Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Cities and Memory remixes the world, one sound at a time - a global collaboration between artists and sound recordists all over the world. The project presents an amazingly-diverse array of field recordings from all over the world, but also reimagined, recomposed versions of those recordings as we go on a mission to remix the world. What you'll hear in the podcast are our latest sounds - either a field recording from somewhere in the world, or a remixed new composition based solely on those sounds. Each podcast description tells you more about what you're hearing, and where it came from. There are more than 7,000 sounds featured on our sound map, spread over more than 130 countries and territories. The sounds cover parts of the world as diverse as the hubbub of San Francisco’s main station, traditional fishing women’s songs at Lake Turkana, the sound of computer data centres in Birmingham, spiritual temple chanting in New Taipei City or the hum of the vaporetto engines in Venice. You can explore the project in full at www.citiesandmemory.com

Episodes

Chimes revisited

December 18, 2025 • 3 mins
"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 ...
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The Untuned Bell

December 18, 2025 • 2 mins
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 f...
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Chaffinches in McCaig's Tower

December 18, 2025 • 3 mins
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. 
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Look out

December 18, 2025 • 6 mins
"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 ...
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The company of others

December 18, 2025 • 16 mins
"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 seco...
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Call to prayer at the floating village

December 18, 2025 • 2 mins
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. 
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Cuckoos

December 18, 2025 • 5 mins
"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.
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Cuckoos at dawn

December 18, 2025 • 3 mins
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 ...
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Beneath the swell, she echoes

December 18, 2025 • 4 mins
"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...
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Praia Vermelha 01

December 18, 2025 • 2 mins
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...
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Some distance from the city

December 18, 2025 • 6 mins
"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 sti...
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Early morning, Savannah Garden City

December 18, 2025 • 2 mins
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 mor...
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I found the presence

December 18, 2025 • 3 mins
"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 ...
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Reverb in the Rathaus

December 18, 2025 • 4 mins
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. 
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Skye waves / Midnight mariner

December 18, 2025 • 5 mins
"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...
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Chirping into daylight

December 18, 2025 • 5 mins
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.
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Vienna drum and bass on a bike (liquid pedal remix)

December 18, 2025 • 4 mins
"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 parad...
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Drum and bass on the bike

December 18, 2025 • 1 min
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.
<...
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Brooklyn carousel

December 18, 2025 • 2 mins
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.
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Jane underwater

December 18, 2025 • 4 mins
"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.
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