Cities and Memory was recommended by BBC Radio 4 Extra's show Podcast Hour, on an episode focusing on the best of global Audio Art and Found Sound. Here's what they had to say about our podcast.

Cities and Memory - remixing the sounds of the world

3489: Cities and Memory on BBC Radio 4 Podcast Hour

Valsanzibio bells heard from distance at Villa Barbarigo reimagined by Audio Obscura. "I loved the field recording I used but once I sat down with it, found it quite hard to work with. After a few efforts which I discarded, I sat down and just improvised with the recording, making loops fed into effects. It sounded OK so without a plan just added some basic improvised piano one night after a couple of glasses of wine.  "Listening back I thought it was OK. After this I began to arrange the track, adding orchestral sounds and drum sounds - I couldn't imagine using anything that sounded modern so wanted percussion that didn't sound modern but reflecting an older Italy. I then added church style organ sounds. It was hard to navigate the soundscape for this one and I had doubts all the time in making this."

3488: Heard from Distance (Soundscape for inside your head)

The Tempio Canoviano or Temple of Canova is a neoclassical temple, based on the designs of Antonio Canova (https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Antonio_Canova) , in Possagno in norther Italy.  Work on the temple begun in 1819 and resumed after Canova's death in 1822.  The structure recalls the Pantheon of Rome (https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Pantheon_of_Rome) . Canova almost single-handedly financed the site since he wished to be buried there after his request of a burial at the Rome Pantheon was denied. Upon completion in 1830 his remains were transferred to the church.  This soundscape is from inside the grand temple, with echoing reverbs, but also a faint recording of plainsong being heard that nods to an ancient past in 2020.

3485: Inside Tempio Canoviano

Villa Barbarigo (also known as Villa Barbarigo Pizzoni Ardemani from its various proprietors) is a 17th-century rural villa in northern Italy, with historic gardens, fountains and beautiful grounds. Here we're standing at the old entrance gates to the villa, through which people would have arrived somewhat grandly by boat.  Today's soundscape is the distant bells from nearby Valsanzibio drifting across the air, underpinned by the chirping of cicadas, but in 2020 the sound is punctuated by passing cars, instead of boats.  Recorded by Cities and Memory.

3487: Bells at Villa Barbarigo

Tempio Canoviano in Possagno reimagined by Nick St. George. "When I was a Prog Rock-loving teenager, I had a thing about Mellotrons. I used to buy albums just because they had a Mellotron on them! Imagine my delight then, when I recently discovered some virtual Mellotron software - its choral sounds seeming appropriate for this setting, though they turned out to be rather more demonic than angelic! "There's even a hint of distant choral singing in the field recording as a cue. It is almost as if some arcane and somewhat unsettling ritual is being performed in the church, while daily life continues all around it. And this is interrupted occasionally by a mad and somewhat limited organist, performing upon an instrument that has seen better days!"

3486: Mass for Mellotron

"During lockdown all music live events were cancelled. Many musicians went to the streets and played. People from the windows threw them some coins or food. They are playing "Asi Fue" a song by famous and iconic Mexican musician, Juan Gabriel. I love the dogs barking in the distance, annoyed by the music." Recorded in Mexico City by Luis Arenas López. Part of the StayHomeSounds project to map and reimagine the sounds of the Covid-19 lockdowns.

3484: Street band plays a famous Mexican song during lockdown

A sound from New York's lockdown recorded from an apartment fire escape on April 23 2020 in the Lower East Side. Recorded by Ryan Kailath. Part of the StayHomeSounds project to map and reimagine the sounds of the Covid-19 lockdowns.

3483: From a fire escape in New York

Recorded by Claire Maurel. "Sunday 1st of november at noon in a small city in the south of France, quite touristy during high seasons. Today is All Saints Day, it is also the second lockdown in France. I'm walking around the beautiful city square. It is deserted today.  "One can only hear the sound of the big fountain and the ringing of the church bells, there is few people chatting in the background. It is a day of ancient tradition.  "Yet, the cloudy sky, and silence amplify a strange feeling of unprecedented and lingering threat. Pandemic. Lockdown. Terrorist attacks. Those terrible words are in every head, in every home. The sounds of the fountain and the bells have been there forever, going through wars and disasters.  "They are a comforting lullaby that reminds us that everything passes, and beauty remains, always. "In the Christian tradition, today celebrates the known and unknown saints. Believers or not, Christian or not, today is a day of Faith and Hope. I light a candle back home for everyone of us." Part of the StayHomeSounds project to map and reimagine the sounds of the Covid-19 lockdowns.

3482: Uzès, South of France - second Lockdown on All Saints' Day

The Rialto Bridge is one of the busiest spots in Venice, both in the tourist shops on top of the bridge, and the Grand Canal traffic below. Join us as we find a cosy spot next to this iconic bridge and listen to the sounds of Venice passing by us, including gondolas, a police boat, an ambulance boat with wailing sirens and the vaporetti (water taxis). Recorded by Cities and Memory.

3481: Life under the Rialto Bridge, Venice

Rialto Bridge sounds reimagined by Richard Gadd. "I have used the entire original recording and have highlighted and altered sections to create a richer soundscape.The original plays throughout the reimagined piece anchoring it in a lived in city. I was struck by the classical renaissance beauty of the bridge and the contrasting modern sounds."

3480: Washes under the Rialto

Sports cars drifting reimagined by Cities and Memory. The original field recording is an exciting listen - two sports cars practising their Fast and the Furious-style drifting in an empty car park at night. If anything, the distance between the cars and the recording device adds to the dynamism, with acres of reverb coming from those tuned-up engines.  For the reimagined piece, it's all about the engines, and trying to generate some of that same kinetic energy. The basic rhythms are generated by injecting motion into the car engine samples, around which the track is formed: drums are added, basslines in each half, and a series of dynamic, mobile synth lines from the Buchla Easel and ARP 2000 keep the energy levels high. This is The Drift. 

3479: The Drift

Two sports cars practising synchronized drifting in an empty parking lot at midnight in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. Recorded by Steve Burnett.

3478: Midnight drifters

Monte Grappa WW1 shelter reimagined by Cities and Memory. Walking around inside a shelter carved from the very rock of the mountain was a humbling experience, thinking of the incredible hardship enduring during the Great War in the mountains, and the effort that had to go into creating a supply line.  As a sonic tribute, the recording is blended with La Canzone del Grappa ('Mount Grappa'), a song composed in August 1918 by Captain Antonio Meneghetti as we make our way around the shelter, fading at the end as we reemerge into the misty daylight. Here are the lyrics, in both Italian and English. La Canzone del Grappa Monte Grappa tu sei la mia patria, sovra a te il nostro sole risplende, a te mira chi spera ed attende i fratelli che a guardia vi stan. Contra a te già s'infranse il nemico, che all'Italia tendeva lo sguardo: non si passa un cotal baluardo affidato ad italici cuor. Monte Grappa tu sei la mia patria, sei la stella che addita il cammino, sei la gloria, il volere, il destino, che all'Italia ci fa ritornar. Le tue cime fur sempre vietate per il piè dell'odiato straniero dei tuoi fianchi egli ignora il sentiero che pugnando più volte tentò. Qual la candida neve che al verno ti ricopre di splendido ammanto, tu sei puro ed invitto col vanto che il nemico non lasci passar. Monte Grappa tu sei la mia patria... O montagna per noi tu sei sacra giù di lì scenderanno le schiere che irrompenti a spiegate bandiere l'invasore dovranno scacciar. Ed i giorni del nostro servaggio che scontammo mordendo nel freno, in un forte avvenire sereno noi ben presto vedremo mutar. Monte Grappa tu sei la mia patria... English Translation - Mount Grappa Mount Grappa you are my motherland our sun shines over you Those who hope and wait they look at you they look at the brothers at guard on you The enemy's already broken against you, he who already aimed to Italy no one can pass such a bulwark put in charge to Italian hearts. Mount Grappa you are my motherland, you are the star showing the way you are the glory, the will, the destiny, that makes us remembering Italy Your peaks were always banned to the foot of the hated foreigner he doesn't know the way on your flanks that he tried to fight out. Like the snow that in winter covers you with a white mantel so you are pure and undefeated with the pride of having never let the enemy pass. Mount Grappa you are my motherland... O mountain, you are sacred to us the stormy ranks, with flags raised will descend from you to drive out the enemy We will soon see the days of our servitude, that we endured with great efforts, change in a serene future. Mount Grappa you are my motherland...

3477: Monte Grappa tu sei la mia patria

This recording is from inside one of the many shelters carved into Monte Grappa, northern Italy, during World War 1, as soldiers cleared and protected a supply line through the mountains. It was a humbling experience to walk through these shelters, thinking of the huge effort it would have taken to make them in the first place, and the hardship endured on the mountains by those soldiers. Recorded by Cities and Memory.

3476: Inside a mountain war bunker

Aeolian-Skinner organ reimagined by Baying Ridges."The original track had a sadness but also some hope to it. I wanted to focus on that hope amid a wash of drones and noise. Hence the title, A Hopeful Thought."

3475: A hopeful thought

Cities and Memory is a global collaborative sound project that presents field recordings of the world, but also reimagined, recomposed versions of those recordings - remixing the world, one sound at a time. What you'll hear in the podcast are our latest sounds - either a field recording from somewhere in the world, or a remixed new composition based solely on the sounds of the world. Each podcast description tells you more about what you're hearing, and where it came from. There are more than 3,000 sounds featured on our sound map, spread over more than 90 countries. The sounds cover parts of the world as diverse as the hubbub of San Francisco’s main station, traditional fishing women’s songs in Lake Turkana, the sound of computer data centres in Birmingham, spiritual temple chanting in New Taipei City or the hum of the vaporetto engines in Venice. You can explore the project in full at www.citiesandmemory.com

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Cities and Memory - remixing the sounds of the world

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