Take a trip around the bustling souks of Essaouira, Morocco, today – in particular, come with us to the poultry souk, a dimly-lit, close little souk full of caged birds and meat shops. At the end of this walkthrough recording, if you listen closely you can hear the the somewhat unpleasant sound of a chicken […]
Essaouira is famous for the Atlantic wind that blows through it all year round – here it is on a windy spring morning on the beach, forming part of our Three Words project. City version: This sound was reimagined by Italian band Foto di Gruppo, using the words ///populate.candy.impulse as inspiration – here they […]
This Fajr call to prayer sound is one of my all-time favourite field recordings – well worth getting up before dawn to record! From the top of our riad in Essaouira, Morocco, you could hear two calls to prayer simultaneously from different sides – one a melodic song, the other more spoken and rhythmic in […]
Essaouira, Morocco at sunset. Listening to the Atlantic waves crashing in as we sit close to the fortress in the port, the Sqala du Port in this great trade city sitting at the crossroads of different civilisations. Here’s a short video clip of this recording being made to give you something of the atmosphere: City […]
Copyright ©2026 Cities and Memory, Oxford, UK. All rights reserved.
"As this wave from memories flows in, the city soaks it up like a sponge and expands. A description of [the city] as it is today should contain all [the city's] past. The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the bags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls."
- Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities
Grand Prix winner and Coup de Coeur winner, Académie Charles Cros
