CITIES AND MEMORY – A CENTURY OF SOUNDS

A Century of Sounds, is a partnership with the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford University.

One hundred recordings from all over the world, dating back as early as wax cylinder recordings from 1911, were curated to showcase the amazing breadth of the museum’s sound collections.

These recordings were presented to 100 artists – from sound artists and poets to composers and songwriters – to reimagine, developing brand new compositions.

Artists were invited to choose a recording that spoke to them, and create a composition based on their response to that sound, and to the resonances of history, culture, society and emotion that come from it.

Creative approaches used to reimagine the sounds of these iconic spaces include the development of entire lyric songs from the source material, electronica pieces, poetry, ambient music, sound art, neoclassical, spoken word and many more.

Many of these recordings have never been publicly available to listen to before – and they are some of the most extraordinary sounds a Cities and Memory project has ever included.

Chocó panpipe music reimagined by Museleon

Original field recording – Chocó panpipe music by Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith

Created for Cities and Memory project A Century of Sounds. Copyright museleon 2026 Original field recording copyright of Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, UK.

From the moment that I first heard this sound, I thought the flute sounded very much like a little steam train. At first, I researched about Columbian trains and found there is a tourist train to the Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá, an underground Roman Catholic church built within the tunnels of a salt mine, 200 metres (660 ft) underground in a halite mountain near the city of Zipaquirá, in Cundinamarca, Colombia.

I wanted the listener to hear the original recording in the track but did edit the order, tempo and pitch to give an idea of the effort of the train on its journey. I then added a rhythmic synth line to give a feeling of travel and sourced some steam train sounds from freesound. Towards the end of the track I layered other synth lines and a church organ as the train reaches its destination, the salt cathedral.

However, the more I worked on the track, It brought back memories of a journey I made many years ago on the little train that takes people up Yr Wyddfa. So a little nod to this is the tune to Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau that comes in at the end of the track.

Many of the tracks and audio pieces I create are based on memories and this is no exception. From the moment that I first heard this sound, I thought it sounded very much like a little steam train chugging up a very steep mountainside, whether in South America or my homeland, Wales.