Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Cities and Memory:
"A special recording like this needed special treatment, so I had a collaboration in mind from the outset when starting on the music. Thinking about that, I set out to create a track that evoked the feeling of the dusk skies and the mellow heat of the African savannah. The field recording was full of different voices and tones, so using it as a bed for the track required some careful splicing and placement so that those voices appeared in the track in the right moments, complementing but not intruding. And of course, there's a buildup towards the entrance of the star of the show, the lion, the track building up towards its appearance near the end.
"Having created this ambient track with a collaboration - and specifically with some vocals - in mind, I approached micca, as I've been a huge fan of all her contributions to Cities and Memory so far. Together we worked on the concept of the lion's gate portal as the way into the track. Once the vocals were in place, I remixed and re-edited the track, restructuring it around the words and creating more space and balance for the vocals and field recording to breathe naturally. In the end, it feels like a three-way collaboration in space and time between the moment Rafa experienced when recording this extraordinary soundscape, and our creative responses to it.

"This is about mood and meaning - I tried to provide the mood, and micca brought the meaning." 
micca:
"I often look to nature for inspiration when writing music. While working with a field recording and an ambient piece by two collaborators, the lion's roars immediately caught my attention. It's not a sound you come across very often, and it naturally became the creative spark for the piece.
"As I continued writing, I was drawn to the symbolism of the Lion's Gate and its themes of courage, personal power and new beginnings, celebrated each year on 8/8. While it's an important event in astrology, I think its themes can speak to anyone: reconnecting with your own strength, finding your voice, and letting go of what no longer serves you. Those ideas became the intention behind the vocals.
"Some of the vocals are spoken, others are sung, so creating them wasn't just about finding the right words. They had to sit naturally with the ambient music, match its key and pace, and become part of the overall sound through recording, processing and mixing. My hope is that the final piece feels like one shared conversation between nature, music and voice."
Lions at dusk in Tanzania reimagined by Cities and Memory and micca.

The microphones were set metres away from the lions as the light dropped off and the temperature shifted. The lions are close. This is by far the most dangerous recording I have ever done. Their voices hold weight, spreading slowly across the savannah, overlapping in uneven intervals. There is a sense of space in the gaps between each call. What carries first is distance, low frequency calls moving across open ground, travelling further than expected in the cooling air.
This was not a controlled recording. The position was exposed, visibility was low, and movement nearby could not always be placed. The decision was deliberate but dangerous, but the outcome was worth it.
If you listen beyond the foreground, there are secondary layers: hyenas further out, thinner and more erratic in pitch, and closer still, intermittent movement from baboons, short, nervous gestures in the mid range.
Well, the sound of a savannah at its best.
Recorded in Tarangire National Park, Tanzania by Rafael Diogo.
Photo by Keyur Nandaniya on Unsplash.

Broadcast on BBC 6music, Sunday 26 July 2026. Cerys Matthews talks to Cities and Memory creator Stuart Fowkes about disappearing and obsolete sounds, and introduces the project.
Includes musical selections by Stuart from Can, Broadcast, Stuart Dempster, William Basinski & Janek Schaefer and The For Carnation.

Woodland birds recorded during daytime in Nottinghamshire, England. Blue tits are very prominent in the recording.
Recorded by Tim Hills.

"I took a pice of birdsong I had recorded and played around with the Flextime function in Logic. I added stereo echo and then a couple of synth parts from Alchemy and this is the result.:
Birdsong in Bestwood, England reimagined by Tim Hills.