The field recording upon which this piece is based doesn't sound like much, but it represents a huge moment for the Cities and Memory project, and a personal moment for me. The first ever overseas recording submitted to the project back in 2015 was from Sofienbergparken in Oslo, and it felt incredible that the project had managed to reach anyone outside of the UK and inspire them to submit a sound. From tiny acorns, mighty oaks grow, and ten years later we're close to 8,000 sounds submitted to the project.
I was invited to return to Oslo to perform Cities and Memory live shows and deliver a presentation, and so visiting Sofienbergparken was a kind of pilgrimage to me - a place I'd imagined through sound but never seen. It was a glorious September late afternoon, with warm golden sunshine, and I recorded a walkthrough of the park, with lots of different groups all enjoying the space, from children in the playground to groups listening to music and smoking, groups playing table tennis, groups sitting around enjoying a Saturday evening beer, dog walkers, exercisers and so on - all of Oslo was here to enjoy the park, it seemed.
This piece tries to sum up in sound some of what I felt in that golden sunshine, experiencing a moment of warmth and peace ten years on from that first sound. Synths layer on the warmth of emotion, while snippets from the field recording of enjoyment - children playing, table tennis matches in action - rise up into the mix. A layered bed of the field recording sits underneath, and pans from left to right as the piece progresses, so you join me on a walk across the park - the final sounds are the crunch of gravel underfoot as I finally take my leave, satisfied.
Sofienbergparken reimagined by Cities and Memory.
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A special moment in Sofienbergparken
A special recording for me - the very first recording from outside the UK submitted to Cities and Memory in 2015 was from Sofienbergparken in Oslo. It seemed like a dream that not only had the project somehow managed to cross borders, but had also made a connection of some kind, so to me even this humble city park held a kind of magic.
To go there ten years later and record it for myself felt like a special moment, so this recording holds power for me. Within it, you'll hear an evening walkthrough in golden sunlight, with groups chatting and playing music, children playing, people playing ping pong and generally hanging out on a Saturday evening.
Recorded by Cities and Memory, September 2025.
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Quiraing sunrise
"Having enjoyed family holidays on Skye in the past I was immediately drawn to this recording as Quiraing is one of those places that makes you really appreciate what an amazing thing this planet is.
"Catch a good sunrise/sunset and it's genuinely breathtaking. I wanted to try and capture just a little bit of that feeling in my piece."
Quiraing, Isle of Skye water sounds reimagined by Exit Chamber.
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Nobuo in the between
"The spacious, off-tempo, off-tune malaise of the Wakimachi field recording creates an in-between space that mirrors Japanese Canadian performance artist Nobuo Kubota’s reflections on childhood memories and the threshold between cultures and languages."
Nighttime soundscape in Wakimachi reimagined by Emiko Morita.
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Mirage
"The original field recording had a mesmerising quality that pulled me toward Bamiyan’s complex and fascinating history. I wanted my remix to encapsulate the emotions I experienced along the way. The piece is a very minimal, improvised song, centred on one instrument supported by a time-stretched slice of the field recording."
Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Gholghata reimagined by Anni Elea.
Cities and Memory remixes the world, one sound at a time - a global collaboration between artists and sound recordists all over the world.
The project presents an amazingly-diverse array of field recordings from all over the world, but also reimagined, recomposed versions of those recordings as we go on a mission to remix the world.
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 those sounds. Each podcast description tells you more about what you're hearing, and where it came from.
There are more than 7,000 sounds featured on our sound map, spread over more than 130 countries and territories. The sounds cover parts of the world as diverse as the hubbub of San Francisco’s main station, traditional fishing women’s songs at 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
UK