Radio France Sonic Heritage feature, May 2025 (French language)
Feature on French national radio station Radio France on Sonic Heritage, broadcast on 9 May 2025 - French language only.
"Une bibliothèque où sont rangés les environnements sonores de 270 sites du patrimoine mondial de l’UNESCO
Et aussi des objets immatériels , tous réimaginés par des artistes du monde entier.
« Accessible gratuitement cette collection permet d’écouter les sons emblématiques du Taj Mahal, des gondoles de Venise, du Fado portugais et de la Tour Eiffel » lit-on dans Times..
Le nouveau projet de l’artiste que l’on pourrait dire gigogne vient s’intégrer à une collection encore plus vaste Cities and memory qui donne d’ailleurs son nom au site internet où l’on peut naviguer sur des cartes interactives à la recherche d’un lieu du monde que l’on voudrait visiter par les oreilles.
Cathédrales, ponts, monuments, parcs et square, places et marchés mais aussi danses et chants traditionnels.
Aujourd’hui elle compte près de 7000 enregistrements réalisés par plus de 2000 artistes dans 130 pays.
Sonic Heritage, la bibliothèque sonore de 270 sites du patrimoine mondial de l’Unesco à retrouver sur le site internet citiesandmemory.com"
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2:18
Ancient Waorani Icaro
This recording captures the early morning sounds of an ancient Waorani warrior in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Staying with him in his traditional palm-thatched longhouse, the tranquility of the environment was profound, with minimal external noise. Despite a language barrier—he spoke only Waorani (Sabela)—we connected through gestures and shared moments. At dawn, as we emerged from our hammocks, I asked if I could record him. The resulting sounds offer a glimpse into a way of life that has remained largely unchanged for centuries, providing a powerful auditory link to the past.
Recorded in the Amazon rainforest, Ecuador by Rafael Diogo.
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2:43
Cantar
"The original field recording is awesome so I wanted to keep as much of that as I could in the new piece. The background rhythm is created from a small sample of the orginal with some echo added. I then added some background melodies and overlay the original recording."
Ancient Waorani Icaro in Ecuador reimagined by Richard Watts.
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3:55
Jarv
"The original recording reminded me of woozy days listening to my children play when they were young. The music I've added intentionally loses focus / zones out and hopefully evokes a dreamlike state."
Swimming in Mooste reimagined by Adam Leonard.
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3:02
Swimming in Mooste
It was beautiful summer day in 2013 August and I was staying at the artist residency in Mooste. I wanted to record some local sounds and went to the swimming place at the lake nearby.I asked the people who were picnicking by the lake if they thought it would be ok to record and they said yes. I sat on the pier.
Recorded in Mooste, Estonia by Sirpa Jokinen.
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 http://www.citiesandmemory.com
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