Cities And Memory

Bantu songs from Zambia: recording of a selection of Bantu songs and music, including drumming, issued by the Zambia Broadcasting Corporation.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 Zambia Broadcasting Corporation.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

While artist-in-residence at the Alice Boner Institute in Varanasi, India, I was lucky to hear chanting every day - nearly all day. The chanting is sacred - but it is also joyous. I wanted to capture that.Women singing reimagined by Bari women chanting———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 came to this field recording by chance, yet I still remember the first time I listened to it, standing in my kitchen with headphones on, looking out the window. The second I pressed play, the singing moved me; it was abstract to me, yet full of movement, texture, and power. As I listened multiple times, different sounds and tones in the singing became noticeable. The sound felt alive and overpowering in a positive way. Later, the question for me was how to respond to this recording.The process of creating the piece was slow at first; it took several deep listening sessions of the original recording, along with jotting down any ideas on how to proceed. Then, in a brainstorming session, I paired listening with drawing. I started with no preconceived notion of an outcome, just unrestricted flow. It was then that the piece's overall concept and structure became clear to me. Drawing helped visualise the number of elements the piece would have and their interactions and relationships with one another.In this pie

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel recordings of music and spoken language (principally Thulung Rai) made by anthropologist Nicholas Allen in Nepal and India between 1970 and 1981.Recorded by Nicholas Justin Allen.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

Mamadu playing the geedal (bow harp) in the forest with the sound of rain dripping. 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

The development of this piece was particularly complicated for reasons I can’t fully explain. I tried various jumping off points, taking sections of the initial harmonica melody, and working on that with counter-melodies, call and response, writing on melodica and piano, working with voice, manipulating the original melodic phrasing, and nothing stuck for quite a while. Then I left the ideas alone for some time and began working on a parallel piece for the Cities and Memory Autumn Project and this helped free something up….I continued by retuning, and taking individual notes from the original recording out - keeping some of the melodic phrasing intact, but slowing it down and spacing it out. This forced a more mellow approach overall, and at this point I took a lot of elements back out again to give more space. At the same time, I worked with Nicky, my collaborator, on developing piano parts and this really helped to ground the work. From then onwards it was a much smoother process, and I could intuit a dire

What is the sound of a poetry work emerging from a fascinating, haunting, remote (for the poet) territory?A reverberation, a story, a journey within a journey, moving through spaces and beings. Awe and gratitude for merging voices temporally scattered. An original 55 second recording, an Indigenous woman calling to a parrot on the Purricha river, a diary, two students – Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith - their anthropological research and a summer trip to Chocó Department, Colombia, 1965.We hear therefore we feel, in a process of listening to archived sounds, screeching ghosts, deep listening into ourselves, with body and soul, listening across species and time, listening against, as a political stance of resistance. Calling and answering to connect and become memory. And then receiving, page by page/jpeg by jpeg, the 1965 journal written by our travellers, and zooming and corresponding with a fellow artist who by chance is an anthropologist, Colombian, learning with Chocó’s riverine communities a

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).Unknown recordist.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 reel-to-reel tape recordings of Chocó music and soundscapes made by students Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith in Colombia in 1965.Recorded by Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith.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 reel-to-reel tape recordings of Chocó music and soundscapes made by students Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith in Colombia in 1965.Recorded by Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith.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

A Navel-Miel performance accompanied by shaken rattle and seed pods.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

Azul means “hello” in Berber. Azul – Two Worlds is inspired by Akassar, a traditional Berber song recorded in 1961 as part of the Oxford University Expedition to the Atlas Mountains, now preserved in the Pitt Rivers Museum archive. When I first heard the field recording, its melodies and rhythms unexpectedly resonated with elements of traditional Korean music, evoking both familiarity and wonder. This connection inspired me to explore the cultural and historical context of the Berber people, whose long oral traditions and deep historical roots mirror the ancient musical heritage of Korea.Guided by a respect for the original material, I sought to preserve its melodic character, rhythmic vitality, and live, organic texture. I layered improvisational gayageum and a variety of Asian percussion instruments with the field recording, using minimal reverb only to enhance spatial cohesion while keeping the recording prominent. Subtle quotations of the Korean folk song Kwaejina Chingching and traditional kkwaenggwari

"Tu Paine": song for guitar performed by Robert and Paul.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

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of Berber (Ait Haddidu) music and soundscapes made by members of the Oxford University Expedition to the Atlas Mountains of Southern Morocco in 1961.Recorded by Audrey Butt, Michael R. Emerson or Ralph Hudson Johnson.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 Colonisation of Language: A Phraseology in Five Parts explores, in a broad sense, aspects of oral storytelling and how the influence of colonisation can corrupt language and the sense of an origin story through multiple iterations over time. In much of my sound work, I’m drawn to the spoken word, and was immediately drawn to the characteristics within the vocal utterances contained in the 1962 original field recording by Raymond Clausen of a Navel-Miel performance accompanied by shaken rattles and seed pods from Malekula, Vanuatu. Selecting snippets of these utterances with some of the percussive elements, I created a speculative language to run alongside the opening paragraph of the Brothers Grimm tale, Rapunzel (1812). I assigned an utterance to each word in the story and developed a version of this story "spoken" in this speculative language. Distinct phrases contained within the original narration are repeated and ‘corrupted’ through unlikely juxtapositions of these set phrases over the length of the

When I listened to the recording, I went back to sit with my mother in nature in the village. The rhythm was beating her favourite song (Rewşenê) alongside '"Tu Paine", and it was reciting memories that will not be remembered unless passing through a genocide. It is inspiring how 14,000 kilometres of distance can vibrate the same feelings that I had in my childhood. It is interesting how a sound can describe nature, culture, the spiritual, and a divine power that music has and how it travels with the wind to gather with other communities and add their cultural sounds. The song Rewşen has been dug into my memory and it connects me to my land whenever I hear something similar. The song is a traditional song about love stories where lovers need to be married at the end. For this recording, I played the oldest instrument among Yazidi people called Tembûr. It is a collection of wood, strings, and animal veins alongside human ability to bring sound to it. Tembûr is used in every house among the Yazidi community an

I was attracted to the age and broken nature of this recording and wanted to use the noise as a feature. All the sounds featured originate from the original, however mangled they have become. One could could hear all the layers of noise to be the 100+ years that have past since the recording was captured - with the original sounds still trying to break through. Balangi (xylophone) duet reimagined by Alex Vald.———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 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

I listened to this beautiful excerpt of Nadeng singing to her child and the sonic presence of children and a baby. I grew increasingly attached to their voices and carefully traced their audible responses to each other. I read about the context of this recording – mother to child, mother to children, singing in South Sudan. The wars that have afflicted this place. The civil war that had recently ended, and the war that would commence soon after Nadeng sang in this recording. The traditional instruments and songs of the area and the people. I chose to use the field recording unadorned, foregrounding Nadeng’s singing - so her voice, the children, the baby and the incidental sounds, all lead the new music composition and sound art here, as I recast the lullaby into a song cycle, and in which contemporary instruments respond to all the sonic elements within the archive field recording. The woodwinds are in a dialogue with the voices from the archive recording, the percussion and bass supporting each voice (instr

"Fiat Lux". From the living breath of Genesis to the Kikuyu’s sacred seed, from the Greek cosmic egg to the Sulawesi tale of the earth-shaking boar scratching its itch — across countless traditions, humankind has always sought to explain the origins of the cosmos. Perhaps fewer people are aware that humanity has also tried to explain the origins of technological life, with ‘technology’ here meaning the discovery of activities that enabled progress: agriculture, the construction of more complex structures, brewing, and the domestication of animals. The myths, or stories, that describe how humankind, often with the help of divine or supernatural beings, came to acquire such knowledge are known as "civilisation myths".Western scholars (ethnographers, anthropologists, linguists, and archaeologists alike) were often fascinated by the collection of such stories from remote or so-called ‘exotic’ places. These narratives were variously published in richly illustrated children’s books or in dense and rather austere a