A striking performance today from inside the Beijing Drum Tower, one of the premier sonic attractions in China, a booming, reverb-filled temple that resounds with dozens of traditional drums – here recomposed by Simon Le Boggit: “Quantumised Beijing Drum Tower was created by isolating full single drum-hits from the original soundtrack, and using them as […]
Pounding heavy rain has a strong rhythmic quality whenever you hear it, natural rhythms forming as the water hits any variety of surfaces – as you’ll hear in this recording. For his recomposed sound, Dave Webb has taken this to its extreme, constructing overlapping drum patters from the very sounds of the rain in this […]
It’s derby day in Sofia, Bulgaria, and we can listen to rival chants between two groups of fans from CSKA Sofia and Levski Sofia before their crucial match (final score: 1-1), in Mark Wilden’s recording. The reimagined version listens to this crowd from a distance, and considers that from that range it’s often hard to […]
Temple of Heaven Park, Beijing, China: A mass singalong taking place in the Temple of Heaven Park in Beijing, captured by Mark Wilden. Long-time contributor Tim Waterfield (AKA Karhide) has given this an excellent, technical beat-driven recomposition, which he describes like this: ” The remix started out with creating multiple tracks of building drones and […]
Another new country for us at Cities and Memory today, as we travel to the Bukhara bazaar in Uzbekistan. The original field recording by Mark Wilden is a demonstration of some traditional stringed instruments being played in the bazaar. The reimagined version, echoing the physicality of the stringed instruments, uses physical media to create a […]
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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
