Egyptian market/Nightmoves

Cities and Memory - remixing the world

"The original field recording is the the sound of a busy and chaotic market with traders calling out, pedestrian and vehicle sounds punctuated by either a radio or live performance of traditional song which is captured as the recordist moves through the space.
"On listening, there seems to be eight or nine distinct ‘zones’ or areas of particular sound which are blended as the recordist travels : at first the sound is in the distance, then as the recordist moves closer into the area it takes focus then as they leave, its traces fall away as the next sound area or zone comes closer into focus and so on. My intention behind this reworking is to maintain this sense of movement/travelling through the space and to remain faithful to the duration of the original recording using only sounds found in the original file within the finished rework.
"I identified the eight/nine key areas and put each through some extensive processing to obliterate as much as I could the chaos : rendering them as distinct ambient washes and repetitive drones. In a sense, flipping the script on this chaos and turning it into a different sonic experience for the finished rework, Egyptian Market / Nightmoves. I kept the order of these ‘zones’ as they are in the original sound file and overlapped each top and tail to create the effect of moving through the ambient space.
"Three distinct voices; a male voice of a trader calling out, a boys voice and a female vocalist singing are clearly heard in the original file. These voices are processed and multi-tracked as a choir that appears and disappears throughout the duration of the rework.
"As the piece moves to the end, some of the processing falls away to reveal some of the original source material. Egyptian Market / Nightmoves begins and ends with a call, its source being the call identified as one of the male traders from the original sound file."
Night market in Aswan reimagined by Kenneth Lyons.