There are many Dada sounds submitted from across the USA – here are just three of our favourites from Los Angeles, Washington DC and Colorado.
After a month of exploring some fascinating sonic approaches to Utopia, our journey has finally come to a close. To mark the occasion, today we’re launching a FREE ALBUM of Utopia sounds. We’ve chosen twelve highlights that we think flow together as an album and a listening experience, as well as representing some of the many approaches taken to imagining Utopia in sound.
“I was surprised at how timeless the book was in its discussion of concerns, which are still relevant today. Even though it was written in the 1500s, Utopia somehow reminds me of George Orwell’s 1984.”
As part of our overall Sound Waves project, 38 sound artists from around the world have submitted a field recording and reimagining of water somewhere in the world: ocean, river, lake, stream, swimming pool, boiling kettle, splash of a puddle – anything in which water is the defining sound. These reimagined sounds have been recomposed and re-edited by Cities and Memory into this 30-minute mixed sound piece incorporating many of the sounds in a new context.
“The inspiration for the recording came while being awoken from a dream state to the rhythmic sounds of the rain hitting the window and air conditioner. Half asleep, I was reimagining the sound as music with accompanying visuals. When I awoke, I immediately went to the window with my iPhone and started recording the rain, and afterwards shot the video through the window.”
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"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
