Cities and Memory - remixing the world

• Sacred meetings

  " Boscastle, such a beautiful magical place, set in a deep valley carved out by the river, with jagged cliffs covered in emerald & drifts of Sea Pinks & white Campion, where the sea birds nest. The buildings growing out of the cliffs in slate & killas. The slate slabs & cobbles trodden into forms of memories for hundreds of years.  "I was inspired by the Boscastle field recording because of my deep connection with the sea & the place itself. I lived nearby for many years. I was there at the time of the awful flood. My connection deepened when close friends I’d worked with creatively on the east coast journeyed down to meet me.  "High on the cliff path, a lone bench overlooking the harbour became a sacred meeting place for us for years afterwards. it was a spiritual experience & it felt like a magical circle or spiral of elemental connection. "I added one of my own field recordings of dropping pebbles into the harbour & seagulls on the wind for its haunting quality to complement the original recording and then tried to capture the movement, spirit, feel and emotion of the original with guitar and keys compositions which I then layered around the beautiful recording of the water to create a feeling of sacred space & journey." Boscastle harbour reimagined by Julie Woolmore.

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• Waves on the jetty

  Light waves breaking on a stone boat jetty in the very small one-boat Boscastle harbour in Cornwall on a sunny August afternoon. Recorded by Cities and Memory, June 2025. 

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• Cascade of autumn

  "This composition is built from a field recording of a waterfall in the Lake District by Rob Parton. The waterfall has a broad spectrum of frequencies decaying and emerging; a metaphor for autumn: as each droplet’s resonance fades, new ones emerge, echoing nature’s descent into winter, its long sleep and quiet preparation for spring.  "The piece features a vocal sample of Karen McCarthy Woolf reading from her poem Conversations with Water, her contemplative words reverberating through this honouring of water and the transformative season of autumn. "Using the Torso S-4, I gradually transformed the raw waterfall recording into harmonic frequencies, shaping it into a sustained, droning chord that I then mirrored on my harmonium to form an ambient composition. I layered in a guitar motif to introduce a sense of optimism as the seasons shift." Lake District soundscape reimagined by Helen Copnall feat. Karen McCarthy Woolf.

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• Where?

  "The original source sound for this piece was from a bat echolocation detection device. So in this sonic interpretation, I aimed to create the feeling of reaching out into a mysterious, dark space of unknown size or location.  "The timbre is meant to be muffled and imprecise while the musical material is deliberate and approaching Baroque. I also bounced the original source sound between various audio and music composition softwares, relaying the message and having it change along the way–similar to a game of telephone. The rhythmic patterns were all taken for the rhythmic patterns of the sonified echolocation." Bat detector in Witney, England reimagined by Janae Jean.

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• Donkey stone

  "I was drawn to the call of the Rag and Bone man, and I thought of the man himself, beyond the call - and imagined my own best beloved Great Grandmother and the stories she told me of getting a Donkey Stone from the Rag and Bone man, and scrubbing her step clean.  "It must have been important to her, because she told me about it as though it were a ritual. So I wrote her song, as she might sing to him.  Maybe she called him Donkey Stone.  "Maybe she dreamed of running away and living a life on the road, returning to the ways of her ancestors before her, who were travellers.  "So this song is for Catherine Lightfoot - or Granny Dean as she was to me." Bream rag and bone man reimagined by Subphotic.

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