Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Interview with Cities and Memory founder Stuart Fowkes on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme on 18 April 2025, introducing the Sonic Heritage project. Features sound clips from the Tower of London, the Sistine Chapel and Valparaiso, Chile. 

18/04/2025 • 04:26

Interview with Cities and Memory founder Stuart Fowkes on BBC World Service's Newshour programme on 18 April 2025, introducing the Sonic Heritage project. Features sound clips from the Sistine Chapel, Coimbra in Portugal and Okarito in New Zealand. 

18/04/2025 • 04:33

"It was fascinating in the course of working on this piece to learn more about the significance of the Te Wahipounamu region to the Māori people, and to read of the world-building legends about how this part of the world came into being.  "I wanted to hold this sense of the sacred close to me as I explored the sound - and what it represented - more deeply. This piece contemplates the very different meanings of the same heritage space to different people. What might be one person's stunning view or rewarding hike could be another person's sacred space, and in exploring the world we are also intruding into other people's worlds and values, and must be respectful of that. This is a composition of contemplation, repetition and respect. The title comes from the Māori translation of Te Wahipounamu - 'the place of greenstone'." Okarito soundscape reimagined by Cities and Memory. ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

07/04/2025 • 06:45

This is a recording of a dawn chorus after two days of hard rain at Ōkārito. Pīpipi Brown Creepers, Mātata Fernbird, Tauhou Silvereyes, and other manu birds are busy feeding and grooming in the warm sunlight. Mixing with this birdsong is the constant rumble of waves that can be heard wherever you are in town. The trail where this was recorded was dripping with rainwater and steaming as the temperature quickly rose. Residents and visitors to Ōkārito frequent this trail as it leads up to a gorgeous view of the native bush, lagoon, and beach. UNESCO listing: Te Wahipounamu Recorded by Janina Castro. ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

07/04/2025 • 18:16

"The overlapping sounds – the drone's gentle pulse, the lingering reverb, the admiring whispers, and the sacred music – create a dreamlike and immersive experience. It's as if the drone has become a silent witness, its sonic capture blending the everyday wonder of visitors with the profound spiritual atmosphere of a Christmas Mass. The drawn-out notes act as a unifying force, binding these disparate sounds into a cohesive and emotionally resonant whole, a sonic meditation on the Basilica's enduring beauty and its role as a place of both artistic appreciation and profound faith. The recording becomes a hauntingly beautiful reimagining, a drone's-eye (or ear) view into the soul of Sant'Antonio." Interior of Sant'Antonio, Padova reimagined by Karhide. ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

07/04/2025 • 06:28

At the heart of the recording is the simple, almost nostalgic sound of a small stereo playing the Kokiriko bushi melody with its slightly lo-fi quality. For this remix, the original recording has been cleaned, removing unwanted noise while preserving the inherent intimacy of the space. Layers additional music have been introduced, transforming the raw performance into a chilled-out sonic journey.  Kokiriko bushi reimagined by Karhide. ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

07/04/2025 • 05:50

In the Basilica di Sant'Antonio in Padova, in which we can hear tourists admiring the amazing church and its incredible frescos, statues and artworks, as well as a Christmas service taking place in the centre of the church. We join the queue to view the relics of St. Anthony, which include the saint's tongue, jawbone and vocal chords.  UNESCO listing: Padua’s fourteenth-century fresco cycles Recorded by Cities and Memory.  ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

07/04/2025 • 05:24

The sound recorded is of an exibition of the Kokiriko bushi traditional dance. A man, in traditional clothes, plays a song on a little stereo and dances in front of a small audience. The setting is a traditional house made of dark timber, embers shine in the ash pit in the middle of the room. As he dances he plays the binzasara, a traditional instrument that can double as a decoration to ward off evil at home. UNESCO listing: Historic Villages of Shirakawa-go and Gokayama Recorded by Riccardo Fumagalli. ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

07/04/2025 • 05:00

Recording from the Novosibirsk metro, Russia.  Recorded by Pavel Lopatin

07/04/2025 • 02:19

Many of Albania’s voices are political, and this recording demonstrates that this remains true today. Captured in Skanderbeg Square, in the heart of Tirana, this recording showcases the soundscape of a protest organized by the opposition party, the Democratic Party of Albania.  In the recording, the voice of the individual speaking into the microphone during the protest in front of Tirana City Hall reverberates off the nearby museum, opera house, and Hotel Tirana surrounding the square. The preparations for the fair and the speeches happening in the square are also included in this recording, contributing to the intricate soundscape of the area. Recorded by Uğur Aslan.

07/04/2025 • 01:53

Recorded sounds are synthesised with electronic sounds, creating new timbres and syntheses. Novosibirsk metro, Russia reimagined by Pavel Lopatin. 

07/04/2025 • 12:29

"Protests embody unrest, tension, and hope. They are activities that display these contrasts while effectively utilizing sound. In this interpretation, I sampled a protest recording from Tirana and approached it in four distinct ways. The first is in its original form. The second features a louder megaphone effect. The third presents a distorted, unclear, and incomprehensible sound enhanced with a phased bite effect. The fourth highlights noise alongside speech. These four interpretations simultaneously convey feelings of tension, uncertainty, and hope, complemented by pads and chord accompaniments." Tirana protest reimagined by Uğur Aslan.

07/04/2025 • 05:19

Peter and Paul Fortress Carillon (i believe it was a rehearsal). I randomly walked into the sound of the bells and made a recording directly under the cathedral on the empty night square.  UNESCO listing: Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments Recorded by Masha Sha. IMAGE: Alex 'Florstein' Fedorov, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

03/04/2025 • 06:37

Temple Sticks at Ayutthaya. Stereo 44kHz 16bit. UNESCO listing: Historic City of Ayutthaya Recorded by Erick Ruiz Arellano. IMAGE: H191, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

31/03/2025 • 00:26

"I was attracted to working with a recording from Thailand for personal reasons. I travelled there some years ago, and lived in a border town, where I volunteered helping a local NGO working with refugees from Burma I had never visited Ayutthaya and the temples, so this work is a chance to visit it in some way. I had visited some other Buddhist temples, and the places and the moods of those experiences are present to me. "In this field recording, I was initially attracted to the stick/brushing sounds, and I thought of working on a percussive composition using strokes. As it turned out I had less time than I would have needed to compose music, and I ended up working only with field recordings. I was also inspired by the voices in the recording. I cannot understand their meaning. I am guessing the setting is a ritual of some sort. But it might be a profane activity. I did a small amount of research, but not enough to enlighten me on this. I considered finding a translator to help. Finally, I chose to follow my intuition, and leave it open and uncertain for the time being. "The temples I visited in Thailand were open and welcoming places. The sound in this recording expresses this to me. It suggests the availability of the space to sacred and profane presences at once. I imagine this as an open setting which represents a welcoming and non-judgemental space. "The file I have submitted contains a blend of four field recordings. 1. The source recording. 2. A motorway joining the edge of the city (Luxembourg) 3. Inside the Cathedral Notre Dame in Luxembourg city 4. The Petruss valley: morning birdsong, Cathedral bells "Recording 3: The geographical distance I inhabit from the source location in Thailand, and the temporal distance from own experience of visiting Thailand, inspired me to make a connection from there to place where I live. I chose to visit a local sacred building; not a temple, but a religious edifice in my city: the Cathedral Notre Dame. I had hoped to stumble upon a similar kind of sound, perhaps an incidental event. I wanted to avoid any overly religious scenarios, as both soundwise and in meaning I didn’t feel an interest for them in this context. As it happened, I sat in the Cathedral in the morning, and the scenario unfolded just as I had hoped. Just after I was seated and began recording, I heard footsteps approaching the prayer alcove not far from me: someone had come to light a votive candle. There was no other activity in the Cathedral at the time, so this action is well audible in detail, recorded from a distance of about five metres. "Recording 2: Before making that recording, I had been standing near a highway entrance/exit, at the edge of my city. The cars were coming evenly from both directions. Sonically rich, and apt in meaning, representing a journey in both directions, and journey makers from both orientations crossing paths, and this repeating over and over. "Recording 4: On the way to the Cathedral for recording 2, I passed through the stunning valley of the Petruss in the city centre. The birdsong in this natural setting seemed the perfect contrast to the highway I had recorded previously. The juxtaposition of these recordings isn’t a sharp contrast. Both are made outdoors, and have tons of natural background ambiance. To my ear the cars and the birds are one vibration resonating in the sky, and the recordings sit with each other nicely. "These four recordings are blended together to make the following propositions: "There is a connection between distant places with shared practices (ritual), and common principles in the use of space (temple/church as place of welcome). "As a metaphor for openness and welcome of both sacred and profane modes of being in a single space, contrasting settings are juxtaposed (cars on a motorway, birds in a wooded valley). The journey between one place and another may go in both directions (cars moving in opposite directions). All the above are held in a totality, represented by nature (valley and resonance of sound, birdsong). "The single continuous recording throughout the piece is a single take inside a cathedral. It is the last track to fade out at the end. The space in this sound is the space of the observer, holding together the connections suggested in the piece. "The only audio processing used was a EQ low cut filters on the outdoor recordings. The mixing of the levels for the various fades in and out of the tracks was done with volume automation control in Logic Pro." Temple sticks at Ayutthaya reimagined by Alan Kavanagh. IMAGE: H191, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

31/03/2025 • 03:04

"What struck me about this recording was the joyful melancholy of the brass band, a bittersweet, steady march. The constant pulse of life. A warm embrace, a salve for wayward souls. The chug of an old train on a long journey. The rhythms that govern our lives, that bring a sense of constancy, but are also relentless and uncompromising. These universally human rhythms but also all biological rhythm and pre biological rhythm. When life feels difficult I often think about the pulses that stretch back to deep time. The emergence of the major transitions in evolution, the very first clockwork of metabolism in some deep sea vent (can you tell I've been reading about the origins of life lately?), or of genetic replication, multicellular organisms, language, and ultimately culture.  "I loved the quality of the brass instruments and sampled these heavily. Many of them I sampled with a long release and set to looping to create non synced delay effects to give it a shifting and organic feel but with a strong backbone pulse. In contrast to the original, everything is submerged as if it were in a deep sea vent. I added a few synthetic sounds on top to complement the rougher sampled sounds. For the arrangement, I wanted to contrast sparse and dense moments and try to give most sounds a chance to breathe as well as to go away for a while and come back to establish a theme. I also varied the main pulsing sounds and played with putting each more in the foreground or background." Religious procession in Lima reimagined by Stanislav Nikolov. ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

31/03/2025 • 06:20

"This piece was inspired by a story my father told me about when he was a student in Istanbul. One night as my father was walking through the grounds of the mosque, from out of the darkness he heard the delicate strains of a musician, the reverberations of their instrument bouncing off the pillars of the courtyard, a sound echoing and decaying like watercolour paints. For my father, it was one of the most profound experiences of his life, a purity of sound so beautiful, it brought him to tears. "Author Dr. Defne Çizakça gave me her oud when she moved back to Türkiye, and it had been languishing in a corner of my music room for a little too long. After hearing the field recording from Ayasofya, I set myself to the task of channeling the reverie of the nighttime musician my father had told me about and the oud seemed the perfect instrument to use for this track. A homage to the overlaying of place and memory, and the peacefulness and awe which the Ayasofya bestows upon us." Oud, violin and composition by Ceylan Hay. Recorded, mixed and mastered by Robyn Dawson in Edinburgh, Scotland. Hagia Sophia reimagined by Bell Lungs. ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

31/03/2025 • 02:23

Svetitskhoveli Cathedral is an Orthodox Christian cathedral located in Georgia's oldest city and former capital, Mtskheta. As I passed through the main entrance and walked through the internal grounds, bell ringers began ringing the bells from high up in one of the towers.  UNESCO listing: Historical Monuments of Mtskheta Recorded by Colin Hunter. ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

31/03/2025 • 08:19

Religious procession in Lima. Stereo 48kHz 24bit. UNESCO listing: Historic Centre of Lima Recorded by Erick Ruiz Arellano. ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

31/03/2025 • 03:46

Binaural recording of a walk around the mosque, November 2015. UNESCO listing: Historic Areas of Istanbul Recorded by David Webb. ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

31/03/2025 • 01:23

Morning birds in Santiago Apoala. Stereo 48kHz 24bit. UNESCO listing: Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Valley: originary habitat of Mesoamerica Recorded by Erick Ruiz Arellano. ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

31/03/2025 • 02:31

Spanning the Douro River, the Dom Luís I Bridge in Porto provides a unique moment of calm in the early hours of the day. The recording captures the peaceful atmosphere, where the distant calls of seagulls and the quiet hum of the city fill the air. In this tranquil setting, the Metro train makes its dramatic entrance, its sound gradually building as it approaches, becoming louder until it passes by, leaving only the faint echoes of its journey. The bridge remains still, with the occasional shift of air and the gentle sounds of the river below, all while the city begins to stir.  This recording encapsulates the quiet tension between the city’s calm morning and the inevitable passage of time marked by the Metro's presence. UNESCO listing: Dom Luís I Bridge Recorded by Serge Bulat. ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

31/03/2025 • 01:20

"This piece reflects the birds of Apoala sounding at first light. After 30 seconds there are sounds of music, representing the unique sonic relationship that birds and their songs have with man." Birds of Apoala reimagined by Tallest Trees. ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

31/03/2025 • 02:25

 "I grew up close to one of the biggest Catholic pilgrimage destinations in the world - I could never escape bells. I love the way they sound, the seemingly impossible rhythms and beatings they create, and the long ringings. "I wanted to preserve those sounds and rhythms in some way, but at the same time reflect the wanton disregard with which we treat our past. I decided to use the sounds of the bells (however shaped, sliced, and mangled) but let them degrade and fall apart throughout the piece. "In the end, I noticed that the voices captured in the square are at times more discernible than the much louder bells, and it sort of fits what I wanted to communicate. "After listening to the source track for a while, I divided it up into phrases which I then split up into relatively long samples. All the sounds in the piece were built from these samples. I used some short slices and looped them so they could be played like a synthesiser. "The arrangement was spread across a number of loops and machines. A couple of sequences were recorded, with everything else played by hand. "I recorded 4 takes to tape, and did some light mastering on my favourite. Written, recorded, and mastered by Pedro Figueiredo. Mtskheta bell ringing reimagined by Stray wool. ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage Stray wool

31/03/2025 • 07:38

"I wanted to create the sense of multiple trains passing over time by breaking up the sounds into component parts with distortion and delay but also introduced the feeling of being on the train at the same time with the background notes." Dom Luis I Bridge, Porto reimagined by David Cowlard. ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

31/03/2025 • 02:05

Blenheim Palace was the birthplace of Britain's most famous Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, and throughout the property there are plenty of reminders of this, including a dedicated permanent exhibition to his life. Attention has been paid to sound in the exhibition, which variously includes mockups of Churchill's voice telling stories about his childhood, Morse code to mark his years in the military, a typewriter to represent his authorial life, and excerpts from his political speeches. This recording is a walkthrough of the exhibition, taking in all of these sounds, on a tour of Churchill's life.  UNESCO listing: Blenheim Palace. Recorded by Cities and Memory. ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

29/03/2025 • 04:49

"To start with I was mostly interested in seeing if I could extract the typewriter and morse code sounds and use those rhythms to trigger snippets of Churchill's voice. I wanted to re-code the existing code and tried a variety of techniques including EQ, AI Stem Splitting, Gates, Envelope Followers, distortion and reverb.  "I started to make some overlapping rhythms with the morse code and typewriter sounds and then used a stem split version of Churchill's voice to refocus the piece and make it about his love of riding. I stretched and pitched his voice down 3 semitones to make it sound even fuller - and a bit funnier, and got into the humour of Churchill in a bowler hat riding on ponies around the grounds reminiscing about the war, and his regiment, whilst galloping along at high speed.  "Towards the end of the composition I reintroduced some of the history of the location with the train sound (referencing the 19th century aristocrat, Consuelo Vanderbilt, who married into the family and saved the palace from ruin with her own funds) and the sound of a toilet flushing (referencing the robbery, in September 2019, of an 18-carat gold toilet worth 4.8 million that had been installed by Maurizio Cattelan as part of his "Victory is not an option" exhibition)." Winston Churchill exhibition, Blenheim Palace reimagined by David Henckel. ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

29/03/2025 • 03:04

On Palm Sunday during Holy Week, all the cathedral bells are rung. It is a unique moment throughout the year. UNESCO listing: Historic Centre of Mexico City Recorded by Leonardo Santiago. ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

29/03/2025 • 07:19

"I love this recording by Leonardo Santiago of the cathedral bells in Mexico City. I was working with a mix of voice, song and sound elements taken from the recording, but then I got sick and couldn’t record the voice elements. So this is a really simple combination of the second part of the recording with a poem I wrote about a visitor descending into the square to the sound of bells." Mexico City cathedral bells reimagined by Melaina Barnes. ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

29/03/2025 • 02:31

 "The world is not this world when heard through the auditory spectrum of a snake. It follows, then, that history itself might also shift if perceived outside the limits of human hearing. Naja Nostalgia is a sound work that employs field recording, geophone recordings, synthesizers, and an improvised Viridu performance to recreate the experience of walking through Sri Lanka’s Galle World Heritage Site—but imagined through the auditory perspective of a cobra. With a limited hearing range of approximately 50–1000 Hz, the snake’s acoustic world offers a radically different filter for understanding space, time, and memory. "What became clear during the compositional process was the surprising resonance between the snake’s frequency spectrum and the emotional texture of human nostalgia. The emphasis on low frequencies—vibrations, sub-bass tones, speaker resonance, and analog hiss—echoed the affective registers of longing and melancholia. In this narrowed spectrum, faint auditory artifacts emerged with heightened poignancy: whispered Portuguese and Dutch fragments, brief bursts of laughter, and fleeting exchanges between tourists and snake charmers. These sonic residues surfaced as spectral memories, suspended in the soundscape like half-remembered dreams. "By deliberately using the speaker’s voice to cut the 50-1000hz frequency range, the soundscape sways been human and snake hearing and resemble an analog past—one evoking the tactile, time-worn quality of cassette tapes, LPs, and perhaps even earlier recording technologies. This sonic filtering became a metaphor for how nostalgia operates: not as a complete recollection, but as a selective and often distorted echo of what once was. "This approach to listening brought me back to the idea that tourism itself is a complicated engagement with the past. It can often be a reductive encounter in which one culture experiences another through a narrow, mediated spectrum—visually, aurally, emotionally. My improvised Viridu performance sought to engage with this complexity not only through sound, but through the act of listening itself: as both an intervention and an act of attentiveness. "Like nostalgia, the auditory world of the snake distorts, condenses, and reorients. It is a form of hearing that vibrates through the body, bypassing the ear and settling somewhere deeper. It does not seek to reconstruct a full historical narrative, but instead evokes fragments—sensorial, partial, and affectively charged."  Galle fort, Sri Lanka reimagined by James Belflower. ——————— This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights. Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage

29/03/2025 • 03:46