Cities And Memory

"Lifta is a historic Palestinian village located near Jerusalem, notable for being the only Arab village evacuated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that has not been destroyed or repopulated. It stands as a poignant symbol of the Nakba (the 1948 Palestinian exodus) and a physical reminder of the displacement and loss experienced by Palestinians. The village, with its well-preserved stone buildings, agricultural terraces, and spring, is also recognized for its unique cultural and historical value, and is currently under consideration for UNESCO World Heritage status." This piece uses elements of field recordings taken by Anders Vinjar (Mount of Olives / Ramallah Market / Ruins of Lifta), topped with a semi-composed / semi-improvised acoustic guitar line + added synth washes. 'The Ghosts of Lifta' was inspired by these field recordings and current photographs of the overgrown, deserted village. Lifta village recording by Anders Vinjar reimagined by Adam Leonard.

Foregrounding Anders Vinjars field recordings of Palestine; the hum of birds, street life, voices, and of hymns and calls to prayers - a Threnody for Echoes for Palestine. Golgotha recording from Jerusalem by Anders Vinjar, reimagined by Elissa Goodrich.

"Ambisonic recordings inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Gholghata, a fourth-century church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. The site where they say Jesus was crucified and as well the location of Jesus's empty tomb." Recorded by Anders Vinjar.

Ambisonics recordings at ruins of Lifta, outside Jerusalem, a village depopulated and destroyed in 1984 during Israels ethnic cleansing of Palestinian arabs from their land. Recorded by Anders Vinjar.

Interview with Cities and Memory creator Stuart Fowkes on the Nightlife show on ABC Australia, diving into Sonic Heritage as well as the ten-year history of the project.   "They say a picture tells a thousand stories, but how far does audio go?  That is exactly what Stuart Fowkes has set out to achieve over the last decade involving the contribution of more than 2,000 artists who are putting together sounds from all over the world.  He shares with Suzanne Hill about how the project came to be and why do the sounds of heritage sites matter."

"Taksim Square in Istanbul has a history of protests and social activism, most notably the Gezi Park 2013 protests, in which 22 people were killed and more than 8,000 were injured, many critically.  "Listening to the soundscape from Taksim Square, life is going on as normal, with bustling crowds, but periodically we hear a police siren, which echoes through the square almost like a spectral reminder of the police brutality, protest and suffering that the space has been witness to in the past.  "The siren swirls through the composition like a phantasm, reminding us never to forget the social context of the spaces in which we inhabit, while the music is intended to evoke a slightly unsettling sense as it loops, repeats, and builds." Taksim Square soundscape reimagined by Cities and Memory. Original recording by Anders Vinjar. 

Ambisonics recording at Taksim Meydani, site of the Gezi Park protests in 2013, a very busy city square, people jazzing around. This soundscape-composition is part of the HEYR project, presenting 3-dimensional soundscapes from special locations, connected to special events. Find out more by visiting https://www.heyr.no Recorded by Anders Vinjar.

"This track started with an idea to use the title converted to Morse code and then to MIDI, using an online tool I wrote (https://constantpool.co.uk/morse-code-to-midi/). The raw field recording, captured inside the Pohjala brewery, was then chopped up and layered with effects to build a "wall of sound," which was all structured to create a shoegaze/alt-rock style track." Pohjala brewery, Tallinn reimagined by Karhide. 

On a visit to the Pohjala artisan brewery in Tallinn, Estonia, we were invited behind the scenes into the brewery itself to record the sounds of beer being made. This soundscape records the beer-making process, with loud industrial noises, drones and hisses coming from large brewing tanks and machinery. Recorded in September 2024 by Cities and Memory. 

"My field recording was a cable car journey to the top of an old town. In amongst the hubbub of voices there was snatches of music played on a telephone. I decided to use the duration of the cable car journey as a start and end point, placing the listener in the environment, and planting the melodies and rhythms as if caught almost out of ear shot on phones around the space.  "The human ums, aahs, stamps and claps are the sounds of real depth, the passengers perhaps? As the journey ends we escape into the open air and our song is allowed to escape in full fidelity."  San Marino cable car reimagined by Douglas Barelegs.

The cable car is the only sensible way to travel up to the precipitous heights of the old town in San Marino, which today is hosting a ComicCon-style festival for lovers of all things sci-fi and fantasy. Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

"The piece opens with Anders Vinjar’s recording of the stark ambiance outside Auschwitz's crematoriums. A voice notes a chilling continuity: "the acoustics are the same today as it was in 1942".  Holocaust survivors then share their stories, interwoven with supporting music. Abrupt cuts jolt listeners back to the haunting recording at Auschwitz. As the piece progresses, survivors' warnings blend with news clips and commentary, reflecting humanity's failure of "never again".  Vocals and music become increasingly echoed and distorted, mirroring the terrible echoes of history that continue to repeat today.  The piece closes with a plea from a survivor: ending hate and intolerance starts with each of us. Auschwitz recording by Anders Vinjar reimagined by Music for Sea Monsters.

"The sound is the ambience close to the crematorium ovens in Auschwitz 1, used to exterminate 340 humans per hour. The acoustics is the same today as it was in 1942, when the mass-murder was going full speed. "This soundscape-composition is part of the HEYR project, presenting 3-dimensional soundscapes from special locations, connected to special events. Find out more by visiting https://www.heyr.no" © Anders Vinjar, 2025

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.