23 August 2016 marks the launch of the latest Cities and Memory project, The Next Station.
The London Underground is the world’s oldest underground railway, launching in 1863, and is now one of the most recognisable features of London as a city – and one of the most distinctive soundscapes in the world.
Working alongside The London Sound Survey Cities and Memory have created the first ever sound map of the London Underground and invited sound artists from around the world to create new pieces reimagining and remixing every station and stop on the map.
Further details, an interactive sound map and playlist will be available at Cities and Memory: The Next Station when it launches on 23rd August.
I’m delighted to be a part of this project, I used a recording from the ticket hall at Angel station which was cut up into percussive sounds, vocal snippets and other interesting sounds. I used Groove Matrix and Homing Pad in Hollyhock to provide a glitchy rhythm and the processed recordings were used at normal and altered pitches with one sent to an effect rack comprised of Izotope DDLY dynamic delay, TAL Reverb 4 and Fusion Delay and were triggered manually during the recording. I also used TAL Noisemaker for the introduction,Izotope Breaktweaker to provide a 4:4 kick rhythm, Bass Engine CM and Aalto CM.
The intention with my entry was to capture the ebb and flow and sometimes chaotic nature of a ticket hall, including those moments where you manage to switch off and just hear fragments of conversations. I used the ‘cut up’ approach to create various vocal and percussive sounds and used groove tools to create glitchy rhythms. Curiously Homing Pad produced a rhythm which sounded like travelling on a train.
I created the song in Usine Hollyhock II DAW which facilities this type of sound manipulation making the process really easy. It contains a lot of sound manipulation tools and effects like granulators, delays, ring mods with easy automation of controls. It’s a modular system so you can create your own patches and routing with virtually unlimited possibilities. It’s primarily aimed at live performance so it copes very well with changing settings with no degradation in the sound, even for maths intensive operations like granulators and delays.
If you’re interested and would like to join in, Cities and Memory welcome submissions either as part of projects like this one or alternatively you can submit reimagined sounds of your own or from their collection. Full details can be found on their website.
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