Our very special tenth anniversary Autumn Project is now open for artists to get involved!

Twice per year, we open up the Cities and Memory vaults, giving artists access to our sound database to pick a recording, and create a reimagined composition using that recording.

This is our biggest ever Autumn Project, with – amazingly – 300 high-quality recordings from all over the world for artists to use as inspiring source material.

It’s also your last chance to get involved with Cities and Memory in 2025.

If you’d like to be part of the project, just hit the button below, send us an email and we’ll reply with all the details!

(If the mailto link in the button doesn’t work, just email stuart AT citiesandmemory DOT com to get involved.)

As befits our tenth anniversary, this is a very special selection of 300 recordings – here are just a few of the highlights:

• Beneath the ice at the North Pole 🧊
• Village soundscapes from rural China 🇨🇳
• Incredible soundscapes from “potent places” such as the Fuhrer’s bunker in Berlin, Auschwitz in Poland, Kabul in Afghanistan and Utøya in Norway ⚠️
• Extensive recordings from our recent trip to Oslo, including island soundscapes, the Nordic Pixel Forest, Untuned Bell installation, liturgies, processions and public transportation 🇳🇴
• A sonic exploration of Berlin, including museum installations, huge cathedral bells, and sounds from inside a concrete bunker wall 🇩🇪
• Sporting recordings from Court No.1 at Wimbledon, and capturing the passion of German football crowds ⚽️
• Amphibian choruses at night in rural Ghana 🇬🇭
• Sacred spaces from communion at Westminster Abbey to a call to prayer in Uzbekistan 🇺🇿
• Trains, trams, ferries, buses, cable cars, airports and station – a whole world of travel sounds 🛂
• The sounds of work and industry, from glassblowing and fishing boats to the sounds of artisanal candy being manufactured by hand 🍭
• Natural soundscapes from rivers, rice fields, lakes, forests, wetlands, mountains and jungles 🌴

The sounds are divided up by category, country and city so you can easily find the types of sound you’re most interested in working with.

How the project works

First, hit the button below to email us and let us know you’re interested – we’ll then send you the sound database from which to pick an available sound.

Once you’ve selected a sound, you will then create a composition based on that recording. Your composition must include that recording, or some element of it, either raw or processed/effected, and you can only use one recording from our selection. We can also select a recording for you at random if you prefer the element of  chance!

Other than that, it’s a completely free composition for you to respond creatively to that recording – you can add in whatever instrumentation or other samples you like (no copyrighted material though, please!).

Compositions have included electronica, ambient, folk songs, poetry, spoken word, radio art, sound art, noise, guitar music, full band pieces, experimental – every creative approach is equally welcome.

The final deadline for submitting compositions is Friday 12 December 2025.

The sounds will be added to our sound map and podcast with thousands of subscribers as soon as they’ve been submitted (within a day or two), rather than on a specific launch date – feel free to share them on your socials once they’ve gone live!

Selected sounds will be on our end of year highlights album Sounds of the Year 2025, and archived by the British Library’s digital archive too.

You can listen to the pieces from last year’s Autumn Project on the sound map here.