Cities And Memory

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a large collection of cassette tape and digital audio tape recordings of Bayaka music and soundscapes made by ethnomusicologist Louis Sarno mainly in the Central African Republic (and the Republic of Congo) between 1986 and 2009.Recorded by Louis Sarno.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

I heard the piece, which is a Vanuata hymn called 'You say you no want ’im married long me,' and connected with it immediately. Despite not knowing what the lyrics were about the singing was filled with emotion and a kind of melancholy that I often bring to my own work. I contacted Pitt Rivers for details on the lyrics, as I thought I would like to add my own singing to the piece, but unfortunately the sound recordist Raymond Clausen published little on his fieldwork. It turned out to be quite a tricky track to work with as the original recording wasn't in a consistent key or rhythm. I got around this by turning the piece into a sort of fugue; organs and choir ensembles have a breath and dissonance to them that I felt would complement the voices in the recording, and be in keeping with the original context of the song."You say you no want 'im married long me" reimagined by Hattie Cooke.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt River

U'wa drones from the Andes in north-east Colombia.From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel recordings of U'wa songs and stories made by anthropologist Ann Osborn in the Northern Andes (Sierra Nevada del Cocuy region) in Colombia between 1969 and 1977.Recorded by Ann Osborn.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

"Merer Pake": an nDavu trumpet signal for a full circle tusked boar.From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a large collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of music and soundscapes made by ethnomusicologist Raymond Clausen mainly on the island of Malekula (Malampa Province) in Vanuatu between 1960 and 1979.Recorded by Raymond Ernst Clausen.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

Spoken word recording of Mekana discussing a case of adultery.From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of wax cylinder recordings of Zande songs, dances and spoken language made by social anthropologist Edward Evans-Pritchard in South Sudan between 1928 and 1930.Recorded by Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

"You say you no want 'im married long me" (song performed by men, women and children).From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a large collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of music and soundscapes made by ethnomusicologist Raymond Clausen mainly on the island of Malekula (Malampa Province) in Vanuatu between 1960 and 1979.Recorded by Raymond Ernst Clausen.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

Narel (song) performed by Peter, Sali and Mal Sekini.From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a large collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of music and soundscapes made by ethnomusicologist Raymond Clausen mainly on the island of Malekula (Malampa Province) in Vanuatu between 1960 and 1979.Recorded by Raymond Ernst Clausen.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

The song "Narel" made me think about the power of separate and unique voices working together. The name Narel in Hebrew also mean "singing". I was inspired to use the field recording to make new voices that I could remix in different ways and recombine to form a new whole. In my version of "Narel", the field recording is manipulated in various ways to create different instruments - choirs, guitars, strings - upon which a new composition is built.Narel (song) reimagined by Kid Kin.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

I haven’t sung professionally in over 21 years and had long stopped writing and recording music. I am trying to return to it but these things are easier said than done. I was immediately drawn to this 1987 recording of a woman singing with harmonium recorded by David Mowat in the town of Mahalingapur, in the Indian state of Karnataka. It was perfect as it was – and in choosing it I knew I would be setting myself up to fail. Something about it spoke to me, though, and I felt hopeful that perhaps this unknown, beautiful woman might accompany me back to singing. Her voice was so strong, so effortless, that I couldn’t hope to match it; I couldn’t hold the notes or even understand what she was saying. I listened closely. I pulled out my old vocal warmup tape, began rehearsing and sang alongside the recording every day.Between first hearing her voice and producing my version, I stepped far outside my comfort zone. In one of those crazy “and why not?!” moments an old friend I decided to start a band and record an a

This has been the most difficult piece I have ever written for Cities and Memory. What could I add to a recording made by Patti Langton of a young Moru man - Timon Beri? The recording was of Timon singing and playing a lamellophone. Whatever I ever I did, it felt like cheap exploitation. The recording was beautiful, authentic and real.In my research I came across a paper by Patti Langton called Personal Reflections on Fieldwork: A Moral Dilemma and it resonated and hit hard with how I was feeling about what I was creating with this field recording. In the end, with the deadline fast approaching I separated Timon’s voice from the lamellophone and decided to use his voice as a sort of tribute to him, even though it was heavily processed. As I was scouring for further inspiration, I found a vocal sample which says "we dance, we dream, we love" and this became the title of the track as well as being the light in the piece. Up to then it had been a brooding dark piece of dark electronica which I felt represented

I saw this recording before I heard it. At the Pitt Rivers Museum at the start of the project. The physical object: an original Edison wax phonograph cylinder from 1914. I was struck by how modern it seemed in some ways; the corporate branding on the label. I imagined it being purchased from a shop. Then I saw it was a recording made in Nagaland and I thought of my friend, Temsu, an artist from Nagaland. I thought of Nagaland: such a fascinating place, so rich in tradition and culture; megaliths, hills and jungle. Then I heard the recording, the voices singing rhythmically, a work song designed to make the hours pass and how the hours have passed – into years, decades, a century. I wondered about those people and how little I will ever know of their lives. And the voice that introduces the recording too, an anthropologist now just as lost to time as the singing Nagas, his world on the brink of being consumed by an industrial warfare that within a generation would reach Nagaland too in one of the biggest, mos

The field recording that I worked with was a wax cylinder recording of a Zande funeral song. One of the things that really struck me when I first listened to it was how this funeral song is buried beneath the imperfections of its recording medium – you just hear this single impassioned, grieving voice breaking out through layers of noise and obfuscation. I thought there was something strangely poignant about hearing this almost century-old funeral song, originally intended to memorialise a lost loved one, itself having become an imperfect and dwindling memory.Following on from hearing the recording in this way, I wrote the song 'Int. Exteriors (Day)', which aims to convey how it feels to find yourself momentarily severed from the material present moment. How it feels, for example, to be internally going through intense emotions but not feeling able to express them out in an everyday public space.In terms of how the field recording itself is incorporated in 'Int. Exteriors (Day)'; the recording emerges throug

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of cassette tape recordings of songs and instruments made by playwright David Mowat across several different states in India during 1987.Recorded by David Mowat.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

The Land is Our Mother is based on a collection of field recordings of digeridoos made for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies from the archive of the Pitts River Museum. Information about the recordings is limited but they were originally recorded on reel to reel tape.The recordings are rich and varied, some including song, but I eventually had to choose some of my favourites to build the piece. I was particularly interested in using the rhythms as these are such a key aspect in the power of digeridoo playing.The piece is called the Land is Our Mother in reference to the feelings of Indigenous People towards the land, its evolution and their rights to live in the land. Indigenous People have lived in Australia for at least 60,000 years and have a deep respect and spiritual connection to the land which is often expressed through digeridoo playing.“The land is our mother. Like a human mother, the land gives us protection, enjoyment and provides out needs economic, social and religious.” (Djinyini G

Sanza (lamellophone) music performed by young Moru man Timon Beri.From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of cassette tape recordings of music and spoken language (principally Laarim) made by anthropologist Patti Langton in South Sudan during 1979 and 1980.Recorded by Patti Langton.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

"Ishi no ghi sholu": an agricultural work song performed by a group of Sümi Naga male singers.From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of wax cylinder recordings of Naga (Angami, Sümi, Lotha, Chang and Sangtam) songs made by administrator and anthropologist John Hutton in India between 1915 and 1919.Recorded by John Henry Hutton.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of wax cylinder recordings of Zande songs, dances and spoken language made by social anthropologist Edward Evans-Pritchard in South Sudan between 1928 and 1930.Recorded by Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

Korea: three instrumental pieces of music, featuring the hyang piri (double-reed wind instrument or oboe) and hojok (double-reed wind instrument, also known as taepyeongso), recorded at the Institute for National Classical Music in Seoul.From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being one of a small number of recordings issued or released by foreign broadcasting corporations or radio associations.Recorded by Laurence Rowland and Ernest Picken.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

 "Didgeridoo music": collection of didgeridoo recordings prepared by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (now the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies), with commentary.From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being one of a number of miscellaneous or individual ethnographic field recordings (rediscovered during a recent research project).Recorded by Alexander Cornelis van der Leeden and John Robert Cleverly.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

The sound that I was allocated for this track was described as a Zande drinking song, from a collection of wax cylinder recordings of Zande songs, dances and spoken language made by social anthropologist Edward Evans-Pritchard in South Sudan between 1928 and 1930. I spent some time thinking about the collection of songs that was taking place across the world from the end of the 19th Century right up to that time, and wondered what kind of 'drinking song' might have been collected right here, where I am in the North York Moors National Park. I listened to lots of source recordings of English drinking songs from the EFDSS Full English digital archive, but I was drawn back to the Mummers play that we perform in Whitby every year, and the character of the Doctor, who has a little bottle in his inside-outside-jacket-pocket. It's a little Nip Nap, and it's most effective if you let it run down your tip tap. It will cure all ills, and do you good. When I was listening to the recording, I was struck by the rhythmic