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
December 11, 2025 • 4 mins
At VFB Oldenburg vs. Luebeck, 9 May 2025 (final score: 0-2). An impressively large section of ultras for a small club in Germany's fourth division, marshalled by a leader with a megaphone. This is a passage of Oldenburg fans songs underpinned by drumming to keep everyone energised and in time.
Recorded by Cities and Memory.
Recorded by Cities and Memory.
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December 11, 2025 • 8 mins
"I asked for a random field recording to let chance guide my ear. What arrived resonated: unmistakably urban, shaped by the pulse of a collective ritual. In the voices of the Vfb Oldenburg Ultras chants I heard an expression of joy and working-class culture, a liturgy sung by a secular choir. Lower division football provides an inclusive space where local cultural identity and community can be celebrated. The glamour needs to ...
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December 11, 2025 • 4 mins
"Duality draws from the resonant tolling of church bells. The work explores how a single sound can hold opposing states—deep yet relaxing, weighty yet weightless. The bells become a meditation on perception itself: their meaning shaped not by acoustic properties alone, but by the listener's inner state. In their reverberations lies a paradox resolved only in stillness."
Bremerhaven bell sounds reimagined by Bruce Neme...
Bremerhaven bell sounds reimagined by Bruce Neme...
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December 11, 2025 • 1 min
Church bells ring for 1pm at the Buergermeister-Smidt-Gedaechtniskirche, Bremerhaven, Germany, as police sirens sound in the background.
Recorded in May 2025 by Cities and Memory.
Recorded in May 2025 by Cities and Memory.
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December 11, 2025 • 14 mins
Underwater sounds, the sound of waves on the sea, the vibration of wires to prevent falls, these are recorded.
The sound of a titmouse playing on the wire is also included in the recording.
Recorded 28.01.2025, 4:43pm by Miduno.
The sound of a titmouse playing on the wire is also included in the recording.
Recorded 28.01.2025, 4:43pm by Miduno.
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December 11, 2025 • 2 mins
Soundscape of buzzing bees in a field in Leknes, Norway.
Recorded by Agapi Zita.
Recorded by Agapi Zita.
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December 11, 2025 • 10 mins
Cousins Ave forest has been enjoyed by walkers, joggers and cyclists for decades. I regularly take my dog into the forest for a long run. Several weeks ago I arrived and found barriers erected as harvesting was commencing. I found a spot to sit and listen to the sounds of destruction in what was once a place of serenity.
This recording captures the sounds of machinery reducing a once serene forest to slash - a term u...
This recording captures the sounds of machinery reducing a once serene forest to slash - a term u...
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December 11, 2025 • 6 mins
"This piece was inspired by the global issue of flooding. It includes extracts from the work of the 19th C English poet, John Clare (reading by Ian King for Librivox - PD). In the final clip of the poem, the words are eventually overwhelmed by The Flood.
"There is also acknowledgement of the origin of the field recording, with the inclusion of samples of Japanese traditional instruments."
Hakkeijima Island u...
"There is also acknowledgement of the origin of the field recording, with the inclusion of samples of Japanese traditional instruments."
Hakkeijima Island u...
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December 11, 2025 • 4 mins
"The melodic and maybe even slightly forlorn sound of the bees made me want to include them as a layer in a moody instrumental piece so they became a low key pseudo horn part in a band which also features tuned stereo geophone recordings of me playing a hotel room balcony and claves recorded in the same hotel room.
" I was staying in a small quiet village where the usual background car hum of the city I live in was ab...
" I was staying in a small quiet village where the usual background car hum of the city I live in was ab...
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December 11, 2025 • 10 mins
Bleach: to lose colour. The recording of the Foxton Beach deforestation is transposed in a process of timbre decolorization. Using the original recording as a musical score, my compositional process puts emphasis on the degradation of the natural ecosystem by degrading sound and timbre elements.
The result is a broken and ruined imaginary landscape where only a few synthetic sound survives.
Foxton Beach for...
The result is a broken and ruined imaginary landscape where only a few synthetic sound survives.
Foxton Beach for...
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December 10, 2025 • 9 mins
"When choosing the field recording to work with, I was particularly drawn to a field recording of nocturnal amphibians from Pantuase, Ghana, featuring a species of frog that, until recently, had not been recorded before. The recording was made within a designated natural park, which was established both to protect species from pollution created by local industry and mining, and also to provide a place for tourists to visit.
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December 10, 2025 • 6 mins
Pantuase is a new wetland location added to two other wetland locations namely Trom and Bonya which were previously recorded in 2021 and 2022. Those tonal frogs heard in the recording have never been acoustically captured so i was amazed by these unique sounds they were making when the recordings were sent to me.
Since then, I keep asking myself how the place would have sounded like had it been left intact. The fate ...
Since then, I keep asking myself how the place would have sounded like had it been left intact. The fate ...
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December 10, 2025 • 5 mins
At night, in a bamboo grove in Kyoto, the wind threads its way through the tall stalks, bending them until they sway and knock together with hollow tones. The sound is both delicate and immense — a shifting chorus of rattles, sighs, and murmurs that rise and fall like waves. Each gust carries a new texture: sometimes a low, resonant moan as the bamboo bows deeply, sometimes a fine, trembling hiss as leaves brush against one an...
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December 10, 2025 • 7 mins
Inside the Klimahaus museum, which is dedicated to telling the stories of climate and the environment. The exhibition called "The Journey" takes you around the world on a line of longitude from Bremerhaven with interactive installations and exhibits that make extensive use of sound to be as immersive as possible. Here we are in Niger, experiencing a video installation based on desert village life.
Recorded by Cities ...
Recorded by Cities ...
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December 10, 2025 • 12 mins
A recording of Holy Communion taking place in the iconic surroundings of Westminster Abbey, with the service audible both from the priest directly and piped through the surrounding speakers, as tourists pass the worshippers on all sides, and the epic reverb of the space threatens to swallow up everything in the soundscape.
Recorded by Cities and Memory.
Recorded by Cities and Memory.
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December 10, 2025 • 11 mins
"This raw desert field recording, resonating from the halls of the Klimahaus Bremerhaven in Germany (Climate House Museum Bremerhaven), sparked a vision of musical imagination within me.
"It drew me into a hidden world of untold stories, and from its pulse and breath, I shaped a soundscape I call Meridian. A sonic journey tracing the secret heart of the desert and revealing an oasis born of imagination.
"I c...
"It drew me into a hidden world of untold stories, and from its pulse and breath, I shaped a soundscape I call Meridian. A sonic journey tracing the secret heart of the desert and revealing an oasis born of imagination.
"I c...
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December 10, 2025 • 13 mins
"I recorded and played all sounds. One of sound is coming from my home town Sapporo, when my grandmother was gone. Some of instrument is bass clarinet, Bb clarinet, tenor sax, handmade instrument, keys. Especially the wind instruments were recorded while I listened to the source sound."
Westminster Abbey communion service reimagined by Ayane Sato.
Westminster Abbey communion service reimagined by Ayane Sato.
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December 10, 2025 • 19 mins
"I was inspired by the beauty in the percussive sound of the bamboo, and how it contrasts with harsher rustling of the wind and rain. I decided to use the recording as the only sound source: everything you hear in the piece is the original recording, manipulated.
"Most of the piece was improvised by running and looping the 5 minute recording of the bamboo forest through my Eurorack modular synthesizer. I tried to foc...
"Most of the piece was improvised by running and looping the 5 minute recording of the bamboo forest through my Eurorack modular synthesizer. I tried to foc...
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December 10, 2025 • 6 mins
"The Red Sea is a place with such rich history and significance, it felt overwhelming to try and encapsulate it fully. The field recording reflected to me an origin point. I imagined some type of primordial soup. The biodiversity that bubbles up and flourishes in the red sea despite the salinity feels like an overlooked triumph of nature. I wanted to layer the beautiful sounds of life within the red sea with the noise of trade...
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December 10, 2025 • 11 mins
"After being initially drawn to the rhythmic sounds of the sea and the tumbling rocks, I wanted to explore that process of erosion through the slow breakdown and transformation of the original field recording. In my research I learned this type of coastal erosion is called ‘attrition’ - this word is also used in a military context when the strength or effectiveness of a people is slowly reduced through sustained attacks and pr...
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