Protest and Politics – The Album

On August 7th 2017, Stuart Fowkes (Cities and Memory) launched his latest project:

Protest and Politics is the first global mapping of the sounds of protest, demonstration and political activism.

Sourcing field recordings from his own archive as well as from dozens of field recordists around the world, he assembled a database of protest sounds over summer 2017, and opened this up to artists and musicians to recompose and reimagine, bringing to bear their own experiences and memories onto these sounds.

PROTEST & POLITICS – THE ALBUM is Stuart’s selection of 12 tracks to represent the huge variety of pieces create for the project.

Track 3 – ALONE IN THE CROWD, is the one that I composed.

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Protest and Politics

Today, August 7th 2017, Stuart Fowkes (Cities and Memory) launches his latest project:

Protest and Politics is the first global mapping of the sounds of protest, demonstration and political activism.

Sourcing field recordings from his own archive as well as from dozens of field recordists around the world, he assembled a database of protest sounds over summer 2017, and opened this up to artists and musicians to recompose and reimagine, bringing to bear their own experiences and memories onto these sounds.

You can explore the documentary field recordings of protests, spend time in the alternative sound world created by their reimagined counterparts, or flip freely between the two as you choose.

Here’s where you can find my contribution to the project:

Alone in the Crowd

If you would like to contact me about music / sound design for a project:

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Alone in the Crowd

Written as part of the Cities and Memory ‘Politics and Protest’ project.
Launches August 7th 2017: citiesandmemory.com

A simple little piece based on a field recording from a political protest march in Paris 2015.

I absolutely loved the original recording by Ben Gale and wanted to highlight it’s qualities as much as possible in my remix – one of the reasons why you will hear it at the beginning and end of my piece with no editing whatsoever!

This composition was inspired by my own experiences on various protest marches over the years and my ability to almost completely shutdown external stimuli; to be ALONE IN THE CROWD. It’s a defence mechanism really, but at times almost spiritual – an ‘out of crowd’ experience! I don’t enjoy large gatherings that much at all and I think my brain simply needs time-out from the revelry!

• My piece starts with Ben’s field recording in its raw state.
• Slowly the sounds of protest morph, warp and fade into the background.
• They continue to ebb and flow, almost like a living breathing creature, but always slightly distant / faded.
• A simply, dissonant piano motif represents me in the middle of the throng. A choir theme adds that little edge of spirituality!
• The piano and choir fade away. Slowly the sounds of protest re-enter my consciousness and I rejoin the masses.

Warped Sounds of Protest – Reaktor 6 (Metaphysical Function with 14 layers of automation)
Piano – Kontakt 5 (‘Giant’ piano module)
Voices – Omnisphere (Boys Choir)

If you would like to contact me about music / sound design for a project:

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Last Dance of the Cyborg Assassin

Public broadcast license available – contact me directly for a bespoke service with various edits available on request.

Short and simple piece of ‘old school’ melodic electronica.

Almost all of the sounds, (apart from drums and percussion), were created here:

www.cl-projects-sound-design.com/blue-orb…ogy.html

Timbre for the main melody uses three layers from:

hideawaystudio.wordpress.com/2013/01/12…r-kontakt/

If you would like to contact me about music / sound design for a project:

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The Man Who Sold the Moon

 

Public broadcast license available – contact me directly for a bespoke service with various edits available on request.

The latest in my long line of science fiction influenced compositions!

With the exception of drums and percussion, this one was composed using sounds from CL Projects BLUE ORB TRILOGY for Kontakt 5.

More info here:
www.cl-projects-sound-design.com/blue-orb…ogy.html

Always interested in providing music and sound design for projects around the Birmingham area and across the world – use the form below or simply email me: mark@chameleonmusic.co.uk

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Sacred Spaces: Album Release

Cities and Memory have just released a new album on Bandcamp:

Includes high-quality FREE download in MP3, FLAC and more. Paying supporters also get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app.

My contribution is track 5: Spirit of the Prayer Wheel– based around a field recording of a prayer wheel from Kathmandu.

The album compiles some of the highlights from the Cities and Memory Sacred Spaces project – you can hear the full project, and the field recordings from which these pieces have been created, at:

www.citiesandmemory.com/sacredspaces.

If you would like to contact me about music / sound design for a project:

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Sacred Spaces: Do Campanologists Dream of Electric Bells?

Part of the Cities and Memory SACRED SPACES project:

citiesandmemory.com/sacredspaces/

Created using Reaktor 5 and Kontakt 5; hosted in Sonar X1.

My Final Composition:

All parts in this one, (except the electric piano solo), were created directly from fragments of the original field recording. Various snippets of the Canadian recording, (not just the bells, but other incidental noises as well) were loaded up into five granular samplers for extensive editing.

The electric piano solo was performed using the Scarbee Mark 1 virtual instrument.

The Original Field Recording:

If you would like to contact me about music / sound design for a project:

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