palo Alto is a small town and these sounds can be heard from most parts of town as trains approach a series of level crossings before arriving into Palo Alto station.  Recorded by Colin Hunter. 

"Listening to the original field recording, I was engrossed in the dichotomy of the space - the waterfall and open area versus the man-made sounds of jet and helicopter fly overs. In this scenario, the man-made sounds overtaking the environmental quiet have an intentionality to preserve the space of the forest and the livelihood of people within it. The tension, persistence, and resilience of these elements is what I choose to lean into.  "Somewhere between a lament and a lullaby “ember” suggests a moment of tension, reflection, sorrow and perseverance as the environment, people and wildlife learn to cope with the wildfire’s destruction and rebirth. "In composing the piece, I choose to isolate and extrapolate upon the textures of the airplane flyovers, helicopters, and waterfalls. The time stretched drone of fly over tails accentuates the continual and unsettling nature of their presence. The looped helicopter undulations create an underlying pulse. The descending whistle of jets developed with granular syn

Captured during the devastating wildfires of September 2024 in Benfeita, Portugal, this recording reflects the dramatic challenge faced annually. The sky vanished behind ash-laden fog as fires erupted from all sides.  Near the waterfalls, the relentless hum of helicopters and planes filled the air, battling the flames alongside over 5,000 firefighters. This soundscape embodies a community's crisis, resilience, and the ongoing battle against nature's fury. Recorded by Rafael Diogo.

"“Kintsugi” is field-recording-based piece honouring both the original sample (from the Hill of the Buddha in Japan) as well as a form of Japanese art. Instead of using lacquer and precious metals to mend broken pieces of pottery, I use sound to bind other field recording samples together while still making that sound part of the design.  "I use the full sample to start and end the piece, with a drone-like part of the original sample as my lacquer throughout, binding field recordings of items I’ve used in sonic rituals for Summer Solstice 2024, Winter Solstice 2024, Summer Solstice 2025, and the March 2025 total lunar eclipse together as a whole.  "Field recordings of chimes, bowls, and items (jingle bells, seed beads, paintbrush) on a glockenspiel collected by artist in Lansing, MI. Track created in VCVRack2 with reverb, delay, and chorus effects added to field recordings and original sample." Hill of the Buddha, Sapporo reimagined by Stephanie E. Vasko.

An architectural space of deep spiritual meaning in Sapporo, Japan. Recorded by David Mintom.

"A response to a chorus of tree frogs." Frog chorus in Yokohama, Japan reimagined by Alex Vald.

This is the call of the Schlegel's green frog, a frog endemic to Japan. When one of them starts croaking, a call and response begins. The contrast between stillness and movement is beautiful. Recorded in Yokohama, Japan by Tadamitsu Mizuno.

A hydrophone recording from the Adriatic Coast of Italy captures the fascinating and vibrant sounds of marine life. You can hear the clicks, pops, and crackles of mollusks, including shrimps, crabs, mussels, lobsters, and barnacles. As we venture further from human activity, the true richness of these underwater soundscapes comes to life. Recorded by Rafael Diogo.

"In retrospect, this was a tricky choice of audio file, as the original recording is hard to better in terms of sheer absorbing alien sound quality. I had no idea lobsters were that loud & communicative. They sound quite lively and otherworldly, so I felt the music woven around their sounds should be too. It seems to have evolved into something like a cheerful lobster rave. "In terms of methodology, I made several initial sketches, but the final piece is based on a short loop put together on a high speed French train, on the m8 tracker, incorporating a portion of the recording. Some additional analogue synth sounds (Dreadbox Nymphes & Roland SE-02) and more structure/effects were added in logic thereafter." Hydrophone recording, Tremiti Islands reimagined by Andrew Tulloch.

Mtskheta is one of the oldest cities of Georgia and its former capital. The beautiful city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, features a winding market just outside the 11th century Svetitskhoveli Cathedral. This sound walk captures local stall holders laughing and chatting as we meander through the historic streets. Recorded by Colin Hunter. 

An a cappella performance by the staff in the resort restaurant at the end of the evening meal. The waiters and chefs and kitchen staff gather in rows in front of the diners and sing local songs in Zulu, harmonising, dancing, clapping, ululating and whistling.  KwaZulu means place of the Zulu. Harmonies of male and female voices singing traditional Zulu songs is tied to the land and its history. At the same time, the tourist industry supports locals in this area, and performing for holidaymakers, showing off traditional culture, is also very typical of the resorts in wildlife and nature parks.  This is the last trip I took a trip with my mother. She had never visited this game reserve. There was a drought at the time, which explained the many animals that we saw so near to the park, desperately seeking water. Elephant, buffalo, zebra, lion and more.  The recording was made in January 2017.  Recorded by Marg Laing. 

In March 2025 we made a series of recordings in and around the Barbican Centre, with the idea of those sounds being folded back into the Observatory Station sound installation, so that the sounds of the Barbican itself become part of the stories being told by sound from around the world.  A sound walk starting at Gilbert Bridge, which leads into the Barbican above various water features and fountains. The hiss of flowing water is amplified by the brick and concrete surrounding us, and we continue into the Barbican Centre, listening to alien-sounding door beeps, the busy-ness of the lifts and people entering and leaving.  Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

"I had a passing notion of a ’concerto for chainsaw and strings’ after hearing this recording - this is a fumbling exploratory sound sketch in that direction." Tree disposal in Greenwich Park reimagined by Fiona Conn.