Cities And Memory

I've been recently working with an old non-linear editing system that has a few quirks. Sometimes, the system freezes making my stressful job even more difficult. I could either restart the system or calmly wait until it "unfreezes". The sound you hear - a voice saying "extremely difficult" - is the frozen edit system looping a part of the interview that I'm working on.  I've learned that Instead of getting upset, I simply turn on my audio recorder, walk out of my edit suite, get a cup of coffee in the kitchen, and return with the hope that I can get back to work on my news story. In this case, towards the end of the recording, you can hear that the machine is finally back to normal and I return to my job whereupon the full sentence from the interview unfolds. I find it a bit amusing sometimes and, of course, I love the serendipitous nature of the audio glitch. Recorded in Washington DC by Bill McKenna. 

The Friday market in Ventimiglia, an Italian town on the border with France, is alive with the bustle of French tourists who come weekly to buy goods. The sounds of music, bargaining and laughter fill the air, but there's also an oblivious tension. The Italian police move through the crowd, routinely stopping people — particularly racialized individuals — to ask for documents.  "Permesso di soggiorno, ce l'hai?" ("Do you have a residence permit?") echoes sharply as two Tunisian minors are questioned. In the background, the mechanical tune of a police radio punctuates the scene as the police have a quick casual conversation on Ecuadorians, these voices blend uneasily with the market's lively hum.  Here, the ordinary rhythms of commerce coexist with the heavy presence of surveillance at the border, where every passing moment is marked by an invisible line. You can also here my voice in the background, a light-hearted exchange unfolds—me chatting with a French lady and a sellers from Guinea and Italy, who try

"Rafael Diogo's recording of the Colombian Amazon sounded so rich to me - and rich in a way that evoked certain things that could happen in my modular synthesizer, particularly the kinds of things that happen when I patch up feedback paths through Serge modules.  "So that's what I did. The results interweave various ways of complementing and imitating the selected loops of the original field recording."   Frogs in the Amazon reimagined by Joseph Chaves.

"I was struck by the many underlying tensions of this recording. The racialized profiling described by Masha Hassan—the dual nature of observation, the police surveillance of bodies and Masha's surveillance of them juxtaposed against the vibrancy and music of the open marketplace.  "I wished to highlight those elements through a chopped and edited approach, a kind of digital tape manipulation, first through Eurorack synthesizer, and then further in DAW based editing; looping, sampling, resampling, stretching, and compressing audio.  "While the moments of tension that are so compelling to me in Masha’s original recording may or may not be present in this reimagined piece, I aim to achieve that anxiety on a poetic level in my composition — exactimo."   Friday market in Ventimiglia, Italy reimagined by John Wilhelm.

"The original source recording is from an old sound editing machine that sometimes freezes up on the operator and starts looping at that spot.  "I had plenty of ideas, but after a lot of tinkering I found myself paring it all back until finally I was left with two copies of the exact same snippet endlessly looping, snaking in and out of sync. I was mesmerized by this simple variation of the original spontaneous glitch.  "I tried various effects on either track like panning, filters and EQ, reverb etc. to distinguish them. But ultimately I decided I liked it best unmodified and unadorned, and that it’s not obvious which is doing what. The only editing I did was to decide how long it should be. Two cycles seemed plenty." Washington DC editing machine reimagined by Joel Kaufman.

"I slowed down Emma Lambert's field recording progressively and in layers so the soundspace is a gradual stretching of her field recording. At three quarters of the way to 4min and 8 seconds, the length of the original recording, it is hard to hear the birdsong that is now at about 1 percent. By the end it is at  0.1 percent. The sounds are still there.  "There's a saying that if things change gradually you don't notice. This was the inspiration behind the slow down of Emma Lambert's recording.  "This gradual silencing of the birdsong by slowing down the recording also mimics my own gradual hearing loss. I didn't notice the gradual loss of sound and now with new hearing aids can hear birdsong again:)" Sydney dawn chorus reimagined by Sonja van Kerkhoff.

"The original sound is a recording of Sengoku-yu Public Baths in Tokyo: the owner is a musician. On this particular Monday, three musicians are working to clean the baths; I imagined, in sound, these three spirits bringing music to the place as they clean, like a true Miyazaki story." Baths in Tokyo reimagined by Clelia Ciardulli.

Songs of fishermen retrieving fish trapped in large nets by force of arms. Recorded by Pierre Costard.

"I wanted to do something a bit synthwave / cyberpunk / Blade Runner influenced. The original clip gave me the feeling of night and neon lights. I had the idea to add a punk bassline - which was the first thing I recorded. I then added the drums, guitar and then synths.  "Finally the vocals came, which are satirical. We love to talk about ourselves, but never speak up when it really matters. And, we are slaves to consumerism no matter what we try to think. "I kept the whole piece short despite the temptation to add to the ending." Government announcement in Hanoi, Vietnam reimagined by Wanted Sound (Ben Scott).

My two italian friends had rented a house in Sigri in the island of Lesvos. The house was just by the sea so one could hear constantly the waves inside. My friend is dancing with seaweeds that she had picked at the beach in the living room and she is playing music from a tape. Me and my other friend are reading aloud text that is written for her puppet show in Finnish and Italian. One can also hear pigeons that live on the island. Recorded by Sirpa Jokinen.

First is the sound of 500 wind chimes suspended on wires. Then you can hear the morning service begin at the temple. The sound of sutra reading, the bells, and drums. Recorded by Tadamitsu Mizuno.

This sound was recorded in 2025 at Sengoku-yu, where there is a public bath. The owner of this place is a musician. On Monday mornings, three musicians help to clean up the baths, because  it's closed on Tuesdays. This was recorded in front of the boiler, and behind the high pressure washer. The sound come from these machines. This place is not open for everyone. The view is like Hayao Miyazaki's movie ”Spirited Away" - KAMAJI's place is very similar. At the beginning of the recording, the boiler machine is starting  to work. After that, three people come back from a smoking break and start working again with the high pressure washer.  Recorded by Ayane Sato. 

Riding a classic New Orleans streetcar.  Recorded by Alex Clifford.

"I aimed for making it sound like a disturbing dream. Used the entire original recording with a copy processed with echo and reverb as well. A drone, some kind of eerie pads and, surprisingly for me, percussion - some of it quite odd..." Fishermen's songs in Benin reimagined by Windspace (Bruce Hickey).

"Drawing on the lapping waves and flute of the original, I teased out some drones and loops, which I layered and structured using the original recording as a guide, some of which can be heard relatively unprocessed, particularly at the beginning and end of my piece, which takes its title from a fragment of a poem by Sappho (inspired by the location, of course)." Afternoon in Sigri, Greece reimagined by Joseph Sannicandro.

"This piece was an exploration of space and the principle of formlessness. The recording very much inspired me to move away from typical form and structure. Instead exploring space and how form returns to formlessness after having manifested." Wind bells in Ohta Ward reimagined by James Nicholls.

"My first memories of New Orleans were made fifty years ago during a family vacation to the city when I was seven years old. I remember a frenzied evening march down a crowded Bourbon Street holding onto my parent’s hand for safety. In the cacophony emanating from the clubs and bars onto the street one sound stood out to me. It was the plunk of the traditional jazz banjo keeping the beat amongst the chaos.  "I chose to incorporate the sound of the jazz banjo into the New Orleans field recording to add rhythm to the commotion of voices and announcements in the streetcar. Along with adding some banjo strums, I sent the sound of the instrument through an envelope follower and used the generated control voltage to modulate the amplitude of the sound of the field recording to create another rhythmic track. The resultant work reimagines the city through the filter of my sonic memory." Streetcar in New Orleans reimagined by Pierrot Desperes.

Government announcements blast by Cafe Thom, a local hot spot for good coffee next to Tay Ho lake. Recorded in Hanoi, Vietnam by Kit Wilmans Fegradoe.

Let yourself be transported by these Beninese women who sell all kinds of food from 3am on board their pirogues before setting off to fish on Lake Nokoué. Recorded by Pierre Costard.Singing, rowing, shouting selling | I took a brief sample of the sounds of the market & used the granular synth Kaivo to create a repetitive but ever-changing piece, which emulated the repetitive but ever changing nature of the market as captured by the field recording | Tim Coomb

"I took a brief sample of the sounds of the market & used the granular synth Kaivo to create a repetitive but ever-changing piece, which emulated the repetitive but ever changing nature of the market as captured by the field recording." Night market in Ganvier, Benin reimagined by Tim Coomb.