The evocative source field recording painted a beautiful picture of a hot, hazy night in Luxor, with a call to prayer drifting in over the wind as the city settled down towards its nighttime rhythms. 

The composition is written in response to the feeling the field recording evoked, weaving in lines from the call to prayer as an instrument in amongst guitar, bass, piano and synths, as the city's night time soundscape nestles in the background. A crepuscular composition for a nocturnal source sound.  

An extensive feature on CBC The Current (Canadian national radio) on 6 March 2023 on the Polar Sounds project.

Features interviews with Stuart Fowkes, a sound artist who curates the global database of sounds called Cities and Memory; and Geraint Rhys Whittaker, an artist-researcher at the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity and the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research. There are also interviews with contributing artists Elissa Goodrich and Alex Abahmed from the project, and clips from multiple compositions from Polar Sounds in this 27-minute special feature. 

"Kujundziluk is a historic bazaar located in the Old Town of Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is also known as the "Copper bazaar" due to the large number of copper crafts that were once sold there. The bazaar dates back to the Ottoman era and is characterized by its narrow cobblestone streets and traditional wooden buildings. 

"The bazaar is also known for its lively atmosphere, bustling with street performers, local musicians, and vendors offering a range of goods and services. In the Old Town, you may hear the sound of travellers and locals walking on the cobblestone streets, vendors selling souvenirs and traditional foods, the sound of the Neretva river flowing nearby, the sound of street performers playing music and singing, and the sound of the call to prayer from nearby mosques."

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Mostar city sound guide. For more city sound guides, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/city-sound-guides/

"The Neretva river is a river in the western Balkans, flowing through Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. It is the largest river in the eastern part of the Adriatic basin and one of the largest in the Balkans.

"The Neretva is known for its diverse ecosystem and is home to a variety, for example in the summer the cicadas might be more active, and in the winter the sound of the river flowing and the water moving over rocks and through rapids. It's worth noting this is louder because of the snow melting.

"At the Neretva River, you can just walk by the margins and immerse yourself in the sound of the water flowing and splashing underneath the bridge."

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Mostar city sound guide. For more city sound guides, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/city-sound-guides/

"Ravens are found throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina and are known to be common in urban areas such as Mostar. They are known to be scavengers and opportunistic feeders, and can often be seen foraging for food in urban areas. The ravens in Mostar can often be seen around the Old Bridge, and the sound of their calls can be heard echoing through the city's narrow streets. They are a common sight in the city, and their presence is a reminder of the city's connection to the natural world."

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Mostar city sound guide. For more city sound guides, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/city-sound-guides/

"The Old Bridge is one of the most visited places in Mostar, and it can be busy during the day and even more in the summer season, so the sounds that could be heard at the Old Bridge might be diverse and lively.

"At the Stari Most, depending on the level of activity around the bridge one might hear a variety of sounds such as the river flowing below, the sound of people swimming and jumping from the bridge, the sound of boats and rafts moving along the river, and vendors selling refreshments and souvenirs."

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Mostar city sound guide. For more city sound guides, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/city-sound-guides/

"Light rain in Mostar can provide a peaceful atmosphere for the city. The sound of raindrops hitting the pavement and the cobblestone streets, the sound of water flowing in the Neretva River, and the sound of the Old Bridge's arches getting wet can all add to the ambience of the city. The light rain can also provide a nice contrast to the warm summer days and cool the city down. The light rain can also bring out the scent of the vegetation and flowers, adding to the overall sensory experience of the city."

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Mostar city sound guide. For more city sound guides, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/city-sound-guides/

"Rade Bitange is a street in the city of Mostar, a well-known pedestrian zone in the heart of the city, running parallel to the famous Neretva River. The street is also a hub of cultural and social activity, with street performers and musicians often entertaining passersby.

"Rade Bitange is surrounded by some of Mostar's most famous landmarks, including the iconic Stari Most (Old Bridge) and the medieval tower of Halebija. As a result, it is a popular destination for both locals and travellers alike, who come to enjoy its vibrant atmosphere and soak up the rich cultural heritage of this historic city. In the city centre, you may hear the sound of cars and buses driving on the streets, people talking and laughing as they walk through the streets, music and singing from restaurants and cafes, and vendors selling goods in the markets."

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Mostar city sound guide. For more city sound guides, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/city-sound-guides/

"Karnak Temple is a complex of ancient religious buildings located in Luxor, Egypt. The temple is situated on the east bank of the Nile River and is considered one of the most impressive examples of ancient Egyptian architecture.

"The landscape of Karnak Temple is characterized by towering columns, massive stone structures, and intricate carvings and sculptures. You can expect to hear the sounds of visitors exploring the temple complex. This may include the sounds of footsteps echoing on the stone floors and people speaking in different languages.

"The temple's gardens and courtyards provide a suitable environment for birds to nest and forage for food, so you may also hear the sounds of various bird species, including pigeons, sparrows, and doves. The sounds of birds singing and flitting through the temple complex can add an extra layer of life and energy to the otherwise quiet and contemplative atmosphere of the temple."

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Luxor city sound guide. For more city sound guides, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/city-sound-guides/

"A hot air balloon ride can be a peaceful and serene experience, and the sounds you might hear while on the trip can vary depending on the location, weather conditions, and altitude. Some possible sounds you might hear while on a hot-air balloon ride include: 

"It's important to note that sometimes silence and peacefulness may be the most prominent sound during the trip."

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Luxor city sound guide. For more city sound guides, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/city-sound-guides/

"Luxor is home to many ancient stone carvings, including those found in the Temple of Luxor and the Temple of Karnak. At a stone carving store in Luxor, you may hear a variety of sounds depending on the stage of the carving process.

"Generally, it can be a loud and abrasive process, with the sound of chipping and grinding as the stone is shaped and carved. The use of power tools such as angle grinders or chisels can also create a loud, high-pitched noise. When you are using hand tools such as hammers and chisels, the noise will be less and more pleasant to hear."

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Luxor city sound guide. For more city sound guides, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/city-sound-guides/

"The soundscape of the Temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor is a mix of the sounds of tourists and visitors, as well as the natural sounds of the surrounding desert environment. The temple is located in a remote area of the desert, so you may hear the occasional rustling of desert vegetation. 

"In general, the soundscape of the Temple of Hatshepsut is relatively quiet and peaceful, with the sounds of the temple adding to the sense of being in a place of historical and cultural significance. The peaceful atmosphere is broken only by the occasional sounds of visitors exploring the temple and learning about its history and cultural significance."

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Luxor city sound guide. For more city sound guides, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/city-sound-guides/

"The soundscape of Luxor Temple in Luxor, Egypt is a mix of the sounds of tourists and visitors, as well as the natural sounds of the surrounding city and the Nile River.

"The temple is located in the heart of the city, so you may hear the sounds of urban life, such as the honking of car horns and the chatter of street vendors. Within the temple, you can expect to hear the sounds of footsteps echoing on the stone floor, and the occasional sounds of camera shutters clicking as tourists take photos.

"In general, the soundscape of Luxor Temple is a mixture of the sounds of the city and the temple, creating a unique and bustling atmosphere, which adds to the sense of being in a place of historical and cultural significance."

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Luxor city sound guide. For more city sound guides, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/city-sound-guides/

"The night time in Luxor is a magical and mesmerising experience. As the sun sets, the city comes alive with the soft glow of streetlights and lanterns illuminating the ancient monuments and temples.

"In the old town, you may hear the sounds of the occasional call to prayer from the local mosques, as well as the sound of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer. You may also hear the sounds of people walking and talking in the narrow, winding streets, and the occasional sound of doors opening and closing.

"Overall, the soundscape of nighttime in the old town of Luxor is a mix of the sounds of the city, the Nile River, and the occasional sounds of nocturnal animals, creating a peaceful and atmospheric atmosphere."

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Luxor city sound guide. For more city sound guides, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/city-sound-guides/

"The hot haze of the Egyptian air is thick, almost opaque with heat - on hot days like these, it seems as if even sound waves are struggling to make their way through the air without wilting. Battling through the heat, the traffic noise, the sounds of markets, streets and city life, the muezzin’s call is a beautiful thing to hear, but on some days you have to strain to make it out.

"This composition is about picking out the call to prayer through waves of hot, arid air as it drifts across the late afternoon sky."

The title comes from an ancient Egyptian hymn to the sun:

OPEN the gates of Heaven, raise the gates of the sky! Open
the gates of the sky, raise the gates of Heaven for the Horns
of the gods, when he comes forth at break of day, purified in the Field of Reeds.

OPEN the gates of Heaven, raise the gates of the sky! Open
the gates of the sky, raise the gates of Heaven for the Horus of
the East, when he comes forth at break of day, purified in the Field of Reeds.

OPEN the gates of Heaven, raise the gates of the sky! Open
the gates of the sky, raise the gates of Heaven for Osiris, when
he comes forth at break of day, purified in the Field of Reeds.

OPEN the gates of Heaven, raise the gates of the sky! Open
the gates of the sky, raise the gates of Heaven for the King, when
he comes forth at break of day, purified in the Field of Reeds.

Call to prayer in Alexandria reimagined by Cities and Memory.

"This is a warning. 

"And these sirens become a clattering cacophony of distorted drum beats and ominous arpeggios, with a composition that uses the air raid siren as part of the array of instruments for a pulsing techno track. 

"There’s so much energy in the original recording of the siren that this track is an attempt to harness some of that excess energy and pour it back into beats, synths and arpeggios."

Marden air raid siren reimagined by Cities and Memory. 

"If you listen to the monks’ mantra-style prayer chanting for an extended period of time, you become locked into its world, trance-like and utterly absorbed. 

"This recomposed piece imagines what happens if you become so absorbed in these wonderful chants that, like a synaesthetic experience, you begin to hear things that aren’t there around the outside, like extra choirs of heavenly voices coming down from the skies and the gentle clinking of wind chimes and fluttering of prayer flags. 

"The piece attempts to make this hyperreal experience a reality, extending the monks’ chanting out into something that represents our own aural experience when becoming locked into this recording."

Wenzhou monk chants reimagined by Cities and Memory.

Buddhist monks chanting at Miaoguo Temple, Wenzhou, China, Saturday 28 January 2023. This temple is located in the centre of Wenzhou City. Founded in the Tang 
Dynasty (705), and was built by a generation of Master Sujue. Sheng Yu Song, Master Zeng Zhuoxi abbot, Master Jizhong, Master Zeng Zhuoxi, and Da Zhenzongfeng, and once was the most famous temple of the southeast coastal pilgrimage.

Recorded by Rob Burton.

The History Group’s air raid siren at Marden Heritage Centre, Marden, UK,  9 November 2014 (Remembrance Sunday) - the signal is "all clear".

Recorded by Chris Gosling.

"The sounds you might hear at a night market in Aswan, Egypt, would depend on the specific location and the time of day. 

Some possible sounds you might hear include:

You can also hear the sound of people moving around and browsing the market and the sound of goods being handled and examined."

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Aswan city sound guide. For more city sound guides, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/city-sound-guides/

"You would likely hear a variety of sounds in a Nubian village. Once you arrive at the Nubian village, you may hear the sounds of people going about their daily activities, such as children playing, animals, and possibly music or singing coming from the village. 

"However, the most intricate sound on my trip to a Nubian Village was the sound of old aircons. They would produce a low, steady hum or buzz as it operates. This sound is created by the vibration of the compressor and fan motors as they work to cool the air. The sound of an air conditioner is generally considered to be unobtrusive and is not typically perceived as disruptive to daily activities."

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Aswan city sound guide. For more city sound guides, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/city-sound-guides/

"You can't visit Aswan without doing a Nile River cruise. Here you can enjoy dinner on a traditional felucca boat and watch the city lights twinkle along the riverbank. The Nile River is an iconic feature of Aswan and the nighttime cruise offers a unique perspective on the city and its surrounding islands. On a boat trip to a Nubian village in Aswan, you might hear the sound of the boat's engine or oars as you travel along the Nile river and the gentle sound of water lapping against the boat."

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Aswan city sound guide. For more city sound guides, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/city-sound-guides/

"The national trains around Aswan, Egypt are part of the country's railway system and connect the city of Aswan with other parts of the country. Aswan is a popular tourist destination, known for its ancient temples, monuments, and beautiful Nile River, so trains serve as an important mode of transportation for visitors and locals alike. Overall, national trains around Aswan provide an opportunity to experience the local culture and see the natural beauty of Egypt while traveling in comfort. 

The sounds of trains in Egypt would depend on the specific location and type of train. Some possible sounds you might hear include:

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Aswan city sound guide. For more city sound guides, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/city-sound-guides/

"Camels are known to make a variety of sounds, including growling, which is a low, guttural sound that is often associated with aggression or discomfort. Camels may growl when they feel threatened or when they are trying to assert dominance over other camels.

"They may also growl when they are in pain or when they are experiencing other forms of distress. In the context of a Nubian village, you might hear camels growling if they are being led through the village, if they are being loaded or unloaded from a vehicle, or if they are being groomed or cared for in some way."

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Aswan city sound guide. For more city sound guides, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/city-sound-guides/

"A typical old neighborhood in Aswan would be filled with a variety of sounds that reflect the bustling, lively atmosphere of daily life. Some of the sounds you might hear include:

Together, these sounds create a unique and lively atmosphere that is characteristic of the traditional Nubian culture of Aswan."

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Aswan city sound guide. For more city sound guides, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/city-sound-guides/

"Ahwa downtown coffee house is a coffee shop located in the heart of Alexandria, Egypt. It is a popular destination for coffee lovers, as well as for those who want to experience the lively atmosphere of downtown Alexandria.

"Visitors can sit and enjoy their coffee while watching the hustle and bustle of the city's streets or take a stroll through the nearby market to immerse themselves in the local culture. Overall, the sounds at Ahwa Downtown Coffeehouse create a lively and vibrant atmosphere, making it a great place to relax and enjoy a cup of coffee."

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Alexandria city sound guide. For more city sound guides, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/city-sound-guides/

"The Qaitbay Citadel is a medieval fortress located in Alexandria, Egypt, on the Mediterranean coast. It was built in the 15th century and served as a major military defense for the city, guarding the entrance to the harbor and protecting it from invading forces.

"Visitors can explore the various buildings within the citadel, including the mosque, the barracks, and the towers, and learn about the history of the citadel and its role in the defense of Alexandria. At the Qaitbay Citadel, visitors can expect to hear a mix of natural and man-made sounds, but most likely they will hear the sound of footsteps and voices of visitors exploring the citadel, as well as the sounds of street vendors and vendors within the citadel."

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Alexandria city sound guide. For more city sound guides, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/city-sound-guides/

"The Zanket El Setat night market is a night market in Alexandria, Egypt, where vendors and street food stalls come together to create a lively and bustling atmosphere. It is a popular destination for locals, who come to enjoy the food, shopping, and entertainment.

"The variety of distinct sounds is vast, such as vendors calling out to attract customers, people bargaining for goods, the hum of chatter from shoppers, and the sounds of goods being sold, such as the clanking of silverware, the hiss of frying food, and the chatter of ice in drinks. It might also have background music or live music performances, as it is very common to hear street musicians playing traditional Egyptian music."

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Alexandria city sound guide. For more city sound guides, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/city-sound-guides/

"The Al-Medina Tram is a tram system in Alexandria, Egypt, and it makes several different sounds as it moves through the city. Some of the sounds you might hear include: 

Overall, the Al-Medina Tram is a unique and distinctive form of transportation in Alexandria, and its sounds are a part of the city's transportation landscape."

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Alexandria city sound guide. For more city sound guides, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/city-sound-guides/

"At the seaside, you can just roll solo as the tide splashes your ankles. The sound of waves is proven to relax the mind, as waves come in, crash, and then recede again, like a “trigger telling your brain you’re in the right place”. 

"Simply being near the ocean and engaging in fishing alongside some of the locals familiar with the waves of the Mediterranean can be so enjoyable and calming you forget you're traveling. The soothing sound of the waves relaxing your mind and the fisherman's tales being told by the locals will mesmerise you with their beauty and will make your day full of happy memories."

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Alexandria city sound guide. For more city sound guides, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/city-sound-guides/

"The view of the sunset over the Mediterranean sea can be quite picturesque and the colours of the sunset can be quite vivid.

"It is also worth noting that Alexandria has a long history and many historical landmarks, such as the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Montazah Palace, and the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, which could make for a great backdrop for viewing the sunset. A strong religious atmosphere is always present, as the resounding voices of the minarets of the mosque can be heard in the distance."

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Alexandria city sound guide. For more city sound guides, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/city-sound-guides/

"Today, a newspaper pressing print in Alexandria is a rare and unique kind of labour, representing a glimpse into the rich history of printing in Egypt and the city of Alexandria. 

"At a press print, you may hear the sound of the presses running and the sound of paper being fed through the machines. Depending on the type of press, you might hear the whirring of electric motors or the clanking of gears. There may also be the sound of ink being distributed onto the paper, which can vary depending on the type of press. Additionally, you may hear the sound of people talking or shouting as they work. The sound of the presses running is often a constant hum in the background." 

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Alexandria city sound guide. For more city sound guides, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/city-sound-guides/

"The old town of Alexandria is a must-visit for anyone interested in the history and culture of this beautiful city and is a great place to experience the traditional way of life in Alexandria. 

"You can just stroll around the market in the streets of the old town, where rabbis, Muslim women in scarves, and pilgrim Christians live together. You can occasionally hear the sound of people praying or singing and If you are near a mosque, you may hear the sound of the call to prayer being broadcast over loudspeakers."

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Alexandria city sound guide. For more city sound guides, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/city-sound-guides/

"The port is situated on the eastern coast of Egypt, along the Mediterranean Sea, and is known for its long history of maritime trade and commerce. Throughout the centuries, the port has served as a gateway for goods and people traveling between Europe, Asia, and Africa.

"Overall, the Alexandria Port is a busy and lively place, and you can expect to hear a constant din of activity and movement but at this specific time, it was quiet and we could just hear the sound of waves lapping against the sides of ships and the dock."

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Alexandria city sound guide. For more city sound guides, visit https://citiesandmemory.com/city-sound-guides/

"In the original recording you hear the voices of a multitude of frogs croaking. My associations around frogs led me back to a term, that I first encountered in march 2020, around the time the first Covid-lockdown started: catastrophic metamorphosis. A catastrophic metamorphosis is the final transition from the last larval stage to the adult stage. This profound remodeling often takes place in an immobile pupal stage, when the larva's body turns entirely liquid and the rudiments are being reassembled into a new shape. As Ovid wrote in his famous Metamorphoses: everything changes, nothing perishes. I used this phrase as a metaphor for my composition. The voices of the frogs constantly change, and reappear in modified ways, yet they never disappear completely."

Canada Prince George frogs reimagined by Nathalie Anne-Marie Rosenbaum.

Cities and Memory founder Stuart Fowkes is interviewed on BBC Radio 4's flagship news programme Today, discussing the Polar Sounds project and how it aims to bring a new perspective to the impact of climate change on polar habitats. Broadcast on 6 February 2023. 

A news clip about the Polar Sounds project by Cities and Memory - presenter Mary Ann Hobbs talks about how it's nice to hear "seals covering Aphex Twin".  

There's always something special about the sound of bells in a forest, somehow adding a magical aspect to both the forest air and the sound of the bells themselves just by being heard in the same context, the crisp forest air lit up by the chimes of the bell. 

For this composition, we've filled in the gaps with how we felt while making the original recording, with gratitude for the day and for the beautiful scenery. Warm drones of brass contrast with the cold of the day itself, with a feeling of belonging, while celebratory peals towards the end of the piece emphasise the emotions brought up by the original sound of the bells, which continue to make themselves known throughout the piece. The tiny coda of the composition - my own footsteps in ice. 

Cesuna forest bells reimagined by Cities and Memory.

Cesuna, northern Italy: church bells ring in the forest just outside the entrance to a long pedestrian tunnel that is part of a footpath made from an old train track. The train track ran from Asiago to Rocchette and has now been converted into a walking trail. On this cold December day, there was the crunch of ice underfoot, and the bells rang atmospherically through the clean, crisp forest air. 

Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

“This piece was composed by attempting to build something physical and layered out of sound. The Ross seals’ calls sit high in the frequency range, which here is imagined to be towards the surface level of the Southern Ocean, with the seals swimming and whirling gracefully beneath the waves.

"Beneath that is a construction made up of kick drums and many thick layers of drone and synthesiser, which take us much further down into the weight of the ocean - and which represent some of the many threats and menaces to the Ross seals’ existence, of which they are unaware as the piece progresses. There is ship noise, there are the jolting impacts of seismic surveys, and there is the calving, the devastation of climate change, on the horizon and becoming ever more menacing as the piece progresses.

"Usually when reimagining a field recording, there is some degree of processing to add atmosphere or musicality to the recording, or to draw out that element of the recording that has my attention, so I can also draw the listener’s attention to it. On this occasion, however, the field recording itself is so entirely perfect that it sits ideally in the mix with virtually nothing done to it. 

"The crackling ice in the middle section (and at the close) comes from the sound of a melting iceberg in our Obsolete Sounds project - surely the most terrible of all sounds to be labelled as obsolete or disappearing. Here this represents the dwindling habitats of the Ross seals. 

"There is sadness for and fury on behalf of the Ross seals for our contribution to their suffering - that is the true bedrock of this contribution to Polar Sounds.” 

Ross seals reimagined by Cities and Memory.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"The field recording (An Arctic Storm) gave the feeling of peace, lonesomeness and calm: An alchemy of emotions that (although poles apart) give a feeling of balance.

"Without intending to change the recording too much that it lost its effect. I cut off unwanted frequencies, added reverb and delay and used it as a bed for my composition.

"The composition; titled Thayù is an inspiration to search for oneself within oneself as is the case with the Arctic; A place alone in the world. But although it is on its own, it has found peace by finding itself within."

Stormy ocean reimagined by Wahinya Mwirikia.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"In an effort to add to the bridge of science-art being made by this project I worked together with Art|Scientist Vivien Reichel to work with me on the concept for the piece and help me with my understanding of the workings of the arctic environment.

"Our conceptual starting point was to never cut/take away from the original sample, but rather add to it. We as a species have taken away enough of the natural environment. When composing/constructing the piece, the sample formed the base layer of the sonic landscape I was trying to construct. To me the sample conjured up images of (animal) life and movement and I wanted to juxtaposition this with the natural elements at play in the landscape, the other instruments and sounds I used are meant to sound out other layers of the arctic landscape.

"The only melody I wrote for the piece is heard in the melancholic saxophone line meant to sound  out the wind across the silent landscape. After the line the piece grows darker and comes to a rough conclusion, symbolising the dire situation the whole natural system is in."

Rubbing sea ice reimagined by Baz Laarakkers.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

The sound of the stormy ocean can result in what sounds like white noise.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

The clicking and whistle noises most likely belong to odontocete species.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Striped_dolphin_in_the_Ligurian_Sea.jpg

The clicking and whistle noises most likely belong to odontocete species.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Striped_dolphin_in_the_Ligurian_Sea.jpg

Many sounds recorded cannot be identified by scientists. Often it is not even possible to tell if the sounds originate from animals or if these are abiotic.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"What would happen if in the practice of listening to the sounds of the Polar Circle we identified the climatic changes that this territory is going through? The sound piece POLAR ELECTRO-ICE  born from a reflection on the transformations that the Polar Circle undergoes through documentary and sound research. The sounds you will hear were taken from the Polar Sounds project and soundscapes in the Arctic, these were transformed through analog and digital processes to find a new form of territorial listening, a sonority that invites us to recognize that in the last 20 years the Polar Circle has been affected by global warming in a rush.

"The melting of the polar cap and the increase in snowfall are the axes of this piece, generating a dystopian sound, a prelude musicality to this global warming, the field recording was used in its natural form and with sound effects processes generating harmonic layers of sounds and their transformations. It is important that the meaning and effects of climate change be known, since what is currently being experienced in this territory will happen in the south in a few years and in the rest of the planet in the following years.

"It is recognized that there is a longer period of time when the sea is not frozen, generating an invasion of new animal species and a reduction in the population of lemmings, as well as the potential extinction of bears, seals, walruses and seabirds. It is predicted that by 2040 the ice of the Polar Circle will melt if global gas emissions continue."

Unidentified Arctic sound reimagined by Elena Castillo / Elentric.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"My allocated sound for this project had the mysterious description of "Unidentified Artic Sound 3". Before setting down to work, I listened to the sound a number of times with my eyes closed, and I was immediately drawn to an eerie pitched resonance amongsts the relentless hiss, crackle and ice-white noise. I wondered what the source of this strange creaking resonance could be. Some of the descriptions for the other sounds offer possible clues - whale song, ship noises, rubbing sea ice - but it is impossible to say for certain.

"My first instinct was to reach for spectral analysis, to take a footprint of the noise floor and remove that from the signal to hone in on the salient spectral information (like in iZotope's RX software). While the result gave me no more insight into the identity of the original sounding body, it did give me a point from which to begin the composition.

"I would describe the approach taken with this piece as spectro-timbral, in that I begin with spectral analysis and extraction of the starting sound, and used this to define the overall structure, tonality and seed material for all the other sound organisation. I gathered some other field recordings that I captured a long time ago of a cold day and my feet crunching on ice, along with some bowed violin and bouzouki. Using custom software in Max/MSP, the isolated unidentified sound is analysed in real-time and used to combine and layer the other sounds and samples according to their timbral descriptors and tonal character. The result is a slow, steady movement of material, not unlike an icebreaker crashing through endless, frozen landscape with fractured, shattered musical elements interjecting."

Unidentified Arctic sound reimagined by Cárthach Ó Nuanáin.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"In hearing the delicate sounds of the odontocete in the recording, i started to wonder what a full conversation between these kin could sound like. The piece begins with the recording in its raw form and is transformed through the use of granular synthesis, resonators and many layered effects. I imagine this piece as a dialogue, a sub-aquatic flirtation between our kin. Thank you for tuning my ears to this underwater kingdom, it took my heart with it..."

Odontocete clicks reimagined by Ruby Singh.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Striped_dolphin_in_the_Ligurian_Sea.jpg

"I used reverbs and other effects on the original track. Than I try to listen to the sound frequency suggested by the process, as in a improv mood. I listened for a while playing with commands and when I found a connection I started to dream and fly.
 
"This track describes a lucky encounter between man and odontocetes."

Odontocete clicks reimagined by Raffaele Rebaudengo.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Striped_dolphin_in_the_Ligurian_Sea.jpg

"Between 79°00'00.7"N and 5°40'07.3"E
an answering machine
is drowning in the Greenland Sea.
Down here, a toothed whale swims along
and leaves a message – or a song?
For who? What did it say?
Up there, nobody knows a way
how to make sense of that strange noise.
A speaking whale? A whale-ish voice?
Yet, up above the surface high
the human world brawls in reply.
A clicking, whistling, rattling way -
all misconceived and gone astray.

"When I first heard the material, my immediate association was the idea of receiving a voicemail from this odontocete that left its acoustic trace on the recording. Throughout the composing process, I encountered different situations, where humans tend to communicate through rhythmic, pulsing noises. I ended up collecting some of them and arranged them in a juxtaposed pattern. What developed was a kind of dialogue, within which communication always fails, despite the fact, that similar techniques are being used by both sides. Aside from the original recording of the whale, you will hear a multitude of human sounds, that share the characteristic of varying rhythm and tone, in order to be used as a tool for communication.

"In my view, that is one central question, in which the arts and sciences are closely related to one another – even if they tackle the issue with differing tools: both share the quest to describe our world and to communicating their respective findings through specific ways to a certain audience."

Odontocete clicks reimagined by Nathalie Anne-Marie Rosenbaum.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Striped_dolphin_in_the_Ligurian_Sea.jpg

"I manipulate the original recording with some granular synthesis and mix it with wind on trees from a place near my home called "the island", in the middle of a water dam. Even being far from the Arctic, I found similarities between this and the sound space (of) the island."

Odontocete clicks reimagined by Luís Antero.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Striped_dolphin_in_the_Ligurian_Sea.jpg

"More than anything else, I wanted my composition to be transportive for the listener... in a similar way, but perhaps more so, than the original field recording was for me. So, with that in mind, I aimed to capture the sonic experience of "being on the coast"."

 reimagined by Emmy Tither.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"I listened for a long time to the field recording.  There is the haunting sounds of the Bowhead whales, buried deep within the ambient sounds surrounding them.  I was inspired by the melody and musical slides (or moans!) I could hear in the whale calls. The constant ambient sound of the environment, and perhaps of scientific equipment also, was a sonic companion within the field recording, and I imagined a seascape of musical ideas playing with the whale sounds under the ice, for the composition. I sampled acoustic musicians to create a composition to weave around and play with the whales' calls, at times imitating the various melodies and ambient noises.  I also played with subtly panning the various sampled instruments - as a kind of echo to the whales' songs which often signal geographic locations to others. All the while, also informing the composition, is the tragic  rapidly changing environment these beautiful animals are navigating.

Sampled musicians:
Gideon Brazil: saxophone & bass clarinet
Rodrigo Salgado: double bass
Elissa Goodrich: vibraphone"

Bowhead whale reimagined by Elissa Goodrich.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"In times of global warming, the risk of melting ice poses a multitude of threats from sea-level rise to reduced albedo. Large parts of the oldest ice have already disappeared, and what remains is found in one of the thickest and oldest areas of the Arctic known as the "Last Ice Area" — considered to be the last source of ice in a rapidly warming Arctic. The last Arctic ice is proving vulnerable to the rapid warming occurring in the northern latitudes and monitoring the ice cover has found some new, troubling signs of continued changes taking place in the polar region: thinning of the Arctic ice, which could accelerate the formation of polynyas, pools of open water surrounded by sea ice.

"In the future, polynyas may occur more frequently as the last Arctic ice melts. In the short term, these open areas can be oases of life: sunlight hits the ocean water, allowing for more algae photosynthesis, which attracts fish. But this burst of life is only temporary - in the long term, as the ice melts and moves offshore and species like walruses and seabirds lose access to it, we lose that benefit and eventually, it gets so warm that species can't survive anymore.

The composition "Polynya (Arctic Unidentified)" starts out fairly quiet with the layered sound of ice cracking, fracturing and melting, then builds into a slowly progressing soundscape that draws the listener deep into the Arctic environment, to the formation of large polynyas and otherworldly screams of unidentified extinct species at the end."

Unidentified Arctic sound reimagined by Simon Šerc.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

Many sounds recorded cannot be identified by scientists. Often it is not even possible to tell if the sounds originate from animals or if these are abiotic.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

Many sounds recorded cannot be identified by scientists. Often it is not even possible to tell if the sounds originate from animals or if these are abiotic.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

The behavioral context of ringed seal calls has not been confirmed; however, on the basis of their presence in winter and spring, Stirling et al. (1983) hypothesized that the calls are involved in intraspecific competition to maintain social structure around breathing holes in the sea ice and that they may also serve a reproductive purpose.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

Bearded seals produce typical downsweept trills underneath the Arctic sea ice. Calls are produced by males in spring to defend underwater territories. Specific trajectories and areas are patrolled by males under the ice while producing these acoustic displays. Calls are thought to attract potential mates and repel potential rival males.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

The tonal sounds are produced by bowhead whales. Males produce song to attract females and vocally compete with potential rival males.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"Bowhead whales are magnificent creatures that can grow to 60ft long and can live to around 200 years.  They are predominantly solitary creatures or found in small pods of up to six.  These aspects of age, solitude and memory (they were commercially whaled up until the 1960s) have inspired my submission.   

"I've created a chord progression and used layered orchestral sounds with a fairly sparse arrangement.  Part of the whale's call from the recording has been processed with delay and reverb but I wanted to include the whole recording in its entirety to highlight their vocalisation."

Bowhead whale reimagined by Andy Lyon.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"There was something melancholy about the descending trill and the moan from these bearded seals that I wanted to capture and elaborate on. But there was also a distance to the seal sounds so I knew I wanted to keep the composition simple and subtle and not overpower their sounds. I used the original file in two different ways.

"On one track I extended the time, stretching out the sounds while also doing some aggressive de-noising to get rid of the background and white noise of the recording. The high-pitched pops and squeals and chirps are all from this track. The other use of the original used less aggressive processing to deal with the white noise, but enough to help focus on the sound of the descending trill and the soft moan of the seal. The music was created without the use of a strict tempo and instead responding to the two different altered tracks of the original file. I hope to have created a feeling of beauty, but one with a sense of loss and distance haunting it."

Bearded seal reimagined by Pria Wood.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"What is it like to sing under the ice? This question was inspired by the image of the bearded seal’s glissandi that came to mind and was the guiding line for the composition. The meaning of Entrelinhas (betweenness; between the lines) goes deep into the idea of living between places; of suffering interference from machines and naturals, struggling against them and sometimes incorporating them. I explored the proposed sound file as a medium itself, looking for betweenness spaces, the encounters, the resonances. The file was manipulated to reveal features and/or digitization errors present in different spectral bands. They would become the main digital material for making sounds. It is as if we were exploring the gestuality underneath the noise. The sinusoidal sounds were recorded from an audible ecosystem environment where harmonics emerge from acoustic-digital feedback-loop: another kind of betweenness. Synthesis and granular approaches were applied to create overlapping sound layers so ambience sensation, melodies, beatings, spectral movements and spatial correlations emerged as resonant gestures breaking through the multiple layers and sewing up between the lines of sounds at once. This is a stereo reduction version of a multichannel composition aiming for an immersive sound experience."

Bearded seal reimagined by Ricardo Thomasi.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"I tried to use slight manipulation on the sample. On the one hand, these manipulations symbolize our influence on the climate of the planet, Original sound is manipulated artificially with resonators, no any other instrument was used. on the other hand, with these manipulations, I wanted to create a  cold and harsh atmosphere that is under the Arctic ice, where ringed seals are living and building their social structures."

Ringed seal reimagined by Rati Baramadze.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"This miniature piece evokes an imaginary Antarctic soundscape inspired by the marvelous ringed seals. Some reflections in a poem form emerge as a prelude to a question that pretends to make consciousness about the climate warming effects. The contrast in the second section ends with a glimpse of hope to revert part of the damage done to our home, Mother Earth. There is no more future if we don't take action in our present."

 Ringed seal reimagined by Ana Mora.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"The idea is that sounds make up the texture of a landscape. Because this field recording was labeled as an unidentified sound, my impression of it was more about the whole soundscape, as opposed to whatever animal was breathing or barking or scraping. The feeling of the noise became the focus. I included digging sound effects and home field recordings of rocks and sticks and other objects, processed with Ableton’s Granulator II and Grain Scanner plug-ins to create rhythms of physical sounds, the up-close grit. Over those rhythms I recorded flute processed through various reverb, delay, and pitch-shifting effects from an Eventide H9, to create harmony in the breathing, wind-like sounds, and also as light."

Unidentified Arctic sound reimagined by Nicolo Scolieri.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"My inspiration was to create the sensation you navigate under a big ice floe. At first just moving under the water  you pass through the ice floe and sometimes ice collapses and crashes. I used only field recording sound with some audio process to create the sensation. ice, underwater movement etc. So basically I recorded some different foley texture and try to pre-design different elements I needed (ice melted, cracking, ice block moving, impact, explosions etc.)."

Unidentified Arctic sound reimagined by Arnaud Noble.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"When I listened to this polar recording, I felt goosebumps - it is so mysterious but very beautiful and magical at the same time. Sounds that never came to my ear before.
 
"Then I decided to elaborate on this Arctic soundscape with delicate sine waves, reverse guitar, Javanese Gong, and synthesizer pads to create a dreamy atmosphere. I composed mainly concentrating on the sound's spectrum, to trust the beauty and energy of the sound itself, with hope for our icebergs in the future."

Unidentified Arctic sound reimagined by Gardika Gigih.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"I was mesmerized by this field recording. The bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus) is the only surviving member of the genus Balaena. The song is inspired by my own encounter with a bowhead whale in the coastal Alaskan Arctic. I was on station in an ice field in September 2018, to do some field research. I remember seeing some object in the water and pointing it out to my colleagues. We decided it was a floating log. A few minutes passed; our boat had drifted closer to the object, bringing it into clearer view, transforming it into a sleeping bowhead whale. Each of us took a great pause and marveled at its breath just a moment before it gently disappeared into the depths.

"The first part of the piece has a sort of muddiness to it that plays off the separation between us and these massive oceanic mammals. In the second part of the piece, there is a clarity which echoes one I’ve had when experiencing the imaginative leap required to enjoy something like whale watching. We really see so little of these creatures, even during the rare breaches. To seek out a whale is to seek out a glimpse made powerful through imagination and understanding. The last part is what I imagine swimming in the ocean as a whale is like. 

"The sort of negative space heard in many underwater recordings is so full and encompassing. I thought it was important to leave some of that “noise” in with an added filter and slow modulation to simulate the ocean waves. Beyond the noise, the song of this bowhead whale was also quite majestic and inspired me to harmonize with it while allowing the original bowhead song to fade in and out. There was also some interesting aliasing going on with the field recording which I mirrored in the first part of the piece. There are many layers to this piece, and, for me, it is quite fitting knowing that the ocean is deeply multidimensional and dynamic."

Bowhead whale reimagined by Daniel Koestner.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"My collaborator Hansine and I were surprised by the expressiveness of the Bowhead Whale call and how the spacing between the calls seemed to be awaiting a response. Our idea initially was to have a conversation with the whale, with Hansine's vocals personifying a responding whale.

"We were recording alone in a cabin in the hills of Santa Cruz with just ourselves, a bass, a drum machine, and the sample and the song came together in just a few hours, eventually becoming a sort of love song. It ended up making sense, as Bowhead Whales are typically most vocal in mating season, and otherwise are often solitary, and maybe lonely?

"Based on the love song aspect and the species latin name Balaena mysticetus, we named the track. The whale call can be heard looping throughout the track, is sampled to create percussive elements, and also feeds a granular synthesizer to create textures."

Bowhead whale reimagined by Avery Bick.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"My field recording is a two-minute recording of airshots that occur at regular intervals of about 12 seconds. This regularity is only noticeable in the course of time, and then seems a bit like a ticking clock running down in super slow-motion. The deep bass of the explosions lingers for a relatively long time, and can still be heard well during the following crackling and hissing. It is a dark, dystopian soundscape that is more reminiscent of war, machinery or factories than an underwater landscape or even flora and fauna. When I first heard the sound, I didn't find it particularly exciting in terms of sound, but extremely strong in terms of content. It touched me emotionally, and above all I felt regret, disappointment, frustration and anger.

"I wanted to contrast this sonic, dystopian abyss of field recording with another pole that would tell the story and clothe this harsh reality in emotion. I am a classical guitarist and my intention from the beginning was to dedicate this instrument to the task. The idea for this field recording was to compose a piece for guitar to go with the field recording, so that both can be heard continuously and accompany each other, and sometimes the listener's attention can alternate between the two.

"A first rather technical approach was to tune the guitar into a scordatura, i.e. to partially retune the strings. This allowed me to detach myself more from what I usually play and think and allowed me to feel freer and more open towards field recording. It also prevented me from being too controlled by technical, music-theoretical thinking. The tuning of the guitar is as follows: 1= e, 2= b, 3= f sharp, 4= D, 5= G, 6= E. As a chord, this results in an Em 7 9. Not a really special sound at first sight. However, it is exciting because of the dissonance between f sharp and g, and because of the D, which radiates a constant dissatisfaction.

"At the beginning, I tried to write passages in which the guitar noisily approaches the field recordings or becomes a field recording itself through extended playing techniques. In the end, not so much of that remained, just the intro and outro, which feature fast rascuados without a nail and hitting the strings with a finger. The flagolets, which should sound like echoes and have a different structure with each repetition, are partly dissonant, unresolved and should already contain the whole drama of this subject.

"One idea was to play a quick succession of notes after each explosion, taking cover like a swarm of fish, changing direction, darting apart. Although this is no longer the case, it has developed into the fast, repetitive attack that forms the basis for the first part after the intro. The second part consists of similar chords and a similar structure, but is now struck in somewhat punky rascuados and deals even more strongly with the feelings of frustration and anger, whereas the first part gives more space to the emotions of sadness and regret. 

"I only lightly processed the field recording itself with an equaliser and a compressor. The aim was to reduce the noise and to better bring out the interesting clicking, crunching and cracking sounds. I also wanted the bass range to be a little more precise and the focus to be a little more on it. I also edited the field recording so that it is now distributed in stereo in the room, it has more depth and spatiality. I once recorded a field recording for a project in a huge former Nazi bunker. I wanted to represent this sonic atmosphere in the mix. The underwater explosions as if they were outside or in a lake inside the bunker, and the guitar plays in this monstrous, abysmal sound space above. The result should not be like guitar here and field recording there, but like an improbable, imagined common sound space where both happen at the same time. More like a documentary atmosphere than a concert."

Seismic airgun reimagined by Jannis Wichmann.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"Simon Holmes: The start of the project revolved around the sample itself and the pulsating rhythm of the seismic shooting. I wanted to manipulate the sample to create other sounds representative of the natural rather than the human underwater world, aware of how man has generated such destructive sound pollution in the Arctic environment. Firstly I was interested in evoking ideas of sonar and echolocation linking the piece to endangered marine wildlife and secondly creating a sound of the ocean floor where scuttling crustaceans roam. Both of these sounds can be heard in the final piece. The project then evolved into generating an ekphrastic response to Paul’s poem ‘Ghost Nets’, particularly focusing on the line, ‘Our plangent requiem welling up like a whale’s lament from the depths’. The idea of these abandoned nets causing such suffering and destruction really focused the creative process, helping to generate a soundscape reflective of this.

"Paul Nash: Further manipulation of the seismic shooting sample led me to explore a deep sense of ‘inner extractivism’ during an ‘age of exhaustion’ in this track. With the addition of electronic beats and a foghorn bass line representing the insidious creep of human technological advance, it became clear to me that the tensions between the human and non-human worlds that are so damaging to our planet would inform the unease at the heart of this soundscape. The final mix attempts to reify the shadow biosphere of the polar ocean floor – a dark nexus of seismic shooting from above and the plaintive infrasound of whales welling up like a lament from the depths. ‘Ghost Nets’ may not only be the dying cry of a ruined Earth, but also in our carbon profligacy and perhaps now inevitable subsequent extinction, it is one hopes the beginning of the end of anthropogenic noise that blights marine environments."

Seismic airgun reimagined by Simon Holmes / Paul Nash.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"The soundscape I composed tries to reflect and highlight the clear threat associated with the exploration and exploitation of natural resources (oil and gas), in areas of high biological diversity and with a strong presence of indigenous communities.

"First, I investigated the resistance of Greenlandic Innuit communities to the exploration work near the site where the sound sample was recorded. These communities oppose extractivist mining as a threat to their way of life, which in many ways depends on their ancestral relationship with their environment.

"When I listened to the recording assigned to me, I immediately related it to a storm or to the deployment of heavy artillery. This sound can be "read" in both ways, but what is interesting is that in my composition it is configured as an antagonist, a presence that comes to disturb the peaceful coexistence between the communities and the ocean. 

"On the other hand, the constant sound of the drones enhances this sense of threat and uncertainty. In the composition I have also added the sound of sensors and small beeps, which try to account for the dehumanisation inherent in hypercapitalism and which is the root cause of this tragedy. I also used some personal recordings of the sound of the sea, processed with a glitch filter, to give a sense of strangeness and transformation.

"This imminent danger approaches and surrounds the communities, which are represented acoustically through the improvised recording of the programme of a local radio station in Greenland, close to the coordinates where the assigned sound sample was recorded. In the face of all these threats, everyday speech, expressed in the recording of local radio voices, represents sanity and honesty in the face of barbarism and greed.

"Technically, to compose this work, I transformed the assigned recording into a sample, from which I worked on its presence-absence within the composition. I also used other samples, generated through various pieces of hardware, together with an effects processor for the vocals and field recordings. To get the sound of the local Greenlandic radio, I used an app that allows you to listen to AM radios on a planetary level."

Seismic airgun reimagined by Rodrigo Romero-Flores.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"The sound I chose to work with was the Airgun pulse that is used to explore the ocean bed for oil and gas. As soon as I heard the clip, it sounded to me eerily like bombs going off. Wondering what impact this had for the acoustic soundscapes of the Arctic (where the clips were recorded), I then did some reading around the topic and although research is still it’s in its early days, it is suggested that airguns do impact life in the ocean, in particular masking communication and impacting the travel routes of whales.

"I then wondered, as the Arctic Sea ice melts and shipping and airgun exploration intensifies and these bomb like noises become more frequent, what impact will it have on the acoustic environment, and those living in it?

"So, I decided to create a dystopian future narrative as if we were talking to the whales in the future and asking them how the airgun noise has impacted their lives.

"I am from Swansea, a city which was severely impacted by bombing in the second world war, and so for the voices of the whales, I decided to search the archives of Swansea Library for interviews of people talking about the devastation the bombing had on them and the city.

"Surprisingly, their descriptions on some of the ways the bombs impacted their lives matched with what research suggests is happening to the whales and so I used the clips from the archives to represent the whales’ story.

"I then merged these interview clips with the sound of the airgun pulses, keeping it a constant throughout the piece and then created a brief narrative at the beginning, introducing us to a future world where we are now made aware of just how damaging the airguns have been.

"The great thing about using dystopian storytelling like this is that it gives us the flexibility to explore potential possibilities of what could happen to the environment. As such, it is great for asking questions that we do not know the answers for yet.

"When people hear the piece not only do I want them to think about the acoustic world of the seas, the sound of the airguns, and the politics of what this means for the future health of our oceans, but I also want to emphasise that there is also still time to prevent these impacts becoming irreversible."

Seismic airgun reimagined by Geraint Rhys.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"As I became familiar with the scientific recording, I experimented with ways to to coax out its particular elements. My relationship to the sounds became more playful as this process evolved. When I isolated, filtered, spliced, reorganised and recombined them I considered how they might coexist with my own sounds - in particular those from my ongoing solo saxophone recording project.

"In this composition I use my instrument to respond to the deconstructed recording, which is subsequently manipulated further in ways to punctuate textures produced by the saxophone.

"Sometimes the recorded sounds and those imitated on the saxophone are intertwined. Variously filtered broadband noise segments are combined into ambient layers which shift against each other, often in the background, but occasionally overwhelming those more organised sounds.

"The piece begins with icy bursts of colliding sonic objects. Permutations of the narwhal calling are featured in the middle. The adventure ends traversing the ice and sinking into the Arctic depths."

Narwhal reimagined by Reuben Derrick.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

""study for a stranding in 1861 (kia tūpato/beware)" uses the recording as the basis of a composition that explores the phenomenon of seismic shooting for oil exploration, and the link to both whale beaching (via sonic disorientation of finely-tuned Cetacean communicative channels) and Anthropogenic Climate Change. In the process, the piece draws on longer histories of the mediation of the oceanic environment by anthropogenic sound, a cultural development itself arguably indebted to the extraordinary communicative and navigational abilities of Cetaceans and other non-human creatures at home within the different ecology of this medium/media, inhabiting a sphere (sense of planet) that sees them use the ocean like a telephone or a shortwave radio, a non-human cultural practice that pre-dates the European experimental investigation of radio waves, sonar, radar, etc, by millions of years.

"In addition to the use of this sound, which can be heard as a dull, monotonous distant thud throughout the piece, source material for "study for a stranding in 1861 (kia tūpato/beware)" includes ocean field recordings made at Taroona and Verona Sands on the coast of lutruwita/Tasmania, a region that has seen several unprecedented mass whale strandings in recent years, the most recent of which,  resulting in the deaths of over 200 pilot whales, occurring while the piece was being composed. Instrumentation includes accordion and zither recordings that have been harnessed to provide a range of textures and tones, partially in the service of mimicking polar natural Geophonic phenomena such as sea ice and aurora "natural radio" sounds, as well as Anthropophonic/Anglo-Western cultural sounds such as the creaking hulls of 19th century ships. Several recordings made at the offices of TMR (Tasmanian Maritime Radio), the state's official Coast Radio Service, whose services routinely include providing a listening watch on VHF and HF distress and calling channels, pay homage to the state's pioneering (1911–1914) Antarctic radio link, established when Radio was still a new technology. Other source sounds from the artist's extensive physical record library of the mediated history of anthropogenic ocean sounds, and related cultural material, include a recording of a Sofar (Sound fixing and Ranging) bomb and other demonstrations of undersea communications audio from the 1968 album "Sound in the Sea" produced by the Electro Marine Sciences Division of Marine resources, and the run-out grooves of a 78rpm recording of the song "Asleep in  the deep"  recorded in 1913 by Wilfred Glenn and the Victor Orchestra.

"This last record's refrain "many great hearts are asleep in the deep, so beware, beware..." is the key to the title of the piece, which is a reference to a report of the stranding of a massive white sperm whale, washed up on the black sands of Whatipu, a remote beach on the west coast of the Auckland Region in the North Island of New Zealand in 1861. Local Māori, who in their role as kaitiaki (guardians of the land, sea and sky), had arrived to greet the whale, reported that on the second night of their stay, the whale gave an enormous groan, then spoke to them. The creature said, “Kia tūpato” ("beware"). These indigenous guardians, believing the giant, ancient, battle scarred whale, that had over 20 harpoons embedded in its flesh, had prophesied the end of the world, and that death and destruction were coming, immediately put a rāhui (a form of tapu) on its carcass, but this wasn't respected by a group from Auckland Museum, who arrived to remove its gigantic teeth and 10 of the harpoons, mutilating the carcass in the process. Some sources say this ancient sperm whale's beaching on an Auckland shore may have been the last resting place of the whale that earlier inspired Melville to write 'Moby-Dick; or, The Whale' (1851), a story that remains as tantalising as it is potentially fanciful. What perhaps remains more pertinent, on the other hand, are the whale's apocalyptic predictions, that continue their relevance in a world where the rich nations of the West are still intent on mining fossil fuels for profit, endangering not only themselves but the less culpable, including indigenous cultures and the nonhuman, and indeed all life on earth."

Seismic airgun reimagined by Sally Ann McIntyre.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"The idea was the use of the sound of the seismic airgun as a conversation with the life of the sea. I have used a process of sonification of a painting that I did, which I imagined the beautiful colours of the sea bed. This sonification was to change the image into a sound representation of the image. This created unusual clicking, which made me think of the conversations of dolphins. I have also used a sound of a groan from a plane in flight, this reminded me of the whale conversation.

"Overall, I think it is a reply to the seismic airgun, perhaps a request for silence, not to interrupt the idea that the sea is silent. In the end the creatures leave the space, just the seismic airgun remains. Perhaps this suggests loss, as we explore the seabed with out intention of extracting resources, with little though as to the environmental consequences. Perhaps a lament by the sea, as it tried to tell its story?"

Seismic airgun reimagined by Jon Ogara.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

Seismic shooting is used for exploring the seafloor for oil and gas deposits. It involves ships travelling along the ocean blasting soundwaves through an airgun. These sound waves echo back and are captured by hydrophones. This process can be harmful to marine life.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"This piece is about the struggle between different rhythmic forces – the natural (organic) and the made. But also it is a struggle between the large, loudness of ice breaking up against the quietness of the lonely ice land.

"I was initially struck about how rhythmic the sound was, and when thinking about how to create the piece I began by thinking about other similar rhythmic patterns I have come across – steam trains and weaving machines – both made and industrial. These seem a good contrast to the natural and organic sounds from the original recording and fit with an idea of a struggle between nature and human intervention.

"I isolated one other sound that I could make out from the recording – a sound that made me think of a foghorn. I used this a signal sound.

"Lastly I decided that there should be a contrast section which echoed this big expanse of remoteness, and as I have built up quite a collection of ‘wind’ sounds created on my flute I used some I recorded binaurally for another project.

"I used Logic X to edit the sounds and remix and as with many of my pieces I used a mixture of reverb and delays to change the sounds. I also used automation control of volume and panning in my mix."

Narwhal reimagined by Jessica Rowland.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

The tonal sounds are produced by bowhead whales. Males produce song to attract females and vocally compete with potential rival males.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

Seismic shooting is used for exploring the seafloor for oil and gas deposits. It involves ships travelling along the ocean blasting soundwaves through an airgun. These sound waves echo back and are captured by hydrophones. This process can be harmful to marine life.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

Seismic shooting is used for exploring the seafloor for oil and gas deposits. It involves ships travelling along the ocean blasting soundwaves through an airgun. These sound waves echo back and are captured by hydrophones. This process can be harmful to marine life.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

Narwhals produce a variety of vocalizations, including echolocation clicks, tonal-pulsed signals, and whistles. 

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"What was striking to me about the field recording was the different layers of sounds.  Although I can’t say for sure what the sounds are, I could hear (at least) water, the boat, different animals, different kinds of electronic static.  To separate these different layers, I used the tool spectral clipping in TS, an Ircam sofware.

"I then organized all of the layers in Ableton Live, where I used very minimal automation to shape the sounds.  The lower frequency bands I could use as a bass beat, and the higher ones I could use as melody.  I wanted the composition to be solely made from the field recording and to center the given sounds since the field recording is already incredibly complicated and mesmerizing, but also have a little fun."

Narwhal reimagined by Julie Zhu.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication ("CCO 1.0 Dedication”), New York Public Library

"My process began by redesigning some things I heard in the recording like ship noise, and some sounds that I thought were missing such as the underwater atmosphere. I imagined that the narwhals were so vocally active in the recording because the ship noise disturbed their ability to use echolocation. I then did some research to learn more about narwhals and what threats they may face because I wanted to try and compose a soundscape from the narwhals’ perspective. I learned that they swim around and underneath ice sheets for protection and to feed, but can also die from getting caught in it if it freezes very quickly, and that they are indeed affected by ship noise. 

"In trying to figure out what an ice flash sounds like, I came across some recordings of singing ice and found that it’s caused by deep cracks in the ice due to extreme temperature changes. I then began designing the sound of the singing ice. As the onset of the sound is laser-like, and the body is variable in pitch, similar to the doppler effect, I figured synthesizing the sounds made sense. However, all of the ice-cracking sounds and most of the other sounds are created by layering, editing and processing field recordings. I additionally used some instruments to provide harmony and dissonance, which I’d like to leave up to the listener's interpretation along with the form of the piece. I used processed cello recordings of natural harmonics and bowing sul-ponticello (near the bridge) which I believe shares properties with the arctic in that its hollow, slightly fragile sound subjectively resembles the cold. The original recording of the narwhals was high-pass-filtered to remove low frequency ship/recorder noise from the file and used as a texture along with the underwater atmosphere."

 Narwhal reimagined by Alex Abahmed.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication ("CCO 1.0 Dedication”), New York Public Library

"My biomusic composition was inspired by the sounds of the mysterious narwhals rhythmic clicking, chirping and mystical vocalizations.

"This sound project provided the motivation to research the effects of ocean anthrophony (sounds generated by human activities) and how it affects marine animals on multiple levels. Most human-created sounds in the ocean have a far ranging negative and dramatic impact on marine life. The physiology, feeding and mating behaviors as well as their very survival are impacted by human intrusion and climate change.

My compositional goal was to feature the mythical Narwhal’s communication sounds by creating an underlying ambient soundscape, one that reimagined both anthrophonic and biophonic deep water sounds of the Arctic region."

Narwhal reimagined by Tom Thompson.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication ("CCO 1.0 Dedication”), New York Public Library

"Inspiration for 'Reflect & Melt (71°S 008°W)' came from research into the role of Antarctic sea ice in maintaining cooler polar temperatures by reflecting much of the sunlight back into space.

"By emulating, following and processing the shifting frequencies and sonic properties presented in the field recording - The harmonic content, musicality and shifting structures were derived directly from the source sound which was then layered using granular synthesis, sonic convolution techniques and various delays to create the composition."

Sea ice reimagined by R.Seiliog.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"For my composition “I Sing The Ice Electric” I chose the audio sample “Singing sea ice 2”, which was recorded at the PerenniAL Acoustic Observatory in the Antarctic Ocean, AWl's listening station north of the German Antarctic Neumayer station. The concept of Ice Singing definitely caught my attention and interest, but upon hearing the actual recording I immediately started to imagine a musical world where these sounds are born. 

"The sounds are the actual release of energy from the ice in the form of vibrations, in a range of frequencies is similar to the Doppler effect. A high tone right at the start rapidly drops in pitch, this high-frequency vibration hits your ear first, with the low-frequency tone right on its heels. Wind blowing over the rough surface of Antarctica's Ice Shelf causes the frigid expanse to produce a nearly continuous series of tones. The Ice Shelf's rough surface, called the firn layer, is almost constantly vibrating. The frequency of the vibrations changes in response to changing weather conditions. 

"The firn is “alive with vibration,” interacting with the intrinsic roughness of the ice surface called sastrugi. The ice is almost constantly “singing” at a frequency of 5 hertz — five cycles per second. The frequency is too low to be heard by human ears and, according to the American Geophysical Union, it was only made audible by speeding up the recording about 1,200 times. Imagining this sound producing process enabled me to create a composition whose textures and vibrations would feel right at home in the Antarctic. Thus “I Sing The Ice Electric” now lives too."

Sea ice reimagined by Jeff Dungfelder.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"The sounds of this recording of sea ice were such that I wanted the recording to sit within a body of sound so that it felt at home and where no sound takes over. I created some nice ambient synth passages with the field recordings sitting nicely within. I further added string parts which blended well and further electroic effects."

Sea ice reimagined by Audio Obscura.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"The Antarctic sea ice recording 037 captures a vast and rich spectrum of sonic events, ranging from low booms at <50Hz to siren-like shrills 10kHz and above. Antarctic sea ice is much thinner than Arctic ice and is subject to constant change as this frozen landscape is continually evolving at different temporal scales: From gradual and cyclical seasonal changes to sudden and  more sporadic cracking and separation events. The recordings appear to breathe and sing as a reminder that the sea ice is not as static as it appears in the satellite imagery that we have become so familiar with. The sea ice is a living organism in itself, as well as providing a food source, and habitats for other living organisms. The cracks and fissures that we hear evidence of in the recording, allow animals to feed and whales to breathe. Frazil ice (formed at the points where the ice meets the ocean and made of quick-freezing and chaotically organised crystals) also acts as a winter food store for penguins, seals and whales, trapping many nutrients and small organisms through the cold months, and releasing them again during warmer months.

"The location at which the recording was made (71°S 008°W), is close to the edge of the ice shelf, where movement between the ice and the ocean is likely to be particularly turbulent, with solid and liquid states engaged in a constant state of negotiation. The 'Singing Sea Ice' recording captures this rich and ongoing conversation, which may one day become a sound of the past if climate change continues to erode this highly-active frozen landscape.

""Conversations at the Edge of the World" imagines into the tonal and rhythmic potential of the original recording. A slow 50Hz heartbeat acts as a reliable temporal framework from which shorter cyclic episodes and sporadic sonic events are aligned (only audible on headphones or speakers with good bass response!) A higher pitched conversation between ice and ocean is isolated, re-pitched and spatialised using binaural panning production techniques, to create a harmonically-rich texture which immerses the listener at the heart of its song. Both of these sounds are extracted directly from the original recording and demonstrate the wide-range of frequencies captured in the sonic events that occur at the edge of the ice shelf. Other abstract textures and acousmatic instances appear as 'imaginary' audible hallucinations, triggered by the ethereal and ever-evolving content of the conversation at the edge of the world.

"This ~5 minute composition is best listened to on headphones and in a very quiet environment, as many of the sounds are very subtle and delicately layered."

Sea ice reimagined by Emma Kate Matthews.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"For my piece, I wanted to do something that conveyed the rhythm of the original recording. My first step was to use noise reduction software to separate the background noise from the rhythmic clicking. I then loaded those as samples onto my Elektron Octatrack and Analog RYTM. On the RYTM I created a drum kit layering samples of the recording with the drum synth engines. I used the Octatrack to sequence and play back the recording through my modular synthesizer where I used resonators, filters, a sequencer and effects to create the bass-line, melody, and background wash of sound. The result was this dreamy, hypnotic, swaggering beat that conjures images for me of toothed cetaceans foraging, hunting, and frolicking beneath the ice."

Odontocete sounds reimagined by Scott Riesterer.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"Taking inspiration from the sound source where echolocation is used by odontocetes reverberating off the sea ice, the sound wave emitting from the nasal cavity bouncing off ice walls was imagined from the subjective point of view of an odontocete. It recaptured and structured the relationship between the odontocete and the ice sea from various perspectives. 

"The clicking sound from the nasal cavity is used as a trigger for the start of two human voices. The bass sound from the ice sea can also be heard. And the human voices bounce off the reverbs created with elements of the sound of the ice sea. These create an impression of a person singing multiple songs simultaneously (or as if casting a spell).

"The synthesizer was mixed into the pitch extracted from the sound of the ice sea, creating an accompaniment.

"I also imagine the odontocete traveling as a story that runs through the piece. 

"Odontocetes visit Japanese coasts every winter. Culturally speaking, we still have the tradition of eating whales, which for some appear barbaric. American whaling ships arrived in Japan around 1853 in search for whale oils. This led Matthew Perry to force open the country, and turn Japan into a western style civilization.

"It was shocking to learn that whales were one of the major factors for Japan to end the pre-modern era. Consequently, the country became civilized and imperialized, which eventually led to the invasion of neighboring countries, and ultimately, loosing the war after the atomic bombing.

"I had a disturbing thought, as if the whale’s intelligence was knocking on the door of civilization. 

"Whether it knows it or not, the whale sings as it travels through the sea, leaving echoes on the sea ice wall."

Odontocete sounds reimagined by Kentaroh imai.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

These clicking and whistle noises most likely belong to odontocete species.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

Narwhals produce a variety of vocalizations, including echolocation clicks, tonal-pulsed signals, and whistles. 

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication ("CCO 1.0 Dedication”), New York Public Library

Narwhals produce a variety of vocalizations, including echolocation clicks, tonal-pulsed signals, and whistles. 

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication ("CCO 1.0 Dedication”), New York Public Library

"Whales use different sounds for communication and sensation, which are also known as the "whalesong". The three main types of whalesong are clicks, whistles, and pulsed calls. Although it is also called whalesong, the clicks made by some toothed whales are not strictly songs. It is believed to be for navigation and identifying physical surroundings.

"The click sounds are throughout the piece. They are like codes. The whales are murmuring, showing some messages. The music not only shows the activities of the whales but also describes the scenes of the Arctic and Antarctic regions, the animals, collapsing shelf ice and colliding icebergs, etc.

"I picked some of the patterns of the clicking sounds created by the odontocete species and turned them into a few rhythmic patterns played on the percussion instruments. I used percussion to imitate the whales. The woodwinds and brass instruments represent the ship horns and whales under the sea. The whole piece shows the audience a mysterious but beautiful area that hasn’t been widely explored yet."

Odontocete sounds reimagined by Anna Vienna Ho.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/DAUPHIN_AILES_MARINES_6.jpg

These clicking and whistle noises most likely belong to odontocete species.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/DAUPHIN_AILES_MARINES_6.jpg

These clicking and whistle noises most likely belong to odontocete species.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Striped_dolphin_in_the_Ligurian_Sea.jpg

Many sounds which are recorded by PALAOA, cannot be identified by scientists. Often it is not even possible to tell if the sounds originate from animals or if these are abiotic. The acoustic example displays a mysterious low-pitched sound. Scientists verified that this sound was recorded when no ship was present within a radius of 1000 km.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

Twice a year, the German research vessel Polarstern visits the Atka bay to deliver supplies to the Neumayer Station. These visits leave clear acoustic traces in the PALAOA recordings.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

The Southern Ocean is one of the last pristine areas of the world’s oceans. Only few fishing and research ships venture into the Southern Ocean (with tourist vessels sailing primairly along its northern perimeter along the Antarctic peninsula and adjacent island chain) and commercial exploitatation of Antarctic natural resources is currently (still) prohibited under the Antarctic Treaty.  Hence few anthropogenic acoustic sources exist in this region while the sea ice cover absorps sound more efficiently than the open water surface, reducing ambient sound levels further.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"We were drawn to working with the silent ocean recording– an increasingly rare location of minimal ‘human’ activity.

"The ‘soundtrack’ to this ‘silence’ was an in-the-moment capture while staying in rural Maryvale QLD, and after a community gathering. Clearly resonating was a genuine simplicity and appreciation of life and nature – a joy of living on country unencumbered by the wasteful conversation noise about material life crammed into metropolis living.
 
"The ocean recording is repeated throughout the work with no editing to honour its consistent presence.

"Nature sounds from around our home are embedded in all of our work. This is an ecocentric reminder that nothing is removed from nature – we are all nature. It’s a human concept that we own this block of land yet this concept has no meaning for the ecosystem that share this location.

"For us our music is inherently personal and an outcome of a particular moment, recorded simply on mobile phone. The music itself represents how human activity can at times reach a state of harmony with nature, where at other times it imposes and overshadows, leaving what is divinely natural barely discernible yet still existent.

"On our current trajectory this balance will reverse – the current catastrophic anthropogenic impacts in nature will eventually decline. Life will persist long after we are extinct...

"This work was created across the lands of the Githabul, Keinjan, Jagera, Yuggera, and Urgarapul peoples of South-East Queensland – we pay our respects to elders who have guided the past, walk with us in the present and lead us into the future. These lands have never been ceded."

Silent ocean reimagined by Sherman and Field.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"RECORDING PROCESS:
Composed using 8 layers of digitised ambient recordings:
* The original field recording (#31 “A Silent Ocean”) and two time stretched versions of the same recording. 
* A homemade field recording made to the length of the longest ‘stretched’ version of the original, capturing environmental noises & sounds from my garden studio with door and window open.
* 3 improvised and contrasting recordings of an unplugged electric violin.
    * sustained arhythmic, atonal bowed noise.
    * harmonic drone tones.
    * slow modal melody.
* 1 recording of a traditional, upright piano played using only the pedals.

"TECHNIQUES USED:
The stretched versions were created by transposing the original down one and then two octaves, producing recordings double and quadruple the length. These were essentially left untreated whilst each other layer was heavily processed, the results further passed through various digital effects.
The final mix was created by fading each layer in and then out over the duration of the composition.

"INSPIRATION:
My first reaction to hearing the original recording was one of complete surprise. I had expected it to be quite eventless, barren and empty. I listened to it a few times on different devices before I was confident the file hadn’t somehow become corrupt in download, or that my sound card was distorting resulting in relentless noise I heard on playback. I looked to the map coordinates of where the recording was made and felt a bit foolish. What was I thinking this place would be gentle, but considering my love of Japanese “Noise”, this was also perfect as a starting point. I’ve consciously tried to re/create this exactly with the bowed electric string many times set to this task enthusiastically!

"THE STORY BEHIND THE COMPOSITION:
The thought of working with such a remote sound, so far from normal human daily experience instantly inspired the idea for my piece:
As the original recording was a snippet of an unending ‘sameness’ from somewhere inhospitable to life, I would capture something the same from my surroundings, directly. Being in my town garden studio with daily life audible all around, such as birds singing; planes, cars & motorbikes passing; people going about their business; and most notably, the construction work immediately near by. The complete opposite of the original stimulus. The juxtaposition of the two and with digital manipulation yielded interesting blends of timbres and textures.
The idea developed further, exploring the character of the original field recording through extended bowed string technique and experimental piano."

Silent ocean reimagined by Ben Heaney.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"I originally picked the ship sound because it had a naturally organic industrial sound. I enjoy the drone it provides. I ended up stretching the sound out to create the base layer of this track. Once I had that down I added some wind to add to the chill.

"I layered some wind harp and frequency waves to go along with everything. I added some old recordings from a phonograph to give the element of outdated tech. Throughout the piece I placed the original sound file and faded in and out of it. I have always been a fan of the Franklin Expedition story. I figured since the sound files were recorded in such a cold climate; it would be a great time to create a track based off the cold and dark story."

Ship noise reimagined by Mike Benoit.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"After hearing PALOAO (Perennial Acoustic Observatory in the Antarctic Ocean) clip that I was provided with, I did some research to find out what sounds the project are capturing as they explore the Antarctic underwater soundscape. Whilst their recordings are of underwater marine life and strange acoustic events, the clip to me had the quality of a small survey plane as it flew over the vast polar wasteland, examining the damage caused by humans on the fragile ecosystem.

"The piece tries to conveys the soundscape and emotional impact of being on that plane, staring into the vast whiteness as you slowly drift in and out of consciousness, unsure if you are dreaming or awake.

"All of the sounds in the project are from the original sound recording, and are processed to give a dreamlike quality, with the occasional jarring of reality as the listener becomes aware of where they are. There are some additional sub-sonic recordings from the LOM Geofon, to resemble the cracking elements of ice shelves, moving, sheering and breaking in the distance, denoting the consequences we have forced on the environment."

 Unidentified sound reimagined by Neil Spencer Bruce.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"“There exist other kinds of thinking selves beyond the human”.
- Eduardo Kohn

"One of the instrumental figures in bringing the music of the drone to the West is the
Sufi musician Hazrat Inayat Kahn. His musical treatise from the early 20th century,
simply titled Music, is an incredible sonic-spiritual composition on the potentials and
possibilities of music as law, as cosmology, as harmony. “Music is behind the whole
working of the universe”, the Sufi Master wrote, “We live and move and have our
being in music”.

"In contemplating natures music, in finding ears to hear it, a body to feel and dance it, a mind to celebrate and (re)think it, and -all together- a spirit to create it, I fatefully
encountered this incredible ‘unidentified sound #1’ from AWI’s PALAOA observatory
in Antarctica. This strange, long, low frequency drone from somewhere in the
Antarctic Ocean has an unknown origin. Is it from a creature? From water? From
some geological feature? A nearby machine or ship? All that is known about the
origin of this sound is that no ship was within a thousand km radius when it was
recorded. What we can say for certain is that it is a subaquatic sounding of Earth, of
universe, captured expertly and offered for us here to resonate with, to find
resonance in the unknown of the sonosphere.

"When I first heard the recording, I immediately felt that it was already so beautifully
strange that it required only very little to elicit its charms. I only wanted to amplify its
qualities, saturate its mysteries. Considering it as a vocalization of Earth I simply play
along with it, in amity and community. To get there, I put myself into a trance through
a listening meditation and recognize the sounder. I reflect the sound multiply into the
eternal of drone. I play back to the sounder an image of itself that is also me. This
track operates as an attentional strategy for rediscovering ourselves in the more-
than-human world.

"Water, amongst other things, is a specifically acoustic environment. Sound travels
faster than light in water, and whale song is thought to produce holographic ‘images’
within the mind of the ancient creatures as they communicate with one another
across vast distances. Creatures both aquatic and terrestrial use sound as a form of
sight: sonar. If we consider this ‘sonic sight’ in an expanded sense, then when I
deeply listen to this sound, I am, in a sense, recognized by it, or whatever emanates
it. In coming to witness one another -over time- we come to recognize each other. In
that unspeakable recognition between myself and the sound, I believe we have a
camaraderie, we are in, of, and as the thought(s) of the world beyond the human.

"If you take a look at the wave/sonogram of this composition, you will see an audio
Rorschach figure swimming or flying out of the vibration. This has to do partly with
the way the structure of the composition was prepared: first playing the original
recording backwards (to get to know it better), and then forwards. In that reflection
between the polar edges of the Earth and my Farfisa (an electric organ) I
acknowledge and celebrate mystery as mystery. I find solace in what is
immeasurable, intangible, uncertain. It is there in the musicality of resonant Earth
that the radical plurality and multiplicity of worlds and thought resides and resounds
in a relational dynamic that exists beyond experience."

Unidentified sound reimagined by Jol Thoms.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"This is a composition that explores and develops the natural structures in a polar soundscape. It was created with electronic production techniques, combining synthesizers and drum machines with samples of odontocete species and sea ice found in the Polar Sound field recordings.

"When listening to the recorded sounds, I found that clear acoustic and rhythmic environments emerged. A combination of deep-toned repetitive percussive hits and high-pitched staccato accents can be heard in a mysterious, yet peaceful, acoustic space. These were my main inspirations for this work. 

"The composition was directly built around the field recording elements, which were later processed to match the resulting music. The rhythm was designed to complement the percussive sounds produced by natural phenomena. The timbres were set to capture the resonant vibrations of the main components of the polar environment (ice, water, wind). The cadence is meant to match the animal sounds.

"From a technical perspective, the "odontocete species and sea ice" recording was cleaned from background noise through a processing algorithm and then split into frequency ranges to separate the components and place them independently in the composition. Some of the sounds were used to build the sonic environment and some as part of the rhythm.

"The natural structures of the polar sonic environment also inspired many other creative choices in this composition. Indeed, in my scientific research, I am very interested in the emergence of criticality in nature, in which many physical and biological systems live at the edge between order and chaos. Music also develops at a critical state between order and chaos (in a balance between being too repetitive and too confusing) so the recorded passages were used to guide artistic choices of sounds and structures, to project the same balance of robustness and fragility that is found in the polar environment.

"Finally, I was also inspired by the mysterious nature of the recorded acoustic space, which reminds us that polar exploration is still a journey into the unknown. The composition is meant to capture the cadence of an adventure, where the endeavoring pace of a sustained beat is interrupted by the wandering explorations of unexpected passages."

Odontocete sounds reimagined by Cristián Huepe.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Striped_dolphin_in_the_Ligurian_Sea.jpg

"Initially I chose other field recordings but they were taken over by other composers. I thought that if a soundscape contained harmonic sounds it would have been easier or more inspiring. But then, already during the creation process, I found that even in the sound of dolphins' teeth biting, there are small microtonal differences. Rhythms that suggest continuity, but change. Jazz. And there I started with an idea: to take that rhythms and those different heights, to achieve a work where the ambient sound is at the same gain as the instruments, and that works as a roadmap for the development.

"Harps, synthesizers, bells, voices, bass, strings, theremin, some percussion. Everything adapts and fits together like a puzzle, depending on the field recording. The beat definitely emulates the throat sounds of whales. The strongest part of the track is then assembled on this rhythm. A melting ice works as a snare drum and the voices copy the sound of the dolphins. They speak their language. Everything was assembled in Ableton Live, using some virtual instruments, but above all, the greatest work consisted in accentuating and accompanying at the same precise and exact time, each of the sounds expressed by the animals. At the end, the instrumentation game is revealed, being alone without the original track for a few seconds.
 
"The name "The frozen OASIS" is an anagram of the initial letters belonging to Odontocete Species And Sea Ice, and is used in two senses: oasis as a place to rest, to breathe, to reset. But also as a place in the desert. An alarm of what could happen even in the Arctic, if global warming continues."

Odontocete sounds reimagined by Cristian Estrella.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Striped_dolphin_in_the_Ligurian_Sea.jpg

"My top two choices were odontoceter recordings, because they both felt familiar in a sense of everyday life. In both recordings you can hear many conversations. And when listening to the chosen recording a couple of times, a lot of conversation topics from daily life got to my mind. I had to include my thoughts and small talk that lately surrounded me. So my inspiration followed the story of marine life, told through clicking and whistling. The crashing of sea ice seemed to be a situation that pushed all daily talks, dreaming and chilly feelings aside and united all into survival comunity, that is deciding to leave the place at once.

"For the composition I used only the chosen file and my voice. I manipulated some special sounds with delays, pitch corrections and reverb to make some kind of rhythm. All in all, the whole story tells the original recording itself. I just added some human drama and translated it to one of many versions of how we interpret the world around us."

Odontocete sounds reimagined by Mojca.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/DAUPHIN_AILES_MARINES_6.jpg

"When an iceberg collides, the gate that connects the ancient and the present opens, and the song is composed with the idea that ancient travelers would travel.
As a gayageum performer, a traditional Korean string instrument, I tried to give an unknown and mysterious feeling by using the gayageum, invented in the 6th century, as the main instrument, and Korean jing and other Asian instruments.

"With the motif of the ritual music of the Joseon Dynasty, when an iceberg collides and the ritual music is played, travelers come from ancient times.

"Ancient travelers travel gracefully and quietly as if dancing. When an iceberg collides again, they return to ancient times to which they belonged through a gate."

Colliding icebergs reimagined by Hwayoung Shon.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"A lament. The sound of the end of the world. The cataclysmic cracking in the recording of the far away glacier is foreboding and deeply saddening. I've weaponised it."
 
Colliding icebergs reimagined by David Lol Perry.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"I wanted to create the sound of the rubbing sea ice as a background to a chilled-out track. The sounds was chopped up multiple times to create the percussion track along with pad sounds.  Then parts of the sound were imported into Quanta 2 by Audio Damage and the grains used to create the music along with several of instances of Lounge Lizard by AAS.  This then had a simple hi-hat and kick pattern added to finish the track."
 
Rubbing sea ice reimagined by Karhide.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

The most intense sounds recorded by the PALAOA station originate from the collision of two icebergs.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

The most intense sounds recorded by the PALAOA station originate from the collision of two icebergs.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

The underwater soundscape of the Southern Ocean is dominated by the sounds of ice. These sounds are generated when ice floes rub against each other or bend.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

The underwater soundscape of the Southern Ocean is dominated by the sounds of ice. These sounds are generated when ice floes rub against each other or bend.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"My aim with PALAOA dreams was to enhance the feeling and mood of the original recording made at the acoustic observatory. Without my additions and embellishments getting in the way or worse, overwhelming the mysterious Antarctic ice sounds, I want to transport listeners to a polar wilderness whether they are aware of the technical background to the piece and project or not.

"I slowed down the original field recording to reveal more sounds, detail and character. Apart from EQ and noise reduction, the only editing was to repeat the sound of what I assume is breaking ice near the end. In the original recording it only happens once.

"The soundscape and music I tried to keep as organic-sounding as possible, with the exception of deliberately adding a hint of chaotic digital noise. This represents PALAOA beaming its recordings back to base."

Rubbing sea ice reimagined by Flexagon.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"About my composition: The first thing I noticed from the field recording was that there was a sense of movement. I imagined big  masses of ice moving, most of the time slowly but sometimes in a violent way. So, I thought that this was a good starting point. There are several ways to add movement to a piece of music. I used some of them. First of all, there is the panning. There is one sound that repeats from the start of the piece to the end of this that moves slowly from one extreme of the stereo field to the other (in Addition this sound appears on and off the beat constantly). There are also a couple of sounds (a flute and a melodica) that sometimes appear panned to the right and some other times panned to the left or, moving slowly from one side to the other. The second thing to give a movement sensation was to make the instrumentation more dense in some parts and more light in another parts. Also, though the pulse of the piece is always the same, there are parts that sound slower and some other parts that sound faster, because of the way it was orchestrated and the sounds and rhythms involved. Another way to add movement was to use several suspended chords (the harmony of the piece repeats over and over, and in a cycle of eight bars i included three suspended chords, a SUS2 and two SUS4, one of them moves to a dominant chord to finally resolve in the first grade). There is also a bass line that that is very simple but has some notes off the beat to also give the movement sensation.

"About the use of the provided field  recording, as it was long enough, I decided to use it to give frame to the music. The piece begins with the field recording and then the music begins and in the end the music gives space again to the field recording.  I thought that the nature was here before humans and, will remain after humans. This was the idea of organizing the piece in that way."

Rubbing sea ice reimagined by Carlos Devizia.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"The field recording of colliding icebergs sounded naturally rhythmic in places so I used it as a loop to begin the composition. This is overlaid with a piano phrase and an obscured audio track of someone describing their views on climate change in which they say they are not worried about it and that they are hopeful. This audio is directly followed by an upbeat musical section which quickly gives way to a more thunderous section that combines piano, bass, and drum phrases, the looped iceberg collision, and audio of a person struggling to breathe.

"The central idea of this track is that human voices and opinions about nature, weather, and climate change will ultimately be obscured by the phenomena themselves."
 
Colliding icebergs reimagined by Patrick Mark Duffy.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"Fissure is a piece of electronic music that incorporates synths, electric guitars, flute and drum samples, and a field recording of two icebergs colliding off Antarctica. I was drawn toward this particular field recording because of the intense and very dense rhythms produced by the two icebergs as they clatter off one another. I immediately started to imagine this cacophony emerging within a dense drone piece, the shuddering delay of synths and guitars giving rise to the almighty clattering of ice. 

"I wanted to conjure up a sense of both space and dread, so drew on the musical structures and techniques of electronic composers such as Fennesz and Tim Hecker, carving out sonic space only to fill it with highly processed instruments and granular effects that decay certain pitches into the fuzz of white noise. The icebergs themselves come into the piece at around the halfway point. The music builds in intensity, then suddenly drops away for a second, and the icebergs finally appear alongside a distorted bass line. Initially I present the field recording as I found it - or a portion of it at least - and then later slow it down and remove a large selection of frequencies, making it less intense as the piece winds down into silence."
 
Colliding icebergs reimagined by Christopher McAteer.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"The thunderous sounds of the glaciers breaking and colliding with each other allow us to determine certain “important” moments in the composition. Full of serious and submersible hits within a base sound; what is running water.

"The strong blows of the icebergs were great, but by modifying them, a more serious, variable and imposing sound object was obtained that transported to a cold and enigmatic sea, where there was nothing but the giant ice falling into the darkness.
Some concrete music techniques were used to give the necessary time to each sound of the icebergs colliding, thus unleashing a symphony that emulates the rough sound of the French horns. These variations allowed the construction of a soft but exasperating soundscape, since listening to the crash of the enormous ice in the water and the melancholy sounds of a digital synthesizer that appears as a sample to rhythmically connect with the person who listens to it. 

"Little by little the blows become more frequent and violent in the water, later, without warning, the digital rhythms culminate and allow the passage to the chords of the acoustic guitar recorded directly to a handheld recorder. We hear notes dancing over and over again that accompany an announced ending, while the little that was left of the icebergs and the hope of a tomorrow that will not come, fade into the depths of the dark and forgotten bottom of the sea."

Colliding icebergs reimagined by Josué Jaramillo Romero.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"Antarctica is the most uncharted place on Earth, which makes it the ideal place not only to research the past encased within the ice and to understand the causes of our present, but also to dream of possible futures where we can preserve these impressive natural architectures sculpted on ice.

"The sound of the icebergs’ collision inspired me to compose ambient music where one can feel and listen to the calmness of the frozen entourage.  A sea of icebergs meet, formidable in front of us while the water, the shattering of the ice as well as the wind, surround us in an infinite calmness.  In “Blue Icebergs”, we can then listen to the ice silently singing while, little by little, we begin to realize that these masses of ice, fallen from a glacier are truly in danger because of global warming.  They are endangered, and if we don’t do something about it, we will lose them forever. 

"“Blue Icebergs” was created with the soundscape recording as a starting point, and from there, the ambient was composed using digital instruments, always looking to show the coldness of the environment through sounds and crystal notes, as well as through vibrations of strings and metals."

Colliding icebergs reimagined by Pelayo Del Villar.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"The field recording of rubbing sea ice was of mediocre quality and there were a lot of noises on the recording. I couldn’t quite distinguish the origins of sound. First there is something like a litte boat motor, then wind, then rustling and something metallic touching some other surface, then there it was: a squeaking, haunted sound, heavy and deep, possibly the large mass of ice tissue touching and rubbing against each other. It sounded almost like aching, like the interior of a living house, a body, a being, ancient tissue that is rubbing against each other and slowly sinking back into comfortable position. 

"I decided to deliberately use everything that was there and echo all the noisy parts back into my composition and treat them as perfectly valuable sounds. So I imitated the noise through sound. 

"What I heard made me think of the different timelines that meet within the various states of water.  I perceive water as a being with different limbs stretching out in various densities and shapes: water, steam, fog, ice, cloud, rain, snow. All libraries of all the events of time, just presenting in a different time signature. 

"The water underneath the ice might speak to the humid air above the ice sheet. The snow speaks with the melting drops of water that run back into the ocean body. Bubbles of air move towards the ice and collect underneath it. The ice itself acts as a wordless library of years and years, centuries, possibly millennia of information.  It releases bits and pieces into its surroundings and the informations become alive again. A forever cycle. 

"I treated the sound recording of the rubbing ice with different filters, pitch modulations and echoes.  I took a certain part of the original sample and looped it, then added small time signature changes to the loops and also added more sound.  In an attempt to recreate the formation of ice by layering sheets of water, the loops were created in one long session and then edited together with the samples and field recordings."

Rubbing sea ice reimagined by Katrin Hahner.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"Polar Sounds, moving, melting, breaking ice floes. Cracking sounds, crunching noise. Two small tones as a counterpoint in the noise of the dissolving ice.
The recording of the rubbing ice inspired me to experiment with real ice.
My own filed recording with hydrophone of rubbing, crunching ice becomes a dense tapestry of sound togetherwith the samples of the ice from the polar sea. Composed with Appleton Live, a Roland SP404 MK II and a Shbobo Shnth.
What is the power of the ice, when does it lose its power?"

Rubbing sea ice reimagined by Anna Schimkat.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"The process of calving initially suggest a violent phase, but -as one of the meanings of the term - it surely gives birth to other things. We certainly know that Anthropocene, global warming and all these consequences are a painful phase, but I think that we could not miss the chance to positively engage ourselves in creation of something new.

"From a sonic point of view, the composition takes shape entirely from the sample: it's been processed with a modular synthesiser, granuralized and became a sort of microsound feedback tone which reminds me sub water sounds/ whale chants.
So all the harmonic and melodic sounds derive from this. The title suggests that there is  necessary descent phase to become something else."

Collapsing shelf ice reimagined by Alessio.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

“The World Is Passing Away and So Is Its Desire” is part of a soundtrack to the end-of-the-world horror film we are currently living in. In this scene, the polar ice shelves are stalked and devoured by a terrible beast, the embodiment of the human consumption driving climate change.

"I had two sources of inspiration for my piece, the first being the general fear surrounding the disintegration of polar ice, the effect on coastal areas and sea waters, along with the loss of human and animal life. In particular, I had recently been reading about the Thwaites Glacier and its Ice Shelf, which is part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. It is likely to collapse within the next decade due to climate change and when it does, sea levels will rise dramatically. It is hanging on by a thread, but is only part of the larger problem. 

"The second is the Native American mythology of the wendigo, which are monsters formed by gluttony, greed, selfishness and cannibalism. The wendigo is an emaciated, skeletal creature, making whistling sounds, and mimics human voices. It consumes and is never satisfied. The human that it once was is frozen inside where the heart should be-and the only way to free them is to kill them. It speaks to the darkest parts of humanity, and feels like what we have inadvertently become.

"In the theatre of my mind, I imagined a giant wendigo, created by collective greed, selfishness and denial, chewing up everything in its path- here, the ice of the poles. Our humanity, goodness and best intentions are frozen inside this monster of consumption, that is endless and unstoppable. The ice cries as the monster approaches, and its heartbeat stops as it is torn apart with only the wind remaining. The base sample (024 collapsing shelf ice) is utilised as both the sound of the heartbeat and as it is consumed at the end. 

"I would also like to mention that the sound of cries in the piece were made by the howls of wolves recorded from the Wolf Conservation Center in New York, which cares for Mexican grey wolves and red wolves, both on the brink of extinction by human hands. There are 186 and 8 remaining in the wild, respectively. 

"The title comes from the Bible verse John 2:17, which talks about the end of the world- as do the accompanying lines in the piece itself from “The End of the World” by American poet Archibald MacLeish- two different views of the end of things brought into the context of this piece."

Collapsing shelf ice reimagined by Gabriel Edvy.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"This composition is created around the sounds of Weddell seals recorded in Antarctica.

"The seals have determined the development of the composition in terms of tempo, pace, key, rhythmic and melodic phrasings, and thematic content in the lyrics. 
Part of this process was a desire to “morph”, from human to seal, from land into water, from reality into dreams.

"I was fascinated by the fact that seals need to breathe, but on land their bodies are awkward and vulnerable, whereas they can fully express themselves as soon as they submerge underwater. The shift between these two very different elements is crucial in the piece, and it explores many fundamental contrasts that the environment and living conditions of the seals inspire to, e.g.:

ice – flesh
air – water
hurt – heal
soar – sink
up – down
firm – fluid
light – dark
awake – asleep
reality - imagination

Lyrics:
your eyes are so alive
they see with clarity
crystals in my lungs
ice melting on my tongue

your lips are sealed
your wounds will heal
and the waves will wash away my tears

in your dreams
I morphed into a different being
floating makes me lighter
soaring in a tidal stream

our ears are so alike
they hear disparity
whispers in the air
wavy currents in my hair

your fate is sealed
your soul will heal
and the wind will brush away our fears

in your dreams
I morph into a different being
floating makes me lighter
sleeping in a tidal dream

we morph into illusive beings
drifting, clinging tighter
sink into eternity."

Weddell seal reimagined by Hauman.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Andrew Shiva / Wikipedia

"Aquatic Echoes is my interpretation of an underwater recording from the PALAOA observatory on the Antarctic Ice Shelf. The recording is a very dense one, with sounds from an Antarctic Minke Whale, Weddell Seals and even distant Leopard seals. The recording also contains a lot of noise. I don’t know the source of this noise. Maybe it’s a ship, maybe it’s the ice, maybe it’s the self-noise of the equipment, maybe it’s an overhead storm. These animals are unfamiliar to me; I don’t even know the circumstances under which it was recorded. But it evokes a strange, alien world. A world consisting more of sound than anything else. 

"I was struck by the thumping of the Antarctic Whale. A repetitive low pulse almost continuously present in the two minute long recording. Other than he very clear and present calls from the Weddell seals, this thumping was buried in the noise floor, almost hidden. The unseen fundament of the soundscape. I wanted this sound to form the backbone of my composition. I admit that I actually don’t know if this low thumping is the Antarctic Minke Whale, it sounds lower than the few samples I found online. But the title of the track is Weddell seals chirping + thumping Antarctic minke whale.  

"For all I know, the thumping I isolated is a distant ship. I decided not to care: it was obviously a very present part of the soundscape recorded here, and there is still a lot we don’t know about the vocalisations of the Antarctic Minke Whale, so who knows. And if it was a distant ship, it goes to show how rare a truly pristine soundscape is. I decided I would build my composition on this uncertainty, this mystery. I split up the recording in a few pieces, isolating the thumping, isolating the seal calls, some other high frequency content, and isolating the noise I filtered away as well. Then I started building with these components, taking the structure from the sounds I heard. I decided to also use two recordings I made myself. Two recordings that include this mystery. The first was an underwater soundscape I recorded in the fjords of Norway. As with all underwater recordings, it is difficult to tell what you are hearing exactly. The other recording was a call I recorded in a dense and remote African rain forest. For quite a while I did not know what made the call was, so just called it ‘desperate bird’. Now I do know (it’s not a bird), but the feeling of mystery has never left me. These are also two recordings closely related to water, and both of them also come from ecologies at risk. 

"In the composition I wanted to create this otherworldly atmosphere, sounds of places we don’t know, worlds unknown to us, but of which can get an inkling through sound. I wanted to sounds to be open and claustrophobic at the same time, and used some processing to dive into the very intricate and complex seal calls.  I even used the noise I had filtered away in the composition as well, further highlighting the mystery. This composition is not a translation of the Antarctic Ocean, but an exploration and evocation of worlds foreign to us.  I think listening is a great way of trying to understand what these places could mean, and by expansion, what unfamiliar places can mean to us. This is why I was looking for these aquatic echoes."

Weddell seal reimagined by Stijn Demeulenaere.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Andrew Shiva / Wikipedia

"The work is inspired by the communication of the Weddell seals who use the ice and the sea to communicate and locate themselves and each other over long distance. At the same time the meditative chanting from the Song of the Selkie enhances the beauty and poignancy of “the last great wilderness”.  Physicist Ben Keitch explains how sound propagates which is how the mysterious space sounds also find their way to Antarctica… The haunting melodies invoke the emptiness of Antarctica, but remind us this is not a lonely place but how it has always been…

"There is a link between Weddells, Space weather and humans, all trying to use the best frequency to transmit along a resonant path in the medium they are in.  The Weddells find their frequency by “chirping” up and down.  The Space weather naturally gets funnelled to Antarctica, and humans have to tune their radios to the correct frequency each day to find a long-range transmission.  It all results in strange pitch explorations. 

"There are some of the very subtle beats and clicks and whistles within the recording but quite a lot of muffled hiss, which I tried to reduce without losing details.  Some of the stronger call sounds I isolated, and experimented with putting through a MIDI controller keyboard for the first time.  By playing just one call sound through the octaves and shifting the pitch, I created many other sounds that are within the piece – the long drawn out polar atmospheres, that cross the boundaries of underwater and over ice, with some subsonic rumbles; melancholy drawn out moaning scales and drones, and some stretching of sounds. Additions were the space sounds of spherics, whistlers and chorus picked up from the magnetosphere by the Halley Research Station, some pewws of ice, and underwater bubbles. For the most part, the piece is made from the Weddell seals hydrophone recording, and a couple of other reverbed key players: The Sing Your Heart Out Stroud choir, and physicist Ben Keitch who spent 18 months in Antarctica with the British Antarctic Survey as engineer.

"Each time I make an audio piece I am experimenting and learning something new.  On a practical level I find myself trouble-shooting a lot of basic audio tech.  Too many late night ‘how to’ video tutorials – how to make ambient music and drones, use a MIDI controller keyboard, noise reduction and effects, techniques of my DAW reaper, update my OS so that new and existing apps were compatible! 

"For the project I got drawn into a lot of research, and spent several hours interviewing Ben, reading through all the transcripts, with my head overflowing from stories and ideas, how to do them justice. There is so much potential in this material, and I’m inspired to weave the conversations into future chapters.

" In the end, I have 2 versions of this piece, one which only includes a few emotive quotes, and focuses on the sounds and atmosphere, the other interweaves snippets of the musings of physics that underlie the mixing of sounds, and is the work in progress. The whole subject of being in Antarctica and all the research that happens there got under my skin. Warning – sound pressure level - some subsonic sounds.

"Many thanks to:
Ben Keitch and the British Antarctica Survey for all his stories and insights shared, and passing to me the sounds from space. 
And to my sister and the choir she sings in, Sing Your Heart Out Stroud, for the recording of them singing ‘Ionn Da’ - ‘The Seal-woman’s Sea-Joy’

"At the beginning of this year I met Ben and was fascinated with his stories of living in Antarctica, and a shared interest in radio. Soon after I visited the RSS Discovery in Dundee and exhibitions about shipbuilding the great expeditions and the work of the British Antarctic survey. As an artist I am always interested in finding different ways to bring stories to life, and have been exploring radioart. I also find it important to connect with nature and environmental issues.  

"This callout was a wonderful serendipitous opportunity to dive into the underwater world of sounds of Antarctica, and find out more from Ben about his experiences, knowledge of the physics of frequencies and waves.  I was drawn to the a theory and spacey sounds of the Weddle seals, and have always loved the Scottish tales of the Selkies – drawn onto land and a half human life, rediscovering their skins, dive back to their underwater world – there is a quality of both joy and melancholy in those tales.  In this piece, the song of the Selkie emerges in a half human half weddell seal choir, and the different frequencies and pitch changes interweave, of environment, elemental, animal and human sounds transmitted and received. 

"The mix of bio marine research, the science of sound, radiophonic spaciness, mythology, exploration, the strangely peaceful and wild isolation of the melting Antarctic all resonate in a strange and poignant ambience."

Weddell seal reimagined by Tara Downs.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Andrew Shiva / Wikipedia

"This Blue Distance is composed using hydrophone recordings from the Antarctic seas and vocal improvisation. Taken at the PALAOA observatory, the recording features the vocalisations of Weddell seals, the ‘thumping’ of Antarctic minke whales, and distant calls of leopard seals.
 
"I approached the recording in the style of a call and response from afar. Improvisations echo and interject with the chirping of the seals; the use of breath evokes polar winds, blurring into the hiss of the hydrophones; humming attunes to the low frequency thumps; pitch bends and fragments of melody emerge out of the descending trilling figures from the seals above. 

"By recording the vocal improvisations in a chapel with marked reverberation, this grants the voice a feeling of breadth and reach. The space and materiality of the architecture amplifies, reflects, echoes and cradles the single voice, just as the medium of the ocean allows sound to transmit across great distances. The bloom of the sacred acoustic space suggests transcendence and otherworldliness, from one hallowed ground to an environment equally precious and revered.

"Spectral manipulation highlights different bands of frequencies in the recording: shifting from mid-range to high and then to low boosted ranges in three overarching sweeping gestures of the piece. As the piece unfolds, low frequency oscillators with varying determinacy modulate the peak of boosted frequencies to produce a surging, swelling, wave-like effect. The addition of accentuated delay on the recording later in the piece enhances the sense of distance and the ripple effect of small changes. By intervening in the recording in this way, this highlights the exciting vitality of the antarctic sounds across different registers, whilst also recognising the imprint of human-driven changes on the sound world as the recording becomes progressively distorted.

"At the climax, the wave of sound breaks and dissolves into spray, softening into a gentler surge. Beneath it, the voice emerges once more, echoing the ebb and flow of the recording with layered textures of the motif from the beginning, blooming and dispersing. The sounds of the antarctic gradually fade into the distance over the waves, leaving only the voice behind.

"The title references Rebecca Solnit’s essay ‘The Blue of Distance’, from A Field Guide for Getting Lost, which speaks of desire, remoteness, and the quiet cherishing of longing without possessing:

“Blue is the color of longing for the distances you never arrive in, for the blue world.”
As I listen to the worlds of polar seascapes, I think of the power of communication from afar, the sensitivity of hearing impact across incredible distance, and the striving towards global coexistence that sits at the core of the climate change crises: a coexistence that may be found in a continual, attentive response to the calls that we hear."

Weddell seal reimagined by Lara Weaver.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"My research has taken me across all of the world’s oceans, but I haven’t made it to the polar regions yet. I imagine them as the magical worlds where time is frozen and ice holds memories of the past. With climate change and melting ice these memories are fading away. 

"Even though I haven’t been there, this recording evoked a strange feeling of nostalgia in me. Maybe in my previous life I was there, perhaps as a whale, which is why I chose to study them in this life. As a marine biologist and bioacoustician I worked with different species of marine mammals, focusing on their social learning, vocal communication and culture. The longest I spent studying the songs of humpback whales, which inspired two electronic music albums that I released. As an artist I find endless inspiration in the sounds from the ocean. It is the place which feels like home, but at the same time like another reality. To these mysterious polar sounds which are new to me I added some of my own recordings in order to capture this feeling of familiar yet strange and mysterious environment. I used lots of reverb and delays to represent the sound propagating through the ocean, and echoes of ancient times coming from ice. I hope that my composition with its enchanting sounds will inspire people to think about our impact on this planet and all its beautiful and fascinating creatures."

Weddell seal reimagined by Sara Niksic.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

From time to time, large pieces of the Antarctic shelf ice break off (calve) and crash into the ocean. This process is called calving. The animals in the water seem not to be disturbed by these sounds, already shortly after these loud noises, pinnipeds are heard again in the recordings.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

The Weddell seal lives in fast ice areas, close to the Antarctic ice shelf edge. At PALAOA we can hear its vocalizations almost year-round (few/no calls in February). Weddell seals have a large vocal repertoire, of which 14 call types were recorded at PALAOA. Their repertoire is known to differ between breeding populations. Some of these sounds are thought to be produced by males to defend underwater territories. The most typical calls are the 'Falling chirp sequence' (well visible in the snippet) and the trill. The sound examples also contain distant calls of leopard seals.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Andrew Shiva / Wikipedia

The Weddell seal lives in fast ice areas, close to the Antarctic ice shelf edge. At PALAOA we can hear its vocalizations almost year-round (few/no calls in February). Weddell seals have a large vocal repertoire, of which 14 call types were recorded at PALAOA. Their repertoire is known to differ between breeding populations. Some of these sounds are thought to be produced by males to defend underwater territories. The most typical calls are the 'Falling chirp sequence' (well visible in the snippet) and the trill. The sound examples also contain distant calls of leopard seals.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Andrew Shiva / Wikipedia

The Weddell seal lives in fast ice areas, close to the Antarctic ice shelf edge. At PALAOA we can hear its vocalizations almost year-round (few/no calls in February). Weddell seals have a large vocal repertoire, of which 14 call types were recorded at PALAOA. Their repertoire is known to differ between breeding populations. Some of these sounds are thought to be produced by males to defend underwater territories. The most typical calls are the 'Falling chirp sequence' (well visible in the snippet) and the trill. The sound examples also contain distant calls of leopard seals.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"The sound of the Ross seal is quite unusual, it's almost like a synthesizer in itself, so I knew I wanted to incorporate some electronic sounds in some way. The sound comes in waves, or 'whooshes', so I had it ever-present in my piece, doing its own thing, with only very minor compression, EQ and reverb.

"I wanted to start with something quite minimal, and perhaps a little mysterious, given that this seal is not sighted often and lives only in Antarctica - a place where there is so much mystery. My idea or thought pattern was to start minimal, build and then return to minimal, as if you are on a journey in the Antarctic - seeing nothing for miles in endless white and then suddenly spotting a Ross Seal, only for it to disappear again into the cold ether.
 
"After building the piece with some synth tracks and guitars, I added some processed drums, strings, bass and more synths and guitar to build to a peak around the guitar line, and then for everything to fade away, with the original sound of the seal remaining constant throughout the piece."

Ross seal reimagined by Adrian Williams.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Hannes Grobe, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

"The calls of these seals seemed to me like the beginning of a conversation in a language I had not heard before, so I sent the sounds back as a kind of musical echo. The calls were also digitally processed, e.g. down-tuned (later in the piece). Berlin-based artist Judith Retzlik played the cello. My little son Ben spoke the coordinates of where the seals were recorded. Among other things, Ben and I used sounds created with ice particles from our fridge. With sonic means, I wanted to achieve being close to the seal and its environment."

Ross seal reimagined by Giant Skeletons.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"Reflects on how deep one can travel within sound in time, how amplified our perception of each element can become, how far it takes us in exploring unusual lands.  This piece merges together underwater recordings of ross seal “siren” and synthesised sounds  in order to magnify each particle of original sound source.  I choose to look closer on surroundings and shapes, accompanied noises, movements of the sound waves, texture, clicks and each element of the spectrum, therefore creating a statement : beauty is always taken for granted by humans, we must look closer and acknowledge challenges of modern reality."

Ross seal reimagined by Sofia Zaiceva.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

The Ross seal is the least investigated Antarctic seal species, which is likely due to its pelagic lifestyle. Ross seals live in the poorly accessible pack ice and also in areas of open water. PALAOA provides us with unique recordings of their underwater calls. Five different call types were identified so far: high, middle, and low frequency sirens, as well as a tonal call which is often associated with the “whoosh”.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Hannes Grobe, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

The Ross seal is the least investigated Antarctic seal species, which is likely due to its pelagic lifestyle. Ross seals live in the poorly accessible pack ice and also in areas of open water. PALAOA provides us with unique recordings of their underwater calls. Five different call types were identified so far: high, middle, and low frequency sirens, as well as a tonal call which is often associated with the “whoosh”.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Hannes Grobe, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

The Ross seal is the least investigated Antarctic seal species, which is likely due to its pelagic lifestyle. Ross seals live in the poorly accessible pack ice and also in areas of open water. PALAOA provides us with unique recordings of their underwater calls. Five different call types were identified so far: high, middle, and low frequency sirens, as well as a tonal call which is often associated with the “whoosh”.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

The Ross seal is the least investigated Antarctic seal species, which is likely due to its pelagic lifestyle. Ross seals live in the poorly accessible pack ice and also in areas of open water. PALAOA provides us with unique recordings of their underwater calls. Five different call types were identified so far: high, middle, and low frequency sirens, as well as a tonal call which is often associated with the “whoosh”.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

In leopard seals, females are larger than males, which is more common in aquatic animals than it is in terrestrial animal species. During the breeding period PALAOA detects vocalizations of both male and female leopard seals. Due to the fact that leopard seals are solitary animals, they are thought to use their vocalizations mainly to find a mate during the breeding season. Seven distinct leopard seal vocalizations were recorded. 

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"This is my take on global warming and war, both of which are human made real threats to all life of earth.

"Named after the British explorer James Clark Ross, who obtained the first specimen during his Antarctic expedition with war ships HMS Erebus and Terror 1839 -1843, less is known about the Ross seal than any of the other Antarctic seals. The species is mostly found on the extremely hard to navigate pack ice around the Antarctic continent, sometimes called “the last place on earth”. The Ross seal often assumes a posture with the head raised, and the mouth open and pointing upwards, and it is due to this behavior that this seal has often been referred to as the “singing seal”.  It displays a variety of vocalizations which may be used for communication between seals or to warn off predators. Explosive noises, pulsed chugs and siren calls are also used by the Ross seal, some of which are used during mating and in communication between the mother and pup.

"The first siren was invented by John Robison towards the end of the 18th century as a device to create a piercing sound. Various similar apparatus with loudspeakers were quickly developed before and during “the war to end all wars” WW1 and further became an all too familiar soundtrack to anyone in Europe during WW2. The wailing sound being synonymous with approaching enemy bombing from above. Most countries test the air raid sirens on a regular basis during peace time. In Ukraine during the war in 2022, the sounds of the air raid sirens are no drill. The waxing and waning wail of a siren has embedded itself in the human psyche as warning of impending danger.

"The primary threat to the Ross seal as well as the human species is global climate change. The Antarctic holds up to 86% of all fresh water on earth. Would this melt - which it already is - sea levels around the globe will rise, up to 10 meters, affecting all coastal cities and the global climate as we know it. The sirens of the Antarctic are out of sight and ears, but the warning is real.

"Siren (noun, device)
a device that makes a loud warning noise:
The terrible wail of sirens signaled a disaster.

"Siren (in ancient Greek literature)
one of the creatures who were half woman and half bird, whose beautiful singing encouraged sailors to sail into dangerous waters where they died."

 Ross seal reimagined by Eva Q Månsson.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Hannes Grobe, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

"As soon as I heard the sounds of the Ross seals, they reminded me of recordings of space weather radio waves that are made audible through the use of ground-based radio receivers. This so-called ‘natural radio’ from the Earth’s magnetosphere can be caused by space weather phenomena, like solar winds, as well as lightning, and even the auroras - the Northern & Southern lights. Combining the ethereal sounds of the Ross seal with the aural chorus of natural radio, the composition seeks to draw together the far-flung locales of the Ross Sea, which is the southernmost sea on Earth, and the Earth’s magnetosphere, the magnetic field surrounding our home planet. Through sonic alchemy, I seek the merging of the magnetic south with the magnetosphere.

"I hope this composition conjures a vision of small, big-eyed Ross seals swimming through a sky lit by the aurora, communing and communicating with mammals and solar winds alike. I imagine that their particular cadence and whirling pitches are conversant with the audible radio waves of space. Perhaps the unique fluency of the Ross seal is that it speaks a language that is both aquatic and celestial. It speaks to both the depths of the sky and the depths of the sea.

"Knowing that in actuality the Ross seals live in a mostly inaccessible part of the Antarctic, I imagine them swimming beneath the ice, living their lives, impervious to the impact of humanity on their habitat. But given the reality of a rapidly warming world, I was driven to envision an alternative to the image of the melting of the ice shelf putting them in peril. So, that’s why I decided to take the sounds of the Ross seal to a new location - someplace with an eternal quality - an imaginary celestial refuge where they can swim freely without impact from warming seas.

"I created this piece in Reaper. I purchased royalty free recordings by long-time recorder of the magnetosphere, Stephen P. McGreevy, and mixed in the sounds with the Ross seal recording. I created 4 tracks of the number 017 Ross seal field recording, and added different effects to each track, including reverb, delay, distortion, compressor and EQ. There are multiple tracks of natural radio, including the crackle of lightning, the whine of whistlers and the voice of the earth chorus. The piece is underlain by waves - ocean waves, sound waves and the audible radio waves of the magnetosphere.  All of these ethereal sounds seemed likely to make the recording float away, so it’s anchored with a bass line melody that aims to ground the piece in a feeling of exploration, but also of comfort - because after all, as otherworldly as these sounds may seem, they are all part of our home planet."

Ross seal reimagined by Elizabeth LoGiudice.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"My vision for this project was to create and perform a composition for solo khaen, the bamboo free-reed mouth organ of Laos and Northeast Thailand, situated inside an imaginary underwater Antarctic soundscape. I have been composing and performing contemporary works for the khaen for almost 30 years and am always seeking new contexts to feature this beautiful instrument.

"The Ross seal’s remarkable vocalizations reminded me of the seductive wails of the mythic sirens that taunted Odysseus during his return to Ithaca, rising and falling over a surprising range of pitches.

"The short sample, played at various speeds between original and half-speed, is processed to make the foundation for a fictional and multilayered underwater soundscape, collaged together from various natural and electronic sources (and also including the vocalizations of Weddell seals). I composed and recorded a new composition for solo khaen and placed it within this imaginative soundscape, crafting dialogue between the music and the elements of the imaginary sonic environment."

Ross seal reimagined by Christopher Adler.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"The loud calls of the leopard seal taken as they are. In their depth, in their vibration, with the trills, in their height, then added my voice. Now I, too, calling under water... My voice recorded, changed and approximated to the vocalization of the leopard seal. I listen carefully to them: Longing heard, sadness heard and I answer with a melody on my violin... a melody for all the gigantic leopard seals, these solitary animals. A short song for the loners of Antarctica...

"Mirijam Streibl, PhD is a researcher and artist. Since she was a child, she has dreamed of visiting Antarctica, swimming with marine mammals. Listening to the underwater audio recordings and work on the acoustic behavior of the leopard seal moved her. "You get very close through listening.""

Leopard seal reimagined by Mirijam Streibl.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"Leopard seals are curious creatures, they’re relatively unstudied mammals. Seven leopard seal vocalizations were recorded, mirrored by the seven instruments in the song; a drum kit, stick percussion, a Jupiter pad, acoustic strings, a piano, and two synthesizer leads played on a Memorymoog.

"The field recordings appear in various forms throughout the track. Firstly, the white noise of the recordings is used amongst the percussion for some extra sizzle. Secondly, the leopard seal sounds are filtered, pitched, and put through various granular effects to create various soundscapes of different sizes and shapes that run throughout the track.

"I wanted to create a space that was neither strictly electronic nor acoustic. Musically, I tried to capture the idea of the creatures’ solitude and monotony through a lens of mystery and intrigue; a slow collage of repeating melodies, chords that cause comfort and discomfort, and resolution found in strange places."

Leopard seal reimagined by Droja.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"I found the recordings of Ross Seals spell binding.  The creative challenge was how to best work with their beautiful calls.  These rare seals live out on the pack ice of Antarctica.  I reflected on what the future holds for them, as temperatures rise and sea ice is predicted to disappear completely in the polar regions during the summer months.  I chose a narrative approach to the piece.  The story of a deep sea diver’s brief encounter.

"I put together a sound palette inspired by creatures who share the Antarctic waters with Ross seals.  I wanted to try and capture the feel of the seal's environment using a modulated drone to conjure up the restless depths.  I used arpeggiated sound to announce the seal’s arrival and echo their effortless movement through the water.  I mixed sounds to describe the seal’s proximity and give a sense of immersion to the listener. I tried to describe the feeling as the diver descends into the icy waters of the seal’s world and their sense of wonder as they are surrounded by their swirling bodies and companionable chatter, to feel a sense of sadness as they swim away into an uncertain future."

Ross seal reimagined by Claire Pearson.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Hannes Grobe, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

"Deep Blanco uses sounds from a recording of Ross seals that was captured at the PALAOA observatory 71°S 008°W (-70.516667 8.216667) (PerenniAL Acoustic Observatory in the Antarctic Ocean is AWI’s listening station north of the German Antarctic Neumayer station). The work aims to create a ‘sonic eco-system’ where the sounds made by the Ross seals encounter and are encontered by those made by humans (acoustic and electronic). Sounds in the work also feature Indonesian demungs (Gamelan) performed by Irish percussionist/composer Cathy Purcell, as well as electronic sounds from diverse synth sources.

"The piece has been designed so that the sounds of the seals surround the listener, who from the start immerses in a deep, luminous soundscape created by various layers of demungs and electronics cascadaing into each other. I see this work as representing a unique opportunity for humans to closely encounter the extraordinary sounds produced by the Ross seals while experiencing them in relationship with human-made expressions.

"By creating a sonic eco-system, Deep Blanco offers a new perspective from which to understand and interpret the seals’ sounds; a perspective that, although different in nature, is essentially and purposely not dissimilar to that offered by science. Through the gathering of scientific and artistic interpretations, and the dialogue between them, we can gain new insights about these creatures, and at the same time generate awareness of their existence and the need to protect and preserve them together with the other extraordinary beings of the oceans."

 Ross seal reimagined by Óscar Mascareñas.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Hannes Grobe, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

"I pretty much used the Humpback whale sound in its' entirety, employing a bit of Izotope to remove some of the extra ambient noise.

"Then warped in Ableton to create a loop out of it, adding some extra delay and reverb. I kept all the extra clicks etc. as I didn't want to take too much away from the original sound.

"The field recording has a fragile, beautiful mood to it, which is how I start and end my composition. This was the source for my inspiration. The middle section has a feeling of movement, a journey, inspired by their yearly migrations.

"(If you had to visualise my composition, it starts where they feed in the polar waters, then start their huge migration to tropical waters, finally arriving at their destination to breed and give birth.)

"To add to the immense, majestic size and feel of them, I also used some tubas and pitched the original recording an octave down."

Humpback whale reimagined by Sean Ou Tim (Mr Sakitumi).

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"While I was listening to “the Crabeater call”, I imagined to see the animal in its own natural environment and I thought that it was very nice: this was the feeling of my inspiration, from here my composition was born.

"It is divided into three parts: in the first one, I describe the environment where the Crabeater lives, in  the second part I show my heartache for the current situation of polar climate, in the third one there is the ideal world where Crabeater should live.
In the first and third part, I divided “the water sound” from “the Crabeater call” using human voices to underline the human presence in the Antarctic, where it shouldn’t be. In the second part I transformed the call by a fader effect and I panned it from left to right side, so it became the base for cellos and violins that represent my pain towards the environmental disaster. The Cello is played by Marco Schiavone and the violin is played by me.

"The third part represents the ideal world where Crabeater should live, under the starry sky of heaven, alone, surrounded by water and the sound of the wind."

Crabeater seal reimagined by Valentina Marra.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

The crabeater seal vocalizes mainly during the breeding season between October and December. Although the males do not defend underwater territories, they are thought to guard a single female on the ice until she is ready for mating and conception. The crabeater seal vocal repertoire we have consists of two call types. The examples are the typical low moan which is emitted most often. 

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

The crabeater seal vocalizes mainly during the breeding season between October and December. Although the males do not defend underwater territories, they are thought to guard a single female on the ice until she is ready for mating and conception. The crabeater seal vocal repertoire we have consists of two call types. The examples are the typical low moan which is emitted most often. At 15s there is a Weddell seal Trill audible as well.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

Sperm whales produce a variety of clicking sounds. During foraging dives they use clicks to localize prey by emitting regular clicks and so-called creaks (short series of clicks with fast repetition rate, close to prey encounter). In social context they produce codas which are repeated patterns of clicks. Different groups of sperm whales use different codas (dialects) and within a group codas can vary slightly by individuals. At PALAOA we recorded regular click trains. In the snippet you hear several overlapping regular click trains (which are barely visible in the spectrogram) as well as some faint Weddell seal calls in the background.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

The typical whale songs which are known from various popular media, are usually produced by humpback whales. The Southern Hemisphere humpback whales spend the summer in the Southern Ocean to feed as much as possible. Reproduction and breeding mainly take place in tropical waters. At PALAOA, only humpback whale social sounds such as the ones in the spectrograms have been recorded. Humpback whale song has been found present on many of our offshore recorders along the Greenwich meridian. Ongoing research is investigating to which breeding stock these singing whales can be attributed. 

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

The typical whale songs which are known from various popular media, are usually produced by humpback whales. The Southern Hemisphere humpback whales spend the summer in the Southern Ocean to feed as much as possible. Reproduction and breeding mainly take place in tropical waters. At PALAOA, only humpback whale social sounds such as the ones in the spectrograms have been recorded. Humpback whale song has been found present on many of our offshore recorders along the Greenwich meridian. Ongoing research is investigating to which breeding stock these singing whales can be attributed. 

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"I dream of being able to understand what these amazing creatures are communicating, with each other, to other sea creatures and with us. The percussive communication of the sperm whale almost sounded like an old computer keyboard, typing us out a message, trying to convey with an intense urgency some vital information. 

"I put all the elements together that I wanted to perform with then pressed record and improvised with them, no editing or sequencing involved."

Sperm whale reimagined by Andrej Bako.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"When choosing my inspiration for my piece, the sperm whale sample shone through the rest. I found the way they communicate with one another fascinating - being the loudest animals in the world, their codas are crucial not only as a way of hunting but connecting with one another.

"I wanted to emulate their communicative clicks in my piece by utilising binaural panning to add a sense of depth and distance, with a massive, evolving modular patch in the centre. This cements the immense space these animals occupy and the importance of their calls in the expanse they occupy.

"Using Ableton Live and setting up a series of FX chains on a chopped-up version of the raw sample, I forced a random, generative string of clicks and pops. By modulating the BPM of the patch, I tried to emulate the flow of a typical human interaction.

"Taking the listener on a trip through the deep depths of the antarctic waves, I invite them to join the pod and become immersed in a world like nothing we know."

Sperm whale reimagined by Talie Metcalfe Wood.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"The field recording is multilayered which inspired me a lot, I want people to listen to the beautiful sound of the crabeater seal calls. So, in the beginning it was difficult to create something different or reimagine it. I have not done much but just combined it with a field recording of thunder and rain from my city Kolkata. It's an imagination about the presence of crabeater seals in my city of Kolkata and how they'll respond to each other during rain and thunderstorm in Kolkata. The duration is 3:26 mins. I have used convolution reverb in some places to take the sound to a different zone."

Crabeater seal reimagined by Pratyay Raha.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"I have really enjoyed taking part in a project which involves science/art collaboration and am intrigued by the fact that scientific research is using acoustic data as a tool to understand the polar seas and marine animals. 

"My chosen recording was of a humpback whale, (megaptera novaeangliae), recorded at the Alfred Wegner Institute’s listening station at Palaoa observatory in the Antarctic Ocean. In my composition reimagining this recording I have tried to capture the idea of the whale in the ocean through using spacious sounds which include a number of bass/deep sounds and field recordings of water. I wanted to maintain the integrity of the original recording and didn’t want to process or alter the key elements of the whale’s song, (other than making it clearer and reducing some of the background noise), but reinforced and developed it by using virtual instruments to reinforce the song and add harmony.

Humpback whale reimagined by Laura Hills.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"The more I listened to this whale, the more I felt and wanted to communicate along with it.  There has been a lot of loss this year for so many and the experience of listening to this whale sound became a special experience that I wanted prolong and accentuate.  I felt compelled to add one of my field recordings of wind alongside the whale and the more I listened, the more musical and orchestral sounding the whale became so I added a bit of instrumentation and I manipulated it until I could share that vision."

 Humpback whale reimagined by Michelle Breslin.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"This is an interspecies love song, it is of a polyamorous love, a response to a mating call heard via a field recording out of time and out of place, supposed for another sensory system, that of more-than-human beings. The crabeater seal vocalizes mainly during the breeding season between October and December. Although the males do not defend underwater territories, they are thought to guard a single female on the ice until she is ready for mating and conception. Unlike some other species, the Crabeater females will pull themselves out alone on the ice to give birth. An adult male (not the biological father) will attend to the mother and pup until about 2 weeks after the pup is weaned.

"Making with: After bringing the track into software and slowing it down it became really clear that this sound was a purr made up of beat ‘pips’ and there is a circularity to this purr, it circumambulates, a loop. It may be the disconnect that can come with listening to a field recording but we sat with this tension and both had this overwhelming vision of a space out of time, we were thinking of geometries, cubes and spheres colliding before we came to a sense of a horizontal plane that held the ground for these circular whirrs of purr, like loading icons sounding their way across ice. In working via collaboration there was an innate understanding of how to approach the recording, we were deep listening, being present with this call as much as our human faculties could manage. As we began to respond via sympoiesis with this sounding event, rhythm and melody that was at first forcing its way to our ears insisted on giving way to a kind of complexity of looped purrs and angular interjections. We found that we were wanting to exhale, breath - out - sharp, to pull this sound from the vacuum pit of the diaphragm because we have it too, this desire for polyamory. Once we were moving in this way we spoke to each other in exhales as the track was moving, we were intuiting our responses and simply conduiting these sounds in their release."

Crabeater seal reimagined by Briony Clarke & Aimee Lockwood.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"I found the sounds extremely interesting, they are almost like synths with an intriguing percussive and timbrical character. I first chopped the entire recording into 3 different folders: ambient sound, warble noises and grunt noises. I ran every folder in the AudioStellar software to generate sequences altering pitches and envelopes. 

"Then I used some digital processes such as granular synthesis, time stretch and harmonics enhancer to create other textures with organic dynamics and also pads and ambiences. 

"Finally I arranged all the sounds and composed an electro-acoustic soundscape that contains natural narrative interactions, but also within an evident musical form. I believe that art can help us to truly reimagine our worlds, send important messages, generate awareness, empathy, sensitization and take social action."

Crabeater seal reimagined by Jorge Martínez Valderrama.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

 "The raw recording had me thinking of an underwater band of sea animals coming together to jam and make new music, thus the title of the track is Sea Creatures. As the sound of one "band member" travels through the ocean, more members start joining in and offering their contributions until a chaotic jam unfolds which then quickly dissipates through the ocean."

Killer whale and Ross seals reimagined by Baying Ridges.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Dennis Jarvis from Halifax, Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

"I am a classical jazz and avant-garde improviser/composer and I was really excited at the prospect of improvising and engaging with these rare polar sounds. Initially my plan was to begin with the field recording alone, using the natural sonic ideas as a base and source of material for my later improvisation, bringing in the field recording at the end in a musically symbiotic way. I felt this represented the idea that we have always taken our cues from nature and that since the industrial revolution we have forgotten her lessons and so placed ourselves in greater and greater peril; that our only way out is to come back and listen to, learn from and co-create with nature once again. 

"In preparation I practiced extended techniques on the violin that most closely mimicked the sounds made by the killer whales and seals. I wanted to be able to 'join in' with the prerecorded sounds in the most natural and organic way, improvising along as the animals themselves improvised. At the suggestion of my sound engineer Jethro Harris, we recorded a track where I start with my violinistic whale and seal mimicry alone and then bring in the field recording to overlay those sounds before moving into a purely musical interpretation. This was by far the best take and captures the violin's ability to yearn for and mourn what is not yet entirely lost. Near the end, the field recording reenters but the violin keeps its human melody, a poignant call for us to learn to work together. At last, the violin fades out leaving the field recording alone: they do not need us - but we certainly need them."

Killer whale and Ross seals reimagined by Dr. Elinor Speirs.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Dennis Jarvis from Halifax, Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

In the Southern Ocean, three killer whale ecotypes co-exist which are specialized on different prey species and vary slightly in their visual appearance. Killer whales, also called Orcas, produce a variety of vocalizations, for example whistles, pulsed calls and echolocation clicks. In the sound snippet you hear lots of calls and mainly pulsed calls.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Dennis Jarvis from Halifax, Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Fin whales produce a variety of short low frequency calls, of which the 20 Hz pulse is most prominent (i.e., a downsweep ranging from around 30-15 Hz) and produced by fin whales worldwide.  We record this call most frequently in the vicinity of Elephant Island, off the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, where the 20 Hz pulse also often contains a higher frequency component around 89 Hz.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Aqqa Rosing-Asvid - Visit Greenland, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

In the Southern Ocean, three killer whale ecotypes co-exist which are specialized on different prey species and vary slightly in their visual appearance. Killer whales, also called Orcas, produce a variety of vocalizations, for example whistles, pulsed calls and echolocation clicks. In the sound snippet you hear lots of calls and mainly pulsed calls.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Dennis Jarvis from Halifax, Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

In the Southern Ocean, three killer whale ecotypes co-exist which are specialized on different prey species and vary slightly in their visual appearance. Killer whales, also called Orcas, produce a variety of vocalizations, for example whistles, pulsed calls and echolocation clicks. In the sound snippet you hear lots of calls and mainly pulsed calls.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

Fin whales produce a variety of short low frequency calls, of which the 20 Hz pulse is most prominent (i.e., a downsweep ranging from around 30-15 Hz) and produced by fin whales worldwide.  We record this call most frequently in the vicinity of Elephant Island, off the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, where the 20 Hz pulse also often contains a higher frequency component around 89 Hz.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Aqqa Rosing-Asvid - Visit Greenland, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

"In the development of Whale Walking, I used the recording of a killer whale as my starting point. After listening to the track on repeat over time, I decided I would try and create a broader world for the whale with the help of and a series of field recordings I had made of water flowing above ground and below ground, using hydrophones and a geofone. These recordings were made in the West Fjords of Iceland during a research trip very near to the Arctic Circle. 

"I slowly scaffolded a spacial hydrosphere for the whale sounds to exist within and where they can move. Using a Haken Continuum mini I selected appropriate oscillation and synthesis sounds that would sit with and fit with the killer whales. 

"These include sounds that are meant to simulate the calls of other animals under the water, and sounds meant to guide a listener on a walk underwater, a place many have not been and whose sounds when amplified, bring to life a hard to describe self contained sonic sphere, one that also mirrors back to the listener their own internal rhythms. The work uses spatialisation to move the listener, the whales, and sound waves through the water."

Killer whale reimagined by Diana Chester.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"The Polar Sounds project is a great opportunity to both literally share and develop an augmented reality of the wonderful sounds of the Antarctic.  It inspired me to create my imaginary sub-seascape: Oceana - The Underwater World of Orca and Ross. I enjoy bringing attention to the importance, fragility and beauty of the natural world through creations of magical soundscapes and enhancing sounds of the real world.   I am fascinated by how the reduction of anthropogenic noise pollution, a positive side effect of the global Covid lockdowns, made it possible once more for sea creatures to communicate and thrive.

"The two minute field recording I chose was a mixture of Killer Whale and Ross Seal sounds - (whistles, pulsed calls and echolocation clicks) recorded with hydrophones in the Antarctic.  I hoped this mixture of pitched and percussive sounds would allow me to take the listener on a journey through a believable, imaginary seascape.  I knew immediately that if it was possible, I would create the piece from just this one sample and include the field recording in its original form, creating an otherworldly augmented polyphony, juxtaposing fact and fiction.  It was important to me that the sounds all had an organic connection to one another and unity by sharing the same source. 

"To begin with I time stretched the 2 minute field recording to 32 minutes, slowing the speed and lowering the pitch of the sample.  Reversing the original sample didn’t produce the desired effect, so was not used.  In developing the piece I explored many transformations and effects, searching for sounds that would belong in my imaginary world, rejecting those that for instance were too electronic, rhythmical or pitch based.  

"After hours of experimenting I had 61 different sounds grouped according to their character, labeling them,  Low pitched, deep, massive, atmospheric, wild, washing machines, wash high, wash steady, monster crunches, random rhythm bells, raindrops/bubbles, distant, rhythmic clacks/high birds, swoops/crazy, pitched high, pitched low twang, sliding pitch, drop.  Five different reverbs were used to create atmosphere and a sense of depth and distance.  Now I had my inspiring sound palette, I started to paint my imaginary seascape.

"I wanted to begin the piece with the original field recording with just a bit of reverb and a panning effect, to give it depth and movement to identify the original sample and develop the piece from that point.  However it soon became clear that an immersive, mysterious world made for a more gripping introduction, from which the Killer Whale and Ross Seal sounds in the original field recording would emerge.  The original sample fades into the seascape at 1:15, crescendos to 1:27 and then fades out by 2:04.  It also can be heard at 2:35 as part of the texture until around 3:05.

"Oceana begins in the dark depths of the sea with pulsing sonar like sounds, building to rushing water and distant long haunting calls.  Accompanied by continuous low bubbling sounds, the original field recording of the Killer Whales and Ross seals whistles, pulsed calls and echolocation clicks, is then heard. (1:15)  Harmonious calling sounds lead us into a distant almost birdlike section.  Strange noises of wailing and deep granular sounds move through the ocean.  A storm builds and the turmoil leads to a dramatic climax - the Ross seal in their sights, the Orca pod co-ordinate their attack.  Sinking to the seabed, we are immersed in powerful rushing eerie sounds that dominate our senses, until finally rising up through the layers of the ocean to gently float, far into the wild blue yonder."

Killer whale and Ross seals reimagined by Amanda Stuart.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Dennis Jarvis from Halifax, Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

 "Exhilarated, I listen to a fleeting moment, 
getting a glimpse into its magical world.
A record keeper of all time.

"Its gracefulness brings me peace.

"Limited by my senses, merely scratching a surface, I imagine a sonic sphere, the transformative vessel.

"Pulses carrying the pattern.
I dive into the unknown, creating a response to its call."

Fin whale reimagined by Þóranna Dögg Björnsdóttir.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Aqqa Rosing-Asvid - Visit Greenland, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

"I composed my piece using samples of winter storms, ice cracking and windchimes, in addition to the original recording. 

"I started from the idea of imagining the sound environment where the fin whale live. 
The original recording gave me the idea to work with different frequencies, representing the different levels of an environment. In that way, the 20 hz pulse that the fin whale emit represent the deep ocean, and the air and the cold atmosphere is represented with higher frequencies, through wind recordings. With the sound of the ice, I created textures that are located in the middle levels. 

"The fin whales produce a variety of short low frequency calls. The windchimes create a poetic response to those calls, imagining a harmonious way of coexistence with these beings of the deep sea."
 
Fin whale reimagined by Verónica Daniela Cerrotta.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Aqqa Rosing-Asvid - Visit Greenland, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

 "When first listening I was overwhelmed by the density and how alien the sounds were. I felt a need to understand them, and to do so I dissected them. They turned out to be well separable in the frequency spectrum, and I then slowed the separate sounds down by orders of magnitude, like using a microscope. 

"To understand them even better, I decided to create a composition in which I put them together or contrast them with sounds that are similar but also a bit alien in nature and origin: 
1. Organic sounds from a broken escalator. 
2. Sounds from me playing an ultrasonic feedback loop instrument I built (with kind support from John Driscoll), whose spectrogram look very similar to the killer whale spectrogram. 

"The resulting composition sounds like a nice garden, maybe underwater or in some other strange space, where different species co-exist with some interactions. I think this dissection and contrasting between organic, mechanic, and synthetic in origin and quality is my response to the question of the project: How can we understand these sounds?"

Killer whale and Ross seals reimagined by Håkan Jonsson.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Dennis Jarvis from Halifax, Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

"This piece features a fin whale's journey through the polar soundscape. Due to its enormous size, the fin whale (the second longest whale on the planet) produces a very low frequency (20 Hz) pulse, reaching the lower end of the human hearing range. Based on the recording of a fin whale, a tune was composed, revolving around the reoccurring low frequency pulses.

"The inspiration for this piece of music was taken from the long distances traveled by fin whales in combination with the huge diversity in marine species in polar regions. The repeating low frequency pulses reveal the fin whales point of view whilst encountering a diverse acoustic environment. Recordings from polar regions comprising sounds of various cetacean species like killer whales, Ross seals, bowhead whales, sperm whales, leopard seals and high frequency sounds produced by sea ice, present the listener with an idea of the acoustic diversity in the Arctic and the Antarctic. A synthesizer playing chords based on the sounds produced by the sea ice is the only purely artificial sound in the piece - all other sounds are taken as recorded and only slightly altered.

"The piece is a celebration of nature's diversity and beauty in yet another realm."

Fin whale reimagined by Vincent Kather.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Aqqa Rosing-Asvid - Visit Greenland, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Killer whale reimagined by Cheryl Beer.

"Siren is a warning from the core of crisis. Environmental sound artist Cheryl Beer has created a haunting soundbite from the pulsed calls of killer whales in the Antarctic. First, she reduced the revolutions, slowing down the vocalisations x100. This enabled a distinction between each individual sound & revealed some surprising textures. Everything you hear is of the Killer Whale, using its voice to compose & create a siren. 

"Gently beginning by nurturing an adagio undercurrent of seemingly random & yet endless bass-like melody, this oceanic mantra morphs into a backdrop for the distinctive vocalisation of the Killer, an air aid warning of impending danger. 

"With an eerie cry, the whales themselves send perilous news, a cautionary SOS to humanity from the melting ice caps. 

"As the piece fades poignantly with a final cry, so too, does the killer whale. Pay heed! For if the home of Killer Whales is lost, so too, are you.

"The title of the piece is also a play on another definition of the word Siren – symbolising risk through temptation, who, in Greek mythology, sang to lure humans to their death. By following only desire, without consideration for what it may do to the planet, the siren’s song reveals our true face, reflected in the cracked mirrors of melting ice. Our saving grace, as the cause of such ghostly cries, is that we are also the key to solution."

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"I chose a very strange recording.

"On the one hand, it is natural, but on the other hand it sounds technogenic.
I decided that all the sounds will be made from one file and they filled me to the maximum, chasing the longing for the lost home.

"The name anxiety does not even refer to music, but to the situation in which the world is now.

"And in this nervous similarity between natural and technogenic, I also feel painful anxiety."

Fin whale reimagined by Daniel.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

IMAGE: Aqqa Rosing-Asvid - Visit Greenland, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

"Last May an Orca was found to be swimming upstream the Seine. An effort to redirect the mammal back to the sea by using sound recordings failed as the animal seemed to be gravely ill and disoriented. Bioacoustics experts mentioned that the sounds the animal was producing were most likely distress calls. A decision to euthanise the whale was taken, yet soon enough, the mammal was found dead.

"“Upstream (the Seine)” utilises the recordings of the Orcinus Orca species in their natural habitat in the Antarctic provided by Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research in 2022. The piece is an effort to auralise the fact that more and more species demonstrate strange behaviours that are deviating from the norm. 

"By using strictly the concrete recordings of the Orcas as source material and through the language of electroacoustic music and sound transformation techniques, the artist re-imagines the journey of the whale from the Antarctic to the Seine; from the natural to the unnatural, from health to illness as being driven by an inexplicable, almost mystifying force ultimately leading it to its demise. Through this paradigm the artist attempts to underline the alarming increasing frequency of the occurrence of such phenomena."

Killer whale reimagined by Luc Messinezis.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"The idea started by analyzing the field recording, and adding more instruments to play the same notes. Then I took a part of the field recording, and analyzed its rhythm and tempo and put it as the base of the track, then I recorded percussion and guitars. The field recording inspired me in the sense of trying to use it as an instrument, and as a composition tool at the same time, with the sound of the whale dictating the tempo and the key of the composition."

Minke whale reimagined by Hossam Hilal. 

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"The sounds themselves are very low pitched, below the human range of hearing in many cases. In order to best make use of the recording, I took chunk and pitched them up from 1-3 octaves. From there, I processed the sounds with filters, reverbs, more pitch bending, delays, and time stretching tools to create interesting pads, swells, and percussion.

"The long atonal pads you hear throughout the piece are longer segments of the fin whales making sound, as well as noise from the recording equipment. The drums are created from short chunks of the whales vocalizing, time stretched to create a short transient.

"The rest of the piece is piano and percussion, with one synthesizer line, to create a sense of long frozen landscapes and crackling ice sheets, along with some movement of the waves beneath."

Fin whale reimagined by Jeff Brice.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

Fin whales produce a variety of short low frequency calls, of which the 20 Hz pulse is most prominent (i.e., a downsweep ranging from around 30-15 Hz) and produced by fin whales worldwide.  We record this call most frequently in the vicinity of Elephant Island, off the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, where the 20 Hz pulse also often contains a higher frequency component around 89 Hz.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

The low frequency calls of Antarctic blue whales belong to the loudest vocalizations produced by any animal. Most likely blue whales use calls to communicate over long distances. PALAOA records different Antarctic blue whale vocalizations. The spectrogram shows the 'Z-call' which is a population-specific song produced by Antarctic blue whales in the Southern Ocean as well as on their lower latitude areas where breeding is thought to take place.  Please note that we increased the frequency of the sound with 2 octaves to make the sound audible to human ears.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

The Antarctic minke whale is the smallest baleen whale occurring in the Southern Ocean. It is regularly sighted near the sea ice edge but also occurs within the pack ice. The Antarctic minke whale produces a very unique sound called "bio-duck" which are repetitive sequences of pulsed sounds between 50 – 300 Hz with harmonics up to 1500 Hz.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

The low frequency calls of Antarctic blue whales belong to the loudest vocalizations produced by any animal. Most likely blue whales use calls to communicate over long distances. PALAOA records different Antarctic blue whale vocalizations. The spectrogram shows the 'Z-call' which is a population-specific song produced by Antarctic blue whales in the Southern Ocean as well as on their lower latitude areas where breeding is thought to take place.  Please note that we increased the frequency of the sound with 2 octaves to make the sound audible to human ears.

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

Recording credit: CC-BY 4.0 Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research 2022.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"I work with chance operations/indeterminacy (among other things), so I asked to get assigned a random sound clip (which I hadn’t heard in advance) to work with. My aim then was to build a sonic architecture out of this sound, but without pre-shaping/pre-conceiving this architecture, working with the sound clip as a sculptor-architect would with clay, wood, stone or some other material. I edited the given sound clip using various audio effects, exploring its noise content and its melodic and rhythmic potential, without trying to pre-define/imagine the outcome.

"I audio-edited each new iteration of this (edited) sound, combining the edited versions together, then editing these combinations, cutting them into different-sized pieces. I combined these pieces at random into a sonic architecture, aiming to let it follow its own rules/structure as it emerged. Even though the sound clip I got assigned may not be audible in its original form, it is there, preserved for eternity, molded into a sonic architecture made entirely out of this sound only. It can be looped for as long as the listener wants to."

Blue whale reimagined by Jelena Perišić.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"The faint voice of the fin whale is produced by shaking the sound-producing organs. The sound resonates with the resonance of wind instruments."

Fin whale reimagined by Keisuke Oki.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"The sub-frequency calls of the planet's largest animal, the endangered Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus), are too low for human ears to perceive. But this inspired some questions: What might these low frequencies feel like? What new sensations might arise? Would these feelings enter our subconscious? If I could play my bass flute deep into the waters of the Antarctic, how might I  converse with a Blue Whale? What would we say to each other? How might we play? This work is an exploration of what it might be like to interact, in dream-time, with these extraordinary beings, if we could use our senses, imagine, play, dream and explore.

"I used the original recording (which had already been altered by the scientists so that we could hear these sub-frequencies) and then also created versions of the whale calls with very slight pitch and time adjustments. In addition, I incorporated recordings of the Kenai Fjords off of Seward, Alaska that I collected in 2012 using both hydrophone and shotgun microphones, which captured the resonant sounds of the glacier caving. My performance on the bass flute (plus electronic effects), in relation to the Blue Whale calls and the glacier sounds, produce a kind of tickling effect in my ears. I wonder what you will feel?

"Special gratitude to the exceptional sound engineer Joe Shepard for guidance on these extremely low frequencies in the final mix.

"Blue whales are the Earth's largest animal, and therefore they also have the largest beating heart on the planet, weighing 400 lbs (or more). Will we be the cause of its cessation? Or, will we help take care of this vulnerable being?"
 
Blue whale reimagined by Jane Rigler.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"The composition began inspired by the rhythmic part of the original recording, with the idea that the whole piece would follow that rhythmic pattern. But soon in the process this was changing and was leading to a more textural work, although it maintains some of that initial rhythm.

"In addition to using the chosen sound and subjecting it to different digital and analog processes, synthesizers and samplers were used."

Minke whale reimagined by Julian Gomez.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"Traveling through a submerged world, in "Apnea", all the threads that reach me are at a digital sonic level, because the only possibility of being able to hear is within this spectrum.

"What would be the inverse in the hearing of these ocean giants? For a visitor like me, now, here with them, is to pass through my body like vibrations of a possible translation from communication to exaggeration and description.
At that moment nothing is left but the direction to the other end, a vast fraction, and I limit myself to tuning the body with this error cell.

"In the making of this sound composition, the various plastic possibilities of communication were always present. I made decisions based on error, error as a “crisis” in communication, and digital error as a result of failure, of frequencies at unbearable levels, but also the privileged condition that offers the only possibility of listening to it and getting to know it. "Apnea" is about climate change, the environmental and social problem, marine pollution, man-made sounds and the underwater effects of globalization and heavy industrialization. But it also includes different listening places, occupation movements and human labor, such as the vast destruction of habitat for intensive agriculture and livestock in more temperate and tropical zones and the immeasurable impact it generates in the poles. Everything is connected, like the famous flapping of a butterfly's wings, everything tonifies the strength of these worrying movements in these insular places. So I ask: How can we move in the “error”?"

Blue whale reimagined by Eunice Artur.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"The first time I heard the Antarctic blue whale recording, I was amazed by its really subtle signal on my headphones. I knew I was not able to hear it entirely, because it was coming from far beyond our human scale of sensibility. So, I heard it a second time on my speakers, to help me bring the basses, and then, everything around my room started to tremble. It made me think of the Alvin Lucier’s project on “Music for Solo Performer” in which he brings to our senses his own brain waves by using percussions as a medium. I appreciate this gesture of not translating the unhearable but rather approach us to this sort of abyss from which we have little knowledge of.

"To begin this submersion, I decided to operate with “Izotope Iris 2”, to analyze the spectrum of the sound and choose the frequencies I wanted to work with. It allowed me to silence the higher frequencies and focus on the most powerful ones between 0 and 100 Hz. There was a constant beating in the singing that reminded me of a way of playing an earth instrument I build last year. Inspired by the “Udu” percussion, this instrument had two entries of air. We were two players trying to reach the same frequency with our voice inside of the vase and whenever we succeeded, there was this beating in the air making our bodies and the earth vibrate. 

"I wanted to use this sound as a form of response, inspired by the work of Aline Pénitot in “Feral Interactions—The Answer of the Humpback Whale” where she was able to communicate through the play of a bassoon, I lowered the frequencies of our playing recording so it could match the blue whale’s tone. 

"I started then by curiosity to transpose the whale singing from octave to octave in my midi instrument until recognizing the scale at which normally it is presented, where it is the most audible. Each time “I leveled it up” the time of reproduction was getting shorter. It made me think of the shorter life of insects and how we’re undoubtedly inside of a fractal scale play where size, sound and time are related to our rhythm of existence. 

"It appears to me that the earth has a complex system to regulate itself from the micro to the macro world and we’re just a piece of it, we can only sense a piece of it. Recognize our perception limits can help us redesign our sound interactions with other species. Helping us to avoid the unconscious invasion of what’s out of our range.

"The end of this composition called “Señal profunda” reminds me of the sound of a warning, a kind of alarm coming from this depth signal asking us, if we are going to wait to be able to hear the damage we’re doing to stop it."

Blue whale reimagined by Nicole Vereau.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

"When I first listened to this recording, my first thought was what a dull place to live. Upon further investigation a whole "mini" world opened to my ears.
 The first manipulation of the sound was to speed it up 8x the original recording, this in turn reduced the recording from 60 sec. to about 6 sec. but exposed a whales phrase (I think) and some chatter (I think) like sounds.

"I extracted a set of sounds (4), all the sounds you hear are from the original source material with the exception of "Brownian Noise" added by me. Many years ago I developed an idea of isolating nature or natural sounds in recordings and devising ways of "re assembly" into a generative "nature" environment. I call this idea "AmbiGen" for Ambience Generation. It was to this idea that I applied the sounds extracted from Sound #003.
 
"I used six asynchronous clocks to trigger the sounds with random changes in pitch/time. This led me to investigate "ocean noise" which in this case I read of human caused sounds such as ships, submarines, explosions, subsonic communications. These sounds among others can misdirect migrations and interfere with the habits of all kinds of species (antarctia.gov.au). I did not use any of these sounds."

Blue whale reimagined by Joel Graham.

Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds. 

Behind every fireworks display, every public celebration, things are inevitably more complex than the surface-level jubilation. In every direction there are people with their own stories, many of whom might be experiencing complicated moments of sadness, frustration disappointment or anxiety, hidden away behind smiles of celebration.

This piece reimagines a Bastille Day fireworks display with melancholy and longing, keeping in mind Tomas Transtromer's conceit from "The Blue House" that each of our lives has "a sister vessel" on an entirely different route from the one we've ended up on. In this piece, we imagine someone looking up at the sky and imagining where their own sister vessel might have taken them under other circumstances. 

"It is night with glaring sunshine. I stand in the woods and look towards my house with its misty blue walls. As though I were recently dead and saw the house from a new angle.

"It has stood for more than eighty summers. Its timber has been impregnated, four times with joy and three times with sorrow. When someone who has lived in the house dies it is repainted. The dead person paints it himself, without a brush,  from the inside.

"On the other side is open terrain. Formerly a garden, now wilderness. A still surf of weed, pagodas of weed, an unfurling body of text, Upanishades of weed, a Viking fleet of weed, dragon heads, lances, an empire of weed.

"Above the overgrown garden flutters the shadow of a boomerang, thrown again and again. It is related to someone who lived in the house long before my time. Almost a child. An impulse issues from him, a thought, a thought of will: “create. . .draw. ..” In order to escape his destiny in time.

"The house resembles a child’s drawing. A deputizing childishness which grew forth because someone prematurely renounced the charge of being a child. Open the doors, enter! Inside unrest dwells in the ceiling and peace in the walls. Above the bed there hangs an amateur painting representing a ship with seventeen sails, rough sea and a wind that the gilded frame cannot subdue.

"It is always so early in here, it is before the crossroads, before the irrevocable choices. I am grateful for this life! And yet I miss the alternatives. All sketches wish to be real.

"A motor far out on the water extends the horizon of the summer night. Both joy and sorrow swell in the magnifying glass of the dew. We do not actually know it, but we sense it: our life has a sister vessel which plies an entirely different route. While the sun burns behind the islands."

Photo by Arthur Chauvineau on Unsplash

Listening to the field recording of this super-talented busker, one thing was clear - his lo-fi backing track didn't do his talent justice. Therefore for this reimagined composition, we wanted to provide him with a full band back of drums, bass and organ as an appropriate backdrop for his soloing. Thus we created the all-new Luis I blues band. 

Harmonica busker in Porto reimagined by Cities and Memory. 

A talented harmonica busker plays an extended - and impressive - selection of blues-inflected solos to a backing track accompaniment on the top level of the famous Luis I bridge in Porto, Portugal. On our travels we're always listening out for music as one avenue of field recording and we check out a lot of buskers - but this guy was on another level from most and we stayed for several songs. 

Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

In reimagining Sao Bento station for this piece, we wanted to foreground the feelings the space gave us in its own right, and background the distracting hubbub of tourists jostling for Instagram photos. The resulting composition is a spacious, stripped-back instrumental, in which the field recording lies throughout as a bed, held safely at a distance and only making itself known periodically throughout the piece. The music itself is a representation of the feeling we had looking up at the scenes of history on the azulejo-tiled walls, from the Battle of Valdevez in 1140 to the work scenes of wine shippers and watermill workers. The title comes from the depiction in the station of Prince Henry the Navigator.

Sao Bento station reimagined by Cities and Memory.

Photo by Rostyslav Savchyn on Unsplash

The Sao Bento train station in Porto is a stunning space and no mistake -  the entrance hall is full of stunning azulejo tile images depicting scenes from Portuguese history, and the feel is more of a stunning palace than a train station.

Of course, given that it's possibly one of the world's most beautiful stations, it's full of tourists at all times, and the entrance hall seemed to be more full of people taking photos for Instagram than actual travellers. This recording captures a busy entrance hall, and out onto the platforms we hear announcements and the hissing of trains.

Recorded by Cities and Memory.

Photo by Rostyslav Savchyn on Unsplash

In this composition, the rhythm of the frogs' song is the centrepiece, from which arpeggiated synth lines represent individual amphibians' voices competing and communicating with one another. The piece symbolises the rhythmic and melodic complexity and beauty of the songs of nature.

The name comes from the origin of the city Koforidua's name, which comes from a man called Kofi Ofori who built his hut under a huge mahogany tree, which became  a shelter for weary farmers returning after a hard day's work. Over time, it became common for the farmers to say that they were going to rest under Kofi Ofori's tree, where maybe they could have daydreamed and imagined some music like this.

Ghanaian wetland reimagined by Cities and Memory. 

Sounds of frogs and toads on a hot afternoon in a laid-back settlement called Trom in the Eastern Region of Ghana. In the foreground are various repetitive textures in vocalisations against a subtle background of distant birds. The sounds seem to synchronise at some point and disintegrate into its unique tempo and amplitude within distinctive stereo-fields.  

Recorded during a 3-month project assignment to Ghana between February and April, 2022. The settlement which is on a wetland is undergoing rapid development and this piece is under threat of extinction in a year or two. 

Recorded by Samuel Kudjodzi.

Respect, walk, what did you say?
Respect, walk, are you talkin' to me?
Respect, walk, what did you say?
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
Walk on home, boy
("Walk", Pantera)

Inspired by the sounds of the watermill, which we have taken as a basis for our creation, we have developed a pattern that sounds similar to this, and based on it (carried away) set wild modulations with fm synthesis.

We use both supportive & destructive sound structures and formations as a sonic architecture, resembling the watermill.

Hannover water mill reimagined by Catenation - Jeanne Comateuse & Sylvia Hinz.

Used instruments: voice, bass recorder, Digitakt, Digitone, Reaper.

The interior of an old water mill during an open day in Hannover, Germany, recorded by Jürgen Morgenstern.

The storming of the Bastille prison on July 14, 1789 has been commemorated in France for more than a century. Today, the festivities of July 14 are as popular as ever and in Paris, the celebrations culminate with a magnificent fireworks display at the Eiffel Tower.

Recorded by Colin Hunter as part of the Cities and Memory Paris city sound guide.

Arguably the most famous museum in the world, the Louvre is said to be visited by 9 million people annually. In a long, narrow section of the Denon Wing the wooden floor panels creak and squeak as people walk over them, and with 9 million visitors per year this makes for an interesting soundscape. 

Recorded by Colin Hunter as part of the Cities and Memory Paris city sound guide.

The Basilica of Sacré Coeur de Montmartre sits at the very top of Montmartre hill and, alongside the Eiffel Tower, is one of the most visible monuments of Paris. 

Pilgrims come from all over the world to pray here as well as thousands of tourists that file in and out to admire its beauty. Inside the basilica is a warm soundscape with the sound of shuffling visitors reverberating throughout the vast interior. 

Recorded by Colin Hunter as part of the Cities and Memory Paris city sound guide.

The Montmartre district of Paris sits perched on the top of a hill in the 18th arrondissement. Prior to 1860, Montmartre was an independent commune located just outside Paris and was the place to be for artists in the 19th century, with painters, dancers, writers, actors and musicians hoping to find success in the art world. 

Today tourists flock to Montmartre to admire the beauty of this quaint corner of Paris and musicians and artists line the streets adding to the bustling atmosphere. 

Recorded by Colin Hunter as part of the Cities and Memory Paris city sound guide.

Jardin de Luxembourg is one of the most beautiful parks in Paris and particularly so in spring when the many shades of green are a gorgeous canvas for brightly coloured flowers and rich blossom. 

Birds sing, people walk, some sit and observe. In this soundscape recording we hear gentle birdsong with Robin, Blackbird, Chaffinch, Eurasian Blackcap and Rose-ringed parakeets, as well as distant conversations and people walking along gravel paths. 

Recorded by Colin Hunter as part of the Cities and Memory Paris city sound guide.

IMAGE: Michelle Maria, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

One of the most recognisable sounds of Paris is that of ringing church bells and none more so than the bells of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, located on l’île Saint-Louis and l’île de la Cité in the 4th arrondissement. 

Recorded by Colin Hunter as part of the Cities and Memory Paris city sound guide.

The French are passionate about their food and local markets are a big thing in Paris. The market at Bastille is renowned for its quality food and bustling ambience, quoted in the Lonely Planet as “arguably the best open-air market in Paris”. 

Popular with both tourists and locals alike, the soundscape is a complex mix of local dialects and vendors calling out to draw in customers. 

Recorded by Colin Hunter as part of the Cities and Memory Paris city sound guide.

Do you have a claustrophobic fear of antique elevators?

Well, Cairo’s antique elevators can be more than one hundred years old and date from the era when European architects moulded Cairo’s streets. They are glorious and glitchy and can either be loved or feared - feel like stepping back in time?

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Cairo city sound guide. 

Egypt's skateboarding and rollerblading enthusiasm was born out of lockdown tedium and quickly spread from city to city as one of the nation's fastest-growing trends.

In Cairo, the rollerskating community has increased substantially over the last two years to raise awareness of the sport and show off the beauty of Egyptian venues such as Tahrir Square.

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Cairo city sound guide. 

Located in the heart of Al-Qahira, the old walled city, Khan el-Khalili night bazaar is the place to stimulate your imagination and go hunting for treasures.

Unlike many other Middle Eastern street markets, this bazaar has always been a place that mixes the commercial, religious and domestic. Spending an evening in the labyrinthine streets of this night bazaar will give you a great insight into Cairo life - immerse yourself into the cacophony of deafening sounds that the city has to offer while sipping tea in a local cafe.

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Cairo city sound guide. 

Eid ul-Fitr is one of the biggest celebrations in Egypt - in reality, it is a three day holiday in the country. The word Eid (from the Arabic language) suggests celebration, feast, and lifelong joy. If you were to mention Eid to any Egyptian, he would react with a sense of delight, musing a heart full of joy as if they were still a child. 

The best place to immerse yourself in the celebrations is to head to one of the three Fatimid gates that remain standing nowadays. Bab Zuwayla is the most dramatic, with its crowning fifteen-century minarets. It leads partygoers to a bazaar quarter that is as full of life today as it was in the Middle Ages.

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Cairo city sound guide. 

Overburdened by the chaos of the older neighbourhoods, many residents are now moving to more modern and quieter compounds on the outskirts of the Islamic neighbourhood. They seek relief from congestion, traffic and, yes, noise - highways and flyovers now cut through historic neighbourhoods.

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Cairo city sound guide. 

No part of the city captures the vibrancy of Cairo like the old Islamic neighbourhood. It's the heart of the city, or in other words, “ the cultural spine of historic Cairo”. Nowhere else can you blend the sense of the historic with the modern so easily.

Compared with the inner peace of mosques and churches, the chaos of the old neighbourhood is unbearable and makes it obvious that a group of people at the bottom of society are neglected by society and deserve more attention. The Islamic neighbourhood hosts more than 75 mosques, madrasas, bayts, and other monuments worth of sonic exploration.

Recorded by Rafael Diogo as part of the Cities and Memory Cairo city sound guide. 

St. Clement's church in London plays a special musical set of chimes each day, partially based around the famous English nursery rhyme that features the bells of multiple old London churches - the rhyme goes like this:

Oranges and lemons,
Say the bells of St. Clement's.

You owe me five farthings,
Say the bells of St. Martin's.

When will you pay me?
Say the bells at Old Bailey.

When I grow rich,
Say the bells at Shoreditch.

When will that be?
Say the bells of Stepney.

I do not know,
Says the great bell at Bow.

Here comes a candle to light you to bed,
And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!
Chip chop chip chop the last man is dead.

Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

"Oranges and lemons sing the bells of St Clement's in reverse!

"I took a short segment of the original recording and reversed it for the unnerving opening salvo, before I stretched and warped the bells into the climactic drone/thx-sound finale."

St. Clement's church, London reimagined by Michael Lilley.

"The composition consisting of sounds by modular and analogue polyphonic synthesizer plus the processed sound of the waterfall is based on the fifth case sequence. This beautiful and simple harmonic structure reminds me of the ever running water fall where there is no beginning and no ending. The circle of fifths is the basis of all harmonics like the water is the basis of all life."

Cascata di Ru de Assola reimagined by Anneli Bentler. 

"I've always been interested in Arabic chants and calls to prayers in Muslim religion.  This is why I was drawn to this particular sound.  

"However, I wanted to be respectful of the religious aspect of the Adhan, and so I thought about finding a way to accompany the solemn moment of the call to prayer through the sounds I added to my piece, thus enhancing the beauty of the original chant.  

"I believe prayer to be both a collective and intimate moment, where one joins the divine through sound, and so I wanted to portray that in my piece, guiding the listener so that he can immerse in this moment, where everything is silent, except for the call to commune with a god we will never be able to fully comprehend."

Call to prayer in Tuzla reimagined by Pelayo Del Villar.

"A tourist wanders through Italy, listening in on café conversations that become a bit heated; the weather darkens, thunder crackles, ambulances scurry by. But eventually the rain clears, the sun comes back out, and the folks in the café return to their peaceful conversation."

Vicenza conversations reimagined by Valerie Polichar.

In Tuzla, as in many cities in Bosnia, the Adhan (Islamic call to public prayer) sounds five times a day. I caught this one after a rain shower, when drops were still gently falling from gutters and branches.

Recorded by Manu Hollard.

Conversations in Italian taking place outside a cafe by the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza. Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

Sounds from the bottom of the tumbling Cascata di Ru de Assola waterfall near Borca di Cadore in the Italian Dolomites. 

Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

"I listened to the speeches over and over and I realised that they are all saying radical things to a crowd of strangers, any of who could be hostile in a minute. I imagined how it must feel like to build up that kind of courage to stand up against your homeland in a foreign land. So this piece is a music interpretation of that inner journey from the first spark, to the final moment when you cannot keep quiet in the face of injustice."

Anti-Ukraine war protest reimagined by Surbhi Mittal.

"A river is a place where a traveler rests to take water, freshen up and reflect on the journey. The streaming sound of the water, the birds singing and nearby people having conversations  give the traveler the freedom to reflect on the journey past and prepare for the future journey. This composition was inspired by how the source sound made me feel: Like that traveler. 

"Using the birds and the stream as instruments in the composition, I imagined myself being there and singing, chanting and humming together with the birds. The violin provides a harmonic movement, the piano and rattle kalimba give the feeling of being in a journey while the bolon bass and the sorsonet drums capture the energy from the river."

Nyabarongo river reimagined by Wahinya Mwirikia. 

"This song was composed from a somewhat disturbing and dark audition.
The sound piece conveyed a feeling of bewilderment and intrigue, reminding me of a scene from the movie “The Birds” by A. Hitchcock. Generating an ideal environment to set a suspenseful rhythm with low sounds in various sound planes, as if it were a momentarily lowering mist. Submerging the voices of the two people, in an increasingly loud phonetic discussion.

"The sound texture of the mosquito played an intrusive role in the story, as if it were an unsuspecting puncture in the ear. Then getting playful. From side to side.
In the background, it was possible to appreciate the changing nature of the natural environment, where birds, people, insects and wind served as a mobile canvas to give some digital piano brushstrokes that accentuated the beat of my acoustic guitar."

Natravali hotel gardens reimagined by Josué Jaramillo Romero.

"Listening to the funeral bell tolling backwards and forwards, and at different speeds, revealed a mournful chant that became a dirge of its own, a second layer of mourning hidden within casual conversation. 

"Temporally, the chant works with the bell but also at odds with it, and building the dirge around this sample led to a persistent feeling of the time being off kilter or out of joint."

Bells in Oxford for the Queen's funeral reimagined by Retranscriptions.

On 6 March 2022, shortly after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, Oxford's Ukrainian community convened an anti-war protest in Radcliffe Square in the city centre, in which Ukrainians and Russians alike gave speeches denouncing the war and talking about their own personal experiences. 

Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

Bells ring out for one hour at 10.00am on the morning of the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II on 19 September 2022 - the funeral commenced at 11.00am. The city was extremely quiet, with a genuine sense of sadness and occasion as people scurried home to watch the funeral on TV. At Christ Church College, the famous Old Tom bell rang out in the central quadrangle, and we were there to record it. 

Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

Recording made on the bank of the river Nyabarongo, on the southern border of the province of Kigali: on the background, the sound of the river blends with the traffic on the highway bridge, while two birds skirmish on the ground nearby. Recorded by Maria Conterno.

2022-06-17 9.16AM; The Postcard Hideaway resort gardens in the morning; the sound of morning wildlife in tropical rural India. Recorded by Mark Wilden.

Inspired by the song "Coimbra é uma lição", the first piece's part begins with a progression of chords in Fm with some electronic elements while the unique Portuguese word "saudade" is repeated in the background. The second part, the lyrics of the previously mentioned song are recited, with the soundscape playing in the background.

Coimbra shopping street reimagined by Pedro Veiga.

Under the medieval Arco de Almedina archway, traditional fado music seeps out from a souvenir shop built into the side of the arch in Coimbra, Portugal.

Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

Gulls divebomb us from above as we accidentally walk too close to their nesting area along the stony beach of Lagoa do Fogo, Sao Miguel in the Azores. You can also hear gentle waves and a light breeze on this fine day. 

Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

The calm serenity of Lagoa do Fogo inspired the ambience behind this slow ecstatic dance track invoking organic sounds with layers of Sitar & electric guitar. The soothing ambience takes the listening on an epic inward journey provoking curiosity to discover an unknown.

Lagoa do Fogo sounds reimagined by Matt Marsiglia. 

A guitar busker plays some traditional French songs in Place du Calvaire, Montmartre, Paris - a tourist hotspot, as you can also hear from the large number of tourists passing by and listening in this recording. 

Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

Lunchtime peak in the Mackie Mayor food hall in Manchester - loud noise of diners, plates, food preparation heard from the balcony lining the upper floor of this converted space. 

Reimagined by Cities and Memory. 

"Having studied music at Manchester Metropolitan University, I have fond memories of Manchester in the 90s. I found the sound recording very evocative. I have tried to create a piece that represents something of my musical memories whilst also foregrounding the recording and its inherent musicality."

Mackie Mayor, Manchester reimagined by Dead Kousin.

"This song was inspired by the cultural diversity of the streets of Paris. Samples from the original recording were essential in the composition process, bringing an urban atmosphere to the song. This work consists of four acts."

Parisian busker reimagined by Magnus Carvalho.

"hairst is my remixed, reimagining of a cello improvisation sample recorded at Brookes University, Oxford, as part of Autumn Project by Cities and Memory.  

'Using entirely cut sections of the original audio to create all of the musical elements, the sounds were recomposed and mingled with my own field recordings captured in the Scottish Borders over the autumn months to evoke the changeable elements of hairst, meaning harvest or autumn in Scottish dialect. 

"hairst emanates from the heralding of the harvest and the last hurrahs of summer, blossoming splendours in russet and gold, the slow undressing of trees in chill northerly breezes, skeins of geese daubing darkening evening skies like Matisse sketches, the wheezy flight of swans at dawn over swollen, misty waters and the final bowls match of the closing season before the setting of winter."

Oxford cello improvisation reimagined by Claro Correcto - Claire Todd.

"I picked this particular piece feeling like this is a time to guide my movements in a more calm, and present pace. This choice of the field recording to interpret, was an attempt to practice a more contemplative state of being through working with a possibly more neutral, and meditative source material. 

"While interpreting this recording, my mind, conditioned to a degree of stimuli, greater than that what our human body's nervous system,  was accustomed to for the majority of it's developmental existence on this earth, still had to distort this serene, and calm recording of mostly nature sounds, and isolate specific little pieces of sound in time, and loop it over and over and over again, amplifying and distorting it, to keep the minds attention span interested. This seems like a telling analogy to the functioning of our minds today, in the technological world, well at least mine. 

"Nonetheless, even if chopped up and fed back into itself a lot with feedback, at a point in the composition, it feels like there was momentary equilibrium happening, guiding the way to the imagined change in the state of being. It happened through tuning in to a particular rhythm, interesting enough for the attention, but still simple and repeating, allowing the mind to stop searching all around the place and tuning in to the present soundscape, feeling it throughout the body and through that being able to appreciate and experiment with just the slightest nuances. 

"Getting to a deeper level of experience. At least that's what that felt like for me. I hope that even if a little piece of this process is stored in my body's memory, then I hope I can integrate this approach more and more to my everyday life, and try to bring a little bit of equilibrium into the world."

Goa hotel gardens reimagined by Kristaps Freimanis.

2022-06-18 10.17PM, the Lalit Golf & Spa Resort after dark.  The sound of insects and rain on corrugated roofs in a courtyard within the resort complex. Recorded by Mark Wilden.

A cello improvisation performed by Oxford Improvisers in 2014, recorded by Cities and Memory. 

"Upon listening to the recording,  the unusual acoustics and mix of sounds in the cave made me want to zoom into the audio in detail, so initially I slowed the track down, creating even more otherworldly sounds!  These inspired me to create yet another world!  No synthesisers were used, just the manipulated source audio.  
To create my composition I first selected a small section of the recording which I stretched; slowing down and smearing the audio, manually accentuating certain frequencies and harmonics.  This created a 45 sec looping drone which forms the background texture of the composition.

"Along with this drone, I used a granular effect to break up the original audio into small pieces adding more depth and tonal variety to the texture.

"Time warping, delay, frequency shifting feedback loops and reverb were also employed. These three layers were mixed in real-time over the original field recording to create the final composition."

Nam Lod cave reimagined by id_23.

IMAGE: © Vyacheslav Argenberg / http://www.vascoplanet.com/, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

"Protests are happening all over the planet in this very moment. The struggle for freedom, a decent and sustainable life is constant. To bring your messages across you have to step into the ring against the mighty and omnipresent noise of the status quo.

'This kinda eerie ambient sound design is meant to reflect on that. The protest chants of Edinburgh are accompanied with a pitched down recording of my friend CB playing the piano and some feedback chains drenched in reverb. 

"Imagine sitting on a bench in a park on a windy day. Somebody plays the rusty old piano standing across the pond while a demonstration against fossil fuels is passing by. Strangers are arguing over the protest’s demands. You feel melancholic, but empowered to unite."

Edinburgh climate protests reimagined by Sandro N. (BYDL).

"As an environmentalist, I was inspired by the people who were out on the streets of Edinburgh demanding action on climate change. I was particularly struck by the sound of sirens juxtaposed with the passionate voice of a woman declaring a climate emergency, so I explored putting those sounds together to convey a sense of urgency. At the end of the original recording, there was very quiet music in the background, and I looped that sound as the basis for the song runs through parts of my piece."

Edinburgh climate protests reimagined by Elizabeth LoGiudice.

Bats and swifts, water flowing and dripping in Nam Lod cave, Thailand. Recorded by Marcel Gnauk.

IMAGE: © Vyacheslav Argenberg / http://www.vascoplanet.com/, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

On Saturday 12 November 2022 in Edinburgh, a coalition of climate groups marched through the city to demand Climate Justice in solidarity with the Global Day of Action called by Egyptian groups at COP27. Performances, songs and chants featured throughout, some of which captured via field recordings. 

This recording was from Hanover Street to The Mound and features a chant of 'What do we want? Climate Justice! When do we want it now' and various noises from protesters.

Recorded by Bobby Jewell.

On Saturday 12 November 2022 in Edinburgh, a coalition of climate groups marched through the city to demand Climate Justice in solidarity with the Global Day of Action called by Egyptian groups at COP27. Performances, songs and chants featured throughout, some of which captured via field recordings. 

This recording was from The Mound and features a chant of 'No More Coal, No More Oil! Keep your carbon in the soil!'

Recorded by Bobby Jewell.

A commemorative service for the fallen partisans of World War II in the city centre of Padova, Italy, held in August 2022. Recorded by Cities and Memory.

Pealing bells ring out from the medieval Carfax Tower in the centre of Oxford on 9 September 2022 to mourn the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Unlike the dolorous, single and half-chimes of the other city centre bells, the Carfax Tower was pealing a more celebratory splash of bells. Recorded by Cities and Memory.

"A ambient noise, sample and reflection audio composition, using active and passive audio to create a soundscape of reflection and interest. Including ironic appropriation of modern styles, long form auditory improvisations and found vocal lines, this piece documents an emotional rationalisation of the confusion, grief and confusion of a nation.

"The bells and their surplus captures are featured throughout the piece, as well as mock birdsong, and a varied take on the trio format."

Carfax Tower bells in Oxford reimagined by Daniel Pattenden.

"This piece, originally made up of a single female voice speaking at a commemoration event in Italy, has been reimagined from the perspective of a child within the audience, trying to make sense, both contextually and sonically, of what he/she hears. At moments clear, at other moments a blur, as attention strays into other worlds."

Partisan commemoration in Padova reimagined by George Edmondson.

"The work process I used recalls different techniques of sound synthesis.

"Starting from the concept and study of “soundscape” I left the track of the original audio file unchanged so as to have a sound background that acts as a glue, in this sense I kept the audio in its original form unchanged from the sound point of view, the only variations concern the length of the file where I did simple editing interventions such as cutting, making the file in fact shorter.

"The main techniques I used in creating new sound layers are granular synthesis where I synthesized all the original audio file and used some parts during editing. Other important interventions within the DAW were made with the addition of virtual instruments, which I used to create useful pads to give harmonious/melodic support to the ambient noise content.

"As for the compositional idea, I have tried to reimagine a dream landscape immersed in a ‘natural’ context, this context is being changed and sabotaged by the addition of useful electronic sounds to strengthen a transversal context that is increasingly invading the metropolitan landscape."

Bangkok airport reimagined by Giuseppe Calisti Randazzo.

IMAGE: Roger Price, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Leaving an aircraft, walking to baggage claim on a travelator, and announcements in Thai and Chinese, Suvarnabhumi Airport, Bangkok. Recorded by Marcel Gnauk.

IMAGE: Roger Price, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

"As I listened to the field recording my attention instantly went to the polarity of city and nature sounds. My intention was to fuse them with each other, bringing harmony to nature and the way we humans live on this planet.

"I started off experimenting with the sample, trying to bring out different resonances and my first feel was like an ambient type song. I brought in some synthesizers, into this mixed sound of crickets and traffic. Played a bit with the sonic depth of field and opened up a realm, which I could explore. 

"In this realm I could feel the energy rising, an ambient track would not represent the place from where the recording was taken. It needed more groove, it should be danceable but also relaxed at the same time.

"So I fused organic percussions and instruments with synthesizer and a beat. I also fused the original recording with the whole track, there are parts where the recording is present and gets room to come more into the foreground and on other times it is nearly totally quiet in the backgrounds, but it always adds its sonic character.
As I always tend to do, I imagined the song as a sonic journey, taking you into that other realm, showing the possibilities and gently bringing you back to reality with this new experience. 

"I believe if we reconnect more with nature and let nature's frequencies get us in tune again, we may find ways to fuse our modern way of living with nature in a way that will benefit not only us humans as a species, but our Mother Earth as a whole. 

"This song was mixed and mastered by Nico Meyering (Evo!)."

Goa, India river sound reimagined by Frank Fable. 

9.34PM local time, 2022-06-15; the Crown Hotel Goa, India, standing on a balcony overlooking the river with casino boats cruising, air conditioning units humming, traffic, etc.

Recorded by Mark Wilden. 

"I knew I needed to use the crickets as an instrument, as they're almost singing in unison. And I've been obsessed with bouncing tracks to tape mid-song. By pausing the tape repeatedly while bouncing to it, I was able to create the drum sounds. With those two approaches, this was built. 95% of the audio is from the source track."

Crickets in Croatia reimagined by Josh Evert.

"My wife and I have been to Maspalomas a few times - it reminds me of switching off, recharging. I have used only the original sound in this piece, no other instruments or sounds."

Gran Canaria lighthouse reimagined by Kitty Turner (Speed For Lovers).

I was on the top of a hill in Slatina, a small town in Croatia, as the sun was setting... Insects began their symphony, soon followed by dogs!

Recorded in Slatina, Croatia by Manu Hollard.

Most people visit the lighthouse because it is such a photogenic place. And it really is a peaceful place where many beautiful pictures have been taken. During your walk, you will pass by it in no time. But if you really take the time to listen to the calm water and you are so close to the ocean, you lose all sense of time and you can spend hours there. The true calming effect of water. I tried to capture the sound of this calming water. 

Recorded by Tony van Dorst.

Airbus 380 aircraft interior and takeoff sounds from Madrid Airport. Recorded by Marcel Gnauk.

IMAGE: Jean-Pierre Dalbéra from Paris, France, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

"In a pasture bordering a residential area, the cows are grazing. Nearby, a homeowner mows the grass in his or her garden. Maybe the cows will get a taste of freshly cut grass soon? Various distant birds from the forest on the other side of the pasture. Some traffic noice from a highway a few kilometers away."

Recorded in Astorp, Sweden by Stellan Johansson.

"The calming sound of large placid animals breathing in and out - like you are now - then the sound of their jaws munching was my chosen soundtrack. This evoked a quiet meadow in the first flush of a Swedish summer as dusk approached, cows resting on their knees.Breathing was the dominant sound but there were also accompanying rustles, chirps and insects.

"I wanted to develop and enhance that calming effect.

"I tried many complementary sounds; Buddhist chants were perfect - breathing is a fundamental part of Buddhism.  I mixed the two choosing to focus on breath expressed as sound rather than simply its rhythm.

"This was then completed by adding a final layer made up of enhanced sections of a single breath plus other background extracts based on manipulated natural noises from the original soundtrack."

Cows in Sweden reimagined by Ian Evetts.

"The airport as a place of movement, everyone in transit, a node in a network of arrivals and departures. At the same time it's also a place of often deeply felt emotion from human connections -- anticipated meetings, grieving goodbyes. 

"My piece tries to paint those feelings in colours of shimmering sound, with the ambient vocals of Danica Hoffart and stand up bass of Trevor DePagie, as a backdrop to the hustle and bustle of people moving through the Madrid airport, and leading to the calm of being in the air."

Madrid airport takeoff reimagined by Wayne DeFehr.

IMAGE: Jean-Pierre Dalbéra from Paris, France, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Ambient sound collected on board the Jerusalem - Tel Aviv railway just outside Jerusalem using a Zoom H1N field recorder. The audio was captured on board the train and includes predominantly the sound of the engine.

Recorded by Daniel Rosehill.

Typical ambient sound collected in Tel Aviv (with plenty of honking) using the Zoom H1N.

Recorded by Daniel Rosehill.

"The track "Under the train" is based on a recording of an Israeli train in Tel Aviv, recorded by Daniel Rosenhill. In 2020, there were more than 2,000 victims in the European Union related to train accidents. The vast majority of that number are suicides. Idea of full of reverb and delay loops and some sounds from Omnisphere and NI Kontakt synthesizers is to remind us of the grim aspect of trains and raise awareness of suicides - both conversations about it and attempts. 

"The whole field recording provided by Rosehill is used three times during this piece - everytime with smaller and smaller delay feedback. The blurred textures of the train recording are becoming more and more concrete. We return from the gloomy atmosphere to a more "real" recording, to also remember that - especially long train trips surrounded by their sounds - are unique and majestic."

Tel Aviv train reimagined by Alan Grinde.

"The short piece for Tel Aviv is based on the recording of Daniel Rosehill and I thank him very much for the material he shared with me. This recording describes the urban environment of the city, (horns, cars, horns, horns, footsteps, sirens) is short and has some small noises at the end. I could describe it as technically difficult and that's why I chose it. I considered it a challenge! 

"Also, Tel Aviv is a city I would love to visit because it has a sea, which I love, 300 days of sunshine a year, a warm climate and is located on the Mediterranean. So, I find many similarities with Greece, my country. That's why in the track I needed other sounds outside the original recording that I thought would be compatible with this polis. Sounds like wind, sea, footsteps, dogs, broken glass, thunder, etc.

"The piece is structurally divided into 3 parts. The first, main part and the other two are repetitions witη small variations. Technical treatments involve Pitch-Shifting, Time- Stretching, Granular Synthesis, Delay Lines and Filters.
Maybe there is a little fictional story behind the sounds. Did you listen carefully?"

Tel Aviv traffic reimagined by Maria Pelekanou.

"All sounds in the piece come from the original recording, but have been processed, usually by slowing down and adding delays. I really liked the original recording and spent a lot of time listening to it, finding the "small" and interesting sounds in it, and looked at them with a microscope by slowing down the playback. I have problems with christianity, and wanted to highlight both the beautiful aesthetics and the darker sides of it in my piece."

Coimbra's Igreja de Santa Cruz reimagined by Håkan Jonsson.

"I was inspired by the natural reverberation of Commercial Square in Coimbra, Portugal,  with its outdoor activity of high pitched birds, dogs, and people.
I re-imagined it as a boundless dreamscape to be savored sonically."

Praca do Comercio, Coimbra reimagined by Dixie Treichel. 

"A simple idea. Locate and have a conversation with a woman who was born in the late 1960s on or around the 12th of July in Belfast as the so called ’Troubles’ began to escalate. I wanted to hear what that small girl thought, felt and experienced growing up in such a place.

"I spoke with Mary*. Female, born 12 07 1968, raised Catholic and living just off the Falls Road in West Belfast. What Mary said about the trauma of childhood in Belfast was deeply affecting. 

"My intention was to use the recording of the conversation in the sound work. However, the individual chose to remain anonymous and did not want the interview used, expressing genuine concern that her family might be at risk from intimidation and violence if identified. Mary allowed for some of the conversation to be transcribed to provide context for the sound work.

“'Born in '68, I grew up in Northern Ireland in the 1970s and ‘80s during the Troubles. We never celebrated my birthday. I never had party, it was just too dangerous. For myself, my parents, relations, friends and just about every other child or adult, daily life was punctuated with bomb attacks, incendiary devices, kidnappings, kneecappings, tar and featherings, murders and extrajudicial killings. All motivated in one way or another by sectarian division and hate. There was fear and conflict then and it continues to this day.'

"'The sound track of my life was silence and then violence and then silence again.'

"‘Troubles / Trioblóidí: Orange Disorder’ sound work uses the original field recording of the Orange Order march, which takes place every year on the 12th of July in Belfast. The base sample is combined with found sound processed using an impulse response (IR) recorded at St Peter’s Cathedral, located in the Divis Street area of the Falls Road in Belfast, Northern Ireland. 

"Please be aware there are sudden, loud reports in this work. Caution is advised when listening with headphones."

* Not her real name

Orange Day parade reimagined by Simon Kennedy.

"Food courts are typically pretty hectic places, I wanted to provide the contrast of a bystander taking a step back and listening to what is happening, the way you tend to focus for a while and then let it wash over you at other times.  I've used the Crave Synth by Behringer as the sound source, there are two self-generating patches that I've recorded and layered, processing with a variety of reverbs and delays."

Chicago airport food court reimagined by Andy Lyon. 

IMAGE: https://www.flickr.com/photos/15216811@N06/, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

A recording of part of a Sunday mass in the Igreja de Santa Cruz in central Coimbra, Portugal. Hymns sung by the congregation, prayers in Portuguese and fading into street sounds as we step outside the church into the square. 

Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Northern Ireland Centennial Parade was delayed by one year. It was finally held on May 28, 2022, and hosted by The Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland. 

The parade featured around 130 bands and it began at the Stormont Estate, moving through to Belfast City Hall. This event marks the 100th birthday of Northern Ireland, with approximately 20,000 people in attendance. Recording is time-compressed to highlight a range of sounds from group gatherings, chants, whistles, bands, instruments, helicopters, vehicles, chatter, marching, drinking, and celebrating.

Recorded by Georgios Varoutsos.

As the sun begins to go down in Praca do Comercio in Coimbra, Portugal, restaurants start to set up with diners taking a pre-dinner drink on the tables outside, while swifts fly overhead calling to one another. A dog barks, breaking the peace. 

Recorded by Cities and Memory.

A busy, noisy food court in O'Hare International Airport, Chicago, recorded by Marcel Gnauk.

IMAGE: https://www.flickr.com/photos/15216811@N06/, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

A busker plays a series of famous tunes on a selection of wine glasses filled to different levels with liquid, creating a haunting, ethereal sound as she performs outside the Libreria Toletta bookshop in Venice. 

Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

"The piece selected was based on a soundtrack made in Venice - buskers producing melancholy music from wine glasses. This resonated with us because we had visited Venice repeatedly throughout the last decade and coincidentally enjoyed this busker’s music ourselves. 

"We layered other sound memories onto this original track - these were made by us over the years. Almost all came from our Italian trips. The voice is trapped in the fragments of this better world - there is a sense of longing and nostalgia. Water flows - reminiscent of tears. Italian voices implore - entangled with a reminder that in our heyday we ran our lives ‘My Way’. 

"A love song drags us back into the intimacy of relationships long gone. The voice remains trapped in these memories until the end. The combined voice and fairytale-like Beatles track ebb away at the end, just as life drifts away."

Venetian glass busker reimagined by Caroline Grimshaw and Stephen Mugford.

One of the most famous sights in Porto is the triumphant, sky-level Luis I bridge, a feat of engineering and a genuinely beautiful thing. The top of the bridge sees walkers, lovers and tourists sharing the space as the sun sets over Porto's iconic riverscape, while local trams rumble past periodically and gulls circle overhead. Evening life in Porto, captured in one recording. 

Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

"Seagulls fly from place to place, trains travel across the land, breathing takes us from moment to moment. A circular text has no end and no beginning. Scenes that are put together in a free improvisation process. Loops and sequences moving back and forward. One laptop, one MIDI device and two people."

Porto Luis I bridge reimagined by Katerina Minga-Gkagkopoulou and Andreas Papakostas-Smyris.

"Representing the fading light of the sun on urban environments, marking the passing of time, time it seems without progression and a decaying hope for the brighter futures. 

"The recording was of a place I am very familiar with, and I remembered those days watching the autumnal sun fade whilst waiting for a train or tram. The recording features the Manchester tram soundmark, which I wanted to keep as an important feature in the track. The track is also a reflection of the apparent decent into darker and harder times that society is moving into in 2022-23, the decay of the brighter optimism replaced with a sense of impending change and hardship. The track uses the original recording overlayed with various manipulations of the original recording to create sonic layers to explore."

Victoria station, Manchester reimagined by Neil Spencer Bruce.

In Victoria Station, Manchester, the screeching and hooting of local trams coming and going fills the huge space as we listen and record. We then move across onto the platform, listening to local tram and train announcements, before discovering that there is a piano on the platform, with someone there entertaining passers-by and travellers with music to accompany them on their way.

Recorded by Cities and Memory.

"The field recording 'Azores Sanguinho' transported me to a space of peace and tranquility, the bird sounds, rain sounds made me virtually experience a journey through the woods. 

"In the reimagination of this sound, I combined it with one of my own compositions called 'Timeless'.  It is a piece for 4 performers. The sound that I used is from a live performance played by Gargi Chowdhury, Goutam Chakraborty, Gandharvi Khatua and Avigyan Khatua. This piece has trajectories and sounds which are similar to the 'Azores Sanguinho' sounds. When I layered them together along with the presence of the wet part of convolution reverb, it created a new dimension to the whole soundscape."

Sanguinho village, Azores reimagined by Pratyay Raha. 

Bells are always a profound inspiration as they often herald the start of something new or the passing of something important. Autumn is the beginning of the passing of the year and although a joyous and wonderful time, brings with it an air of solemnity. This track focuses on the solemnity, not the joy.

Oxford bells for Elizabeth II reimagined by Moray Newlands.

Bells ring out on 9 September 2022 from Merton College chapel, Oxford continuously for an hour to mourn the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. The second, quieter bell is the more distant St. Mary's Church, which alternates chimes with this church for a haunting stereo effect.

Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

Bells ring out on 9 September 2022 from St. Mary's Church, Radcliffe Square, Oxford continuously for an hour to mourn the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. 

Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

As soon as I heard the inharmonic sounds of the bells I wanted to use it as a reverb. I selected the most prominent ring and used it as an impulse response in a convolution reverb - giving the whole piece an eery sound, almost as if it is being played inside a large bell. I used various synthesis techniques to create underlying pads to accompany a basic piano sound and looped a small section of noise from the recording to create a percussive element, both of which ultimately get swallowed up by the prominent bell. I wanted to convey how the world was essentially swallowed up by the passing of Queen Elizabeth II.

Oxford bells in Radcliffe Square reimagined by Eli Farnhill.  

This piece is a study of the gestural qualities of bodies of water. In maintaining the stereo image of the original field recording, but heavily manipulating its timbre through granular processing and convolution, "doe bay" invokes a pencil sketch, a charcoal contour, of the delicate monstrosity of our seas.

Vicenza stream reimagined by Ryan Kessler.

A binaural recording of two layers of a small weir stream around Parco Querini, Vicenza, Italy.

"I cut up the most distinct parts of the original track to highlight and repeat them. The rest of the track was kind of atmospheric and ambient sounding, so I layered up a bunch of  sounds I had kicking around put some effects on them to back them off and put them together in an attempt to create a piece that was a bit of real world space walk in New York City. Nine and a half minutes to get lost in or... never get back."

New York Manhattan soundwalk reimagined by Mandy Hampson.

"As I listened to the field recording while looking at photos of Sanguinho, I immediately thought of a lost place. But not in a gloomy sense, since it seems as if the flora and fauna of the abandoned village had simply taken over. Everything seems bright and peaceful. 

"The Portuguese fairy tale of the enchanted Mouras came to mind: I saw these beautiful maidens (bound by a spell to bridges, fountains or stone houses) doing their supernatural dance through Sanguinho at dawn."

Sanguinho village, Sao Miguel reimagined by Giant Skeletons. 

"The field recording I worked with was one of prayer flags blown by the wind. I wanted to try and aim for a musical equivalent of that movement, the sunlight catching fabric from different angles, shadows dancing across the ground."

Prayer flags in China reimagined by de Velden. 

The village of Sanguinho was inhabited for more than a century by a population that took refuge in this area due to the overflow of the Faial da Terra River. Twenty houses were built with pig pens, four sheds and a haystack. The emigration in the 60s and 70s and the difficulty children faced getting to school were the main causes of depopulation and the abandonment of this village. Today it has been partially restored as a tourist eco-village, but much of it remains abandoned and mysterious.

Rain, abandoned silence, birdsong and a passing cat recorded by Cities and Memory. 

The sound of prayer flags by Qinghai Lake mixed with birdsong and wind sounds. Recorded in Gonghe County, Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province by Lang Tao.

"The piece is comprised of the waterfall field recording from the archive, 2 of my own recordings (dripping faucet and kettle boiling), voice track and family footage audio from my childhood. 

"'Swimming practice' explores the duality of nostalgia, as both a comforting and warm experience of memory, and an unsettling and anxious sense of loss."

Salto do Prego waterfall reimagined by Ariella Fisher. 

"The recording contains the sound of bells on the Chapel Hill in Osobowice - a district of Wroclaw. The recording was made at noon in September 2022. The chapel is surrounded by trees and stands on the edge of the forest. You can hear some wind, the sound of trees and shifting leaves. At the beginning of the recording you can hear a train in the distance and the barking of dogs from the local animal shelter. The recording was made with a Free Space Pro II binaural microphone (3DIO Sound)."

Recorded by Alan Grinde.

"Since the sound is recorded at a climate protest, I directly thought about what could convey the idea of resistance. As a musician, when thinking about resistance, I always tend to go towards afrobeat and other sounds inspired by it, but this time I thought about going in the reggae direction, which has always been a form of protest and a voice for the oppressed. 

"Also, COP 27 (the climate summit) was happening in my country at the same time when I was working with this field recording, which made it much more relevant. 
The sound inspired me as well as a protest against how detached humans have become from nature, and the chant the activist is singing resonates with the idea of harmony and unity with our surroundings, and it is a call to reconnect with our habitat."

Climate change protest in Edinburgh reimagined by Hossam Hilal. 

Deep in the Azorean forest, we trekked to the Salto do Prego waterfall to take some recordings of this hidden gem on the island of Sao Miguel. Recording just above the fall rather than beneath it meant that the resultant recording was richer and more tonally satisfying.

Recorded in Sao Miguel, Azores by Cities and Memory. 

"On Saturday 12 November 2022 in Edinburgh, a coalition of climate groups marched through the city to demand Climate Justice in solidarity with the Global Day of Action called by Egyptian groups at COP27. Performances, songs and chants featured throughout, some of which captured via field recordings. 

"This recording was from the end of the march outside the Scottish Parliament and includes a call and response style chant original by Chilean protest, in Spanish and then English." 

Recorded by Bobby Jewell. 

"I like both the musical unpredictability, and familiarity of church bells, and I wanted to play on this with this piece. I decided to take out aspects of the total recording, and mess with them, sometimes changing their pitch, other times playing with filters or rhythmic changes. I wanted to reemphasise their somewhat wonky nature and how they can both challenge and comfort the listener."

Bells in Wroclaw reimagined by Suzi Lamb.

"The airport recording with its many languages brought back memories of a trip to Santorini with my close Greek friends when I was just 18 and the Aegean islands were still undiscovered by mass tourism. The island seemed to us part of another world. One of those friends and I remembered that trip together, and I fractured and rearranged that conversation to disrupt time and place in a way that's parallel to but different from their disruption in the airport."

Santorini airport reimagined by Maria Margaronis.

IMAGE: Hhss8228, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Inside a busy departure hall at Santorini airport, Greece, with lots of travellers, some nervous tourists and security sounds. Recorded by Marcel Gnauk. 

IMAGE: Hhss8228, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Cities and Memory founder Stuart Fowkes talks to Sarah Montague on BBC Radio 4's World At One programme on 28 November 2022 about the launch of the Obsolete Sounds project and the emotional resonance of disappearing sounds - and we listen to typewriters, cassette recorders, Super-8 projectors and a composition from the project.  

"The ocean is a very special place for me. I am drawn to its tumultuous beauty and constant changing personality which I wanted to express in this work. The recording has different positions in the track sometimes in the forefront, sometimes as background just like in life as we experience nature."

Rajbag beach, India reimagined by Firephly. 

A sound not heard anywhere else in the world - this is the sound of the geothermal fumarole pools in Furnas in the Azores. These bubbling pools are naturally geothermal, and are used to cook the cozidos stew, which is submerged in pots each morning by local restaurants, cooks through the heat of the Earth and is retrieved by ropes at the end of the day. It's a dish - and a cooking method - unique to this part of the world, and as such it's also a unique and special field recording.

Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

"The mellow evening ambient sounds of a garden in Goa are the perfect catalyst for a transportive journey. I added a progression to colour the journey and provide a bit of context to the fantasy world I was aiming for."

Hotel gardens in Natravali reimagined by Eulipion Corps. 

"I knew there was music in the ripple and found a faded memory of lakeside reels and a wide angled shot of a small boat in a body of water. 
Sampled looped and processed with Akai MPC, finished in Ableton. The amazing Audiority Grainspace for unduelling banjoes."

Lough Doon, Ireland reimagined by Simon Greenwood (Nonalogue).

"I found the original recording mournful (rather than sad) and slightly comic. I have used some of the original recording and altered (using filters) fragments. To this I added sampled instrument and vocal sounds."

Fumaroles in Furnas reimagined by Richard Gadd.