Cities and Memory - remixing the world

"I used a recording of ducks on a Russian lake with a plane flying overhead. It was a 6 minute track and I only used about 1 minute which I chopped up into my sampler. I then played the samples rhythmically using the plane as a drone and the ducks as an instrument. This was treated with delay. Behind this initial track I added two tracks of analog synth and topped it all off with a very simple and repetitive acoustic guitar."
Ducks on lake in Samara reimagined by Laurence Lillvik.

A field recording captured at the Voronezhskie Lakes park in Samara, Russia, around 11:00 AM. The recording features ducks quacking and taking off from the water. In the background, you can hear ambient city sounds, distant airplane noise, and people's conversations.
Recorded by Vitaly Safarov.

Birds nesting in scaffolding at Kroepcke Passage shopping centre, along with street sweeper sounds. 
Recorded in Hanover, Germany by Cities and Memory.

"After a few false starts, I decided to simply improvise a line for flute in my usual notation software while listening to the birdsong file. I then used this to create a line of counterpoint for a second flute, but quickly realized that the piece would be better served by a darker, contrasting instrument, and settled on the cello. Finally, I filled out the texture with a piccolo, reharmonized the whole score bar by bar, shaped the dynamics, and folded the original birdsong in as an overlay."
Birds in Kroepcke Passage, Hannover reimagined by David Petersen.

"The presence of science is a huge part of Oxford, but one that's often overlooked in favour of the more traditional side of Oxford University and of the city more widely, but science is hugely important to the city. This piece is a tribute to the scientific side of Oxford, as a reimagined take on the fascinating, huge tanks of liquid nitrogen that sit hissing away between the Department of Earth Sciences and the Pitt Rivers Museum, provoking many a "what if?" fantasy conversation. 
"The hissing of the tanks forms the underbelly of the track, accompanied by a "sister" sound of the same recording manipulated via a Torso S-4 sampler. Over the top of this, huge waves of distorted, ambient guitars represent clouds of gas and condensation. From here, drum beats and arpeggios make a lively introduction, and represent (and form a tribute) to all the scientific discoveries and innovations coming out of the city, as professors and boffins work all night in the very same labs that neighbour these liquid nitrogen towers."
"The title is the chemical formula for liquid nitrogen, and the postcode of the location. There is a sister composition to go along with this one, which takes a purely ambient approach to the sound. You can decide which you prefer."
Liquid nitrogen tanks in Oxford reimagined by Cities and Memory.