It’s carnival time!
We’re heading to Oxford today (the Cities and Memory home city) for the annual Cowley Road carnival, a day-long street party and procession with floats, bands, live music and all the usual things you’d associate with a carnival. We went along with our recorder in hand to capture some of the atmosphere at the heart of the procession:
City version:
As part of our Three Words project, Ollie Campbell took the Cowley Road carnival sound on for his piece “Scrambled Clarity”:
“I used two of the words allocated to me – ‘wake’ and ‘team’.
“The first word ‘team’ informed the source material that I used in the composition of this piece. Among other things, I used excerpts from recordings from a certain prog rock band that featured three drummers as part of their live show. Each drummer contributes to one rhythm on stage in much the same way each player in a sports team has a role to play in achieving the final goal.
“The second word ‘wake’ informed the narrative of the composition. The ending represents an awakening from a disruptive sleep. The rest of the piece is based on my own experience of sleep, and how often, just before I drift off, there are a myriad of different thoughts, reflections and worries rushing around my brain. Sleep is a restorative process and I often awake feeling refreshed and clear-headed.”
Memory version:
