Our wellbeing in cities is heavily influenced by noise and sound. We may not always associate noise with melody and harmony but listen carefully and the intangible becomes a bit more tangible. The piece here samples Fado, a recognised UNESCO intangible cultural heritage which is renowned for its expressive and melancholic characteristics, a trait often mirrored in the sounds of many cities across the world. The chord progressions from this Fado from Coimbra, Portugal are intertwined with other every day city sounds, people, animals, traffic, with the songs fading in and out of the field recordings. As noise levels continue to rise within our urban environments, the sounds of our cities begin to envelope our intangible cultural heritage, but we should not allow them to create dissonance, but ensure that they provide a harmonic counterpoint.
Part of the C40 Cities and Memory Wellbeing Cities project 2021.
NYC polymath Wells develops rich, layered modern-classical compositions into reflections on queerness, climate change, and the AIDS crisis. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 18, 2022