Cities And Memory

A quiet and nice village besides Yellow River at Lanzhou City. QinQiang opera from the loud speaker in the village and this is very local sound. Happy birds are busy on working. What a wonderful soundscape. Recorded by Digimonk. IMAGE: Sigismund von Dobschütz, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

"'In Passage' was inspired by the field recording “Boat engines roar, Loch Coruisk” by Cities and Memory. I love this field recording of a tourist boat and wanted to enhance it with additional recordings from my library, including boat and shoreline field recordings, a contact microphone recording of a metal park gate, and sonic excerpts of other forms of travel: train, horse carriage and helicopter.  "The original field recording was edited into three parts, linked together and supported by my recordings." Isle of Skye ferry trip reimagined by Edward Ruchalski.

"I put the original recording through a bit of distortion, listened to it for a while, and then went over it with some text from my phone notes that felt like it fitted the original sounds. My practice involves extended vocal techniques, I tried to treat the original recording as a collaborator in the same space as me to some extent." Lanzhou City soundscape reimagined by Yol. IMAGE: Sigismund von Dobschütz, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

"This six-minute composition combines the Isle of Skye Coral Beach recording with my own field recordings of water and hands passing through shells of an invasive species, from Lake Michigan at Europe Bay (in Northern Wisconsin) near where I grew up. I've been developing several compositions about waves, and movements across geographies - the Isle of Skye beach recording was quite subtle and rhythmic.  "I paired these field recordings with overdriven, distorted melodics granular sampling of the recordings too, that remind, perhaps, of distant engines of seafaring vessels - a sonic memory-music of two huge bodies of water and shorelines." Wave on Coral Beach, Skye reimagined by Gregory Scheckler.

"I've never been to the Dolomites before, but a close friend was recently there. He showed me his photos of the mountain range and told me about the locals and hikers he met along the trails and in the backcountry. Seems amazing. His stories supplemented the original field recording in a way that enabled me to start working on the music.  "I knew I wanted to use an acoustic guitar as a key driving element for the feeling I was going for. I also knew that I would keep the original field recording unadulterated to provide more realistic context." Birdsong and insects in the Dolomites reimagined by Eulipion Corps.

Taking a break next in a pasture on a hike in the Dolomites, while we admire the view we can hear birdsong in the trees surrounding us and the gentle buzz of insects. Recorded by Cities and Memory, July 2025. 

"My first ever autumn was in Berlin and I also worked for a year in German train stations, so this field recording has an emotional weight for me. The title refers to unused train stations that were closed due to the division of the city during the Cold War.  "It means 'Ghost Stations' in German. For me, the memories of those train stations are like ghosts that haunt me during melancholic and nostalgic hours; this is what I try to capture in the piece through the lens of who I am now." Berlin Hauptbahnhof reimagined by 8110118.

A walkthrough of Berlin's main station, with announcements drenched in the huge reverb of the station hall, then the classic sounds of trolley bags, escalators, passengers as we explore this vast station and make our way underground to the U-bahn.  Recorded in Berlin by Cities and Memory, September 2025. 

"A captivating field recording of fog machines in an outdoor setting was fed into a number of granular synth engines. This resulted in crackles, reverb shadow and drift. Different colours and movement ( fog drift) in the reimagined track emerged.  "I built and recorded a number of different passages settling on a drifting, arpeggiated loop which allowed the field recording to move in and out of focus. Layered and distressed the track finally was completed." Fog installation in the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin reimagined by Andy Billington. 

A remarkable fog installation in the sculpture garden of the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, by Fujiko Nakaya. This site-specific installation activates once per hour, and fills the garden with vaporous fog, playing with the architecture of Mies van der Rohe. Fog formations emerge from different sides of the garden, blending with the trees and permanent sculptures, before slowly dissolving into the sky.  The moving fog appears at various densities, at times at a nearly tangible volume, at others as a translucent veil. And it's an interesting sonic experience too - and fascinating to be the only person there focusing on the sounds, instead of the remarkable sights.  Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

Inside the Boros Collection bunker, listening to a sound installation of distorted bells on a speaker suspended by chains, made by Eliza Douglas. The space has a fascinating past as a shelter, a prison for political prisoners, and a techno and sex club - and now it hosts a conceptual art exhibition. The sound captures both the muffled sounds of museum-goers on one side, and the passage of air and the sounds from Berlin outside on the other. Recorded in Berlin by Cities and Memory, September 2025.

"I have a long history with Berlin, and this contemporary art bunker represents very well everything the city means for me. It's deep, dark, yet lively and hopeful. This is my love letter to Berlin." Boros Collection sound installation in Berlin reimagined by the figurehead.

"The sound of calling to prayers from mosques is featured in the original field recording; it's a very vague and distant call accompanied by street sound and people chatter, but it's still breathtaking. It's even more fascinating that the exact timings of this chant vary daily based on astronomical calculations. I've never been to Turkey and not religious either, but I am still deeply drawn to the epic like spectacle that the chant can create in a simple recording.  "My composition is based on the call and it's a re-imagination of how this chant works its power to connect all beings, locations, landscapes and senses in a wider field. To echo this, and reflect on Istanbul's geographic position connecting two continents and two seas, I have merged elements of mosque soundscape, Turkish Saz, drone, and ship horns from the sea in the composition. It's the music that is born from the location and departs from the location." Call to prayer in Istanbul reimagined by Shan Lyu.

Visiting Istanbul for the purpose of recording was fascinating because one could find locations in the city without too much car sounds. This was in 2013. I wanted to go to the Asian side of Istanbul to Kadiköy. There I found a small side street and recorded. I am not religious in any way but still always enjoyed the call for the prayers.  Recorded by Sirpa Jokinen.

"I’ve always viewed and listened to the ocean in a special way, and the sounds of the field recording inspired me to create this piece. I called it Impermanence for a couple of reasons… just like our lives and our consciousness, the waves are both individual and part of the ocean at the same time - all and one. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form, as is said in Buddhism. "At my mother’s funeral a couple of years back, as is part of our culture, we scattered her ashes into a river, which flows into the ocean. So I always think of her when I look out into the sea, wherever I am in the world, as she's now a part of it. I managed to get some sampled recordings of her, from an old video recorder my brother had playing with my niece some 20 odd years ago, which I've placed in the middle of the piece… hopefully conveying my memories of her within the sounds of the ocean waves. "We all have different beliefs which of course should be respected, but I believe we as humans are both temporary (in conscious existence)

The sunsets on Malapascua Island in the Philippines feel like explosions in the sky — wild, breathtaking, and almost unreal. But beneath that blaze of colour, it’s the sound of the waves that holds you — soft laps against the shoreline, repeating like a forgotten lullaby. I stayed there alone, wrapped in the rhythm of the sea, as if time had unraveled and tomorrow didn’t exist. The sky burned in hues I didn’t know names for, and the ocean spoke in its slow, endless tongue. In that moment, sound and color were equal — and both were everything. Recorded by Rafael Diogo.

"A woman writes a message during her daily tram commute to work. Seemingly insignificant details, like selling a table or a couch, hide a deeply personal story about love, and the fragility of the hope for new beginnings." Melbourne tram journey reimagined by Cristina Marras.

This recording from 2025 captures a short commute using Melbourne's iconic trams in the city centre. It's not unusual for trams to be packed and this afternoon was no exception as many people were also heading to a football game.  The clatter of the trams mingle with conversations and crosswalks, bringing the Melbourne CBD to life. Recorded in Melbourne, Australia by Janina Castro.

"Invisible Anchor is a downtempo ambient track centred around a seismic field recording of an electricity pylon, this served as the primary background pad. The field recording was tuned to the track's key using Temperance Pro from Eventide and it matched the track length precisely. For the overall character, the master mix was run through Air Music Tech's FlavorPro with a tweaked cassette tape preset to introduce a lo-fi vibe. All music elements originated from Sonic Charge's Synplant II and the Air Music Tech DrumSynth." Electricity pylon in Wytham Woods, England reimagined by Karhide.

This is a recording made with a seismic microphone attached to an electricity pylon in the English countryside in Wytham Woods, Oxfordshire.  The sounds come from the wind vibrating the entire structure, as captured by this specialist microphone. Recorded by Cities and Memory.