Podcasts about Pitt Rivers Museum

In this solo episode of the Anglotopia Podcast, Jonathan Thomas delivers his definitive guide to Oxford — his favorite city in England outside of London and the subject of his guidebook 101 Oxford Travel Tips and Tricks. From the bleary-eyed chaos of his first visit in 2012 with an angry 16-month-old and the Mini Cooper factory ring road at midnight, to two stays as a student on the Oxford Experience program, Jonathan brings nearly 15 years of personal history with the city to bear on a comprehensive, enthusiastic, and practically useful travel guide. The episode covers how to get there, how long to stay, the Oxford Experience immersive student program, the colleges you must see, the Bodleian Library's remarkable layers, the essential museums, the unrivaled bookstore scene led by Blackwell's and its famous five-mile Norrington Room, Oxford's extraordinary literary connections from Lewis Carroll to Tolkien to Philip Pullman, the day trips that demand your time — including Blenheim Palace and the Cotswolds — and the practical tips that will make your visit infinitely more enjoyable. Links 101 Oxford Travel Tips and Tricks by Jonathan Thomas — [Anglotopia Store link] Oxford Experience at Christchurch English-Speaking Union Oxford Course Bodleian Library Tours — bodleian.ox.ac.uk Blackwell's Bookshop Oxford — blackwells.co.uk Oxford University Press Bookshop Scriptum, Turl Street Ashmolean Museum — ashmolean.org Pitt Rivers Museum — prm.ox.ac.uk Blenheim Palace — blenheimpalace.com Rousham House & Garden — rousham.org Didcot Railway Centre — didcotrailwaycentre.org.uk Oxford Walking Tours Morse Walking Tour Oxford The Randolph Hotel (now Graduate Oxford) Friends of Anglotopia ⠀ Takeaways Oxford is Jonathan's favourite city in England outside London — and most Americans either skip it or see it in a rushed half-day bus tour that barely scratches the surface. Two days minimum is the right call; three is better. Oxford is just 60 miles and 40-45 minutes by direct train from London Paddington, making it one of the easiest day trips or overnights in Britain — and you can also get there direct by bus from Heathrow without going into London at all. The Oxford Experience — a residential immersive programme at Christchurch offering one-week courses for adults in July and August — is Jonathan's single highest recommendation for anyone who wants to truly inhabit the city. Courses cost £1,500–£2,000 all-in and include room, board, lectures, and excursions; book in November when the schedule is released as popular courses fill within hours. The Bodleian Library is not one library but several — the Divinity School, Duke Humphrey's Library, the Radcliffe Camera, and the Weston Library — and the best way to see them properly is to book a guided tour well in advance, as they sell out. Blackwell's bookshop on Broad Street is arguably the greatest bookshop in the world — the underground Norrington Room alone has five miles of shelving beneath Trinity College — and Jonathan has never left without spending several hundred pounds. Staff will package books in brown paper and ship them back to the US at reasonable rates. Oxford's literary connections are extraordinary: Lewis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland at Christchurch (Alice was the Dean's daughter); Tolkien and C.S. Lewis met with the Inklings at the Eagle and Child every Tuesday through the 1930s and 40s; Philip Pullman set His Dark Materials here; Oscar Wilde studied at Magdalen; and Inspector Morse has made every corner of the city feel like a crime scene. The Eagle and Child — the Inklings' famous pub on St. Giles' Street — has been closed since COVID and is currently being refurbished by new owners. It must reopen as a pub by heritage law, and is expected to reopen either in 2026 or 2027; keep an eye on the show notes link for updates. If you're in Oxford for even one day, you must go to Blenheim Palace — just eight miles away by bus, the only non-royal non-episcopal palace in England, birthplace of Winston Churchill, UNESCO World Heritage Site, and arguably the greatest country house in Britain. A bus from Oxford drops you at the gates. Jonathan's top Oxford hack: stay for at least one night. By 4-5pm the tour buses are gone, Oxford becomes a completely different city, and the cultural life — theatre, bookshop talks, music — begins. Arrive early to beat crowds at the sights, then save the evenings for culture and quieter exploration. Avoid mid-April to mid-June (exam season, colleges restrict access), avoid July if you run hot (medieval stone buildings have no air conditioning and bake in the heat), and buy a fan the moment you arrive if visiting in summer. September and October are ideal months to visit. ⠀ Soundbites "Most of my early memories of Oxford were driving the ring road at midnight with a toddler who would not go to sleep and who would only stop crying if he was in the car. We drove round and around, seeing nothing other than the Mini Cooper plant every time we went past." — Jonathan on his first trip to Oxford in 2012. "Oxford has this warmth to it — that yellow beige Cotswold stone, weathered and warm. And there's this scholarly, bookish vibe from the place that you don't really get anywhere else. It's not just a campus. Oxford University is the town of Oxford." — Jonathan on why Oxford grabs you. "I was immediately spellbound. I loved it immediately. And that's the thing about Oxford — it grabs you once you visit, and you're walking around this beautiful architecture surrounded by deep, deep history. They don't even know exactly how old the university is. It's over 800 years old. When Oxford was founded, the Aztec Empire hadn't even reached its peak." — Jonathan on falling in love with Oxford in 2016. "There were riots. There was full scale urban warfare in Oxford in 1355 — the St. Scholastica's Day riot. 63 scholars and 30 townspeople were killed. As a result, the town was forced to pay annual reparations to the university in a formal ceremony that continued into the Victorian era." — Jonathan on Oxford's violent town vs. gown history. "You basically get to live as an Oxford student for a week. Morning is lectures, afternoon is tours and excursions, evening is formal dinner in the Great Hall. And one night you're invited to high table — suit and tie, port, mingling with the professors. It's a very quintessentially British experience." — Jonathan on the Oxford Experience programme. "I've never gotten out of the Norrington Room without spending several hundred pounds. Let me just say that. Five miles of shelving underground beneath Trinity College. So many books." — Jonathan on Blackwell's legendary underground bookshop. "The Pitt Rivers Museum is like the Victorian cabinet of curiosities. Dimly lit, quiet — maybe people don't even know it's there. Polynesian canoes, samurai outfits, weapons, armour. A strange and wonderful melange of human culture from all over the world." — Jonathan on one of Oxford's most atmospheric museums. "If you're in Oxford and you don't go to Blenheim Palace, you've wasted a trip to Oxford. It's the only non-royal, non-episcopal palace in England. I would argue it's probably the greatest house in Britain. And a bus from Oxford drops you right at the gates." — Jonathan on Blenheim Palace. "By four or five o'clock in the afternoon, the tour buses are gone. And it's just you and the people who live and work and study in Oxford. Oxford becomes a completely different place. That's when the cultural life wakes up." — Jonathan's key Oxford overnight hack. "Scriptum on Turl Street — if you're a bookish type, you will love this place. Beautiful blank books, journals, diaries, fancy pens. I have a beautiful leather book from there with gorgeous cream pages that I cherish so much I haven't written anything in it. I'm afraid to ruin it." — Jonathan on his favourite hidden gem shop in Oxford. ⠀ Chapters 00:00 Introduction — Jonathan sets up the Oxford guide episode and plugs his Oxford guidebook 01:48 Jonathan's Relationship with Oxford — Brideshead Revisited, American universities, and the Oxford DNA in US campus culture 03:30 First Visit: Oxford 2012 — Diamond Jubilee trip, an angry toddler, and the ring road at midnight 06:20 Second Visit: Oxford 2016 — The train from Paddington, the proper day, and falling in love properly 08:42 A Brief History of Oxford — Ford of the Oxen, Alfred the Great, Henry II, 800 years, and the St. Scholastica's Day riot 13:30 The University Explained — 44 colleges, town vs. gown, the founding of Cambridge by Oxford exiles, and Oxford today 16:10 How to Get There — Train from Paddington, Oxford Tube bus, direct from Heathrow, and why not to drive 19:30 Getting Around Oxford — Walking, taxis, park-and-ride pitfalls, and Tolkien's grave 21:10 Day Trip vs. Overnight — Why staying beats leaving, and how Oxford transforms after 4pm 23:40 The Oxford Experience Programme — Christchurch, Worcester College, the Nelson course, high table, and the Enigma course Jonathan wants to do next 33:15 Accommodation Options — Hotels, staying in colleges out of term time, and the Randolph (Inspector Morse's pub) 35:20 The College System Explained — 44 semi-independent colleges, how to apply, porters, scouts, and visiting hours 38:00 Must-See Colleges — Christchurch, Magdalen, Worcester, Merton, Wadham (Brideshead), and the peculiar All Souls 43:00 The Bodleian Library — Five buildings, Duke Humphrey's Library, the Radcliffe Camera, the Divinity School, and why you must book a tour 47:00 Radcliffe Square & St. Mary's Church Tower — The most beautiful urban space in Britain and the best views in Oxford 48:40 The Ashmolean Museum — Britain's first public museum, the Alfred Jewel, Guy Fawkes's lantern, Turner paintings, and it's free 51:00 The Pitt Rivers Museum — Through the Natural History Museum, the shrunken heads, Polynesian canoes, and the Victorian cabinet of curiosities 53:00 Carfax Tower, Oxford Castle & Prison, and the Covered Market — Views, ruins, Brown's Café, and Ben's Cookies 55:30 The Botanic Garden & Broad Street — Riverside walks, the Martyrs' Cross, and the Reformation in Oxford 56:30 Shopping in Oxford — The High Street, Blackwell's, the Norrington Room, OUP Bookshop, Scriptum, The Last Bookshop, and why to skip the Harry Potter tat 01:03:00 Literary Oxford — Lewis Carroll, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Oscar Wilde, Philip Pullman, Inspector Morse, and the Eagle and Child update 01:09:00 Harry Potter Oxford — Divinity School, Duke Humphrey's Library, Bodleian courtyard, Christchurch Great Hall, and the new TV series 01:12:00 Day Trips from Oxford — Blenheim Palace, the Cotswolds, Stratford-upon-Avon, Rousham House, Didcot Railway Centre, and Bicester Village 01:18:00 Practical Tips — Book ahead, avoid exam season, avoid July heat, arrive early, save museums for the afternoon, walk everywhere, punt the river, visit Scriptum 01:24:00 Wrap-Up — Oxford rewards time and attention; two days minimum, the Oxford Experience if you can, and a call for listeners to share what they love about Oxford Video Version

A Century of Sounds is a trip through one hundred years of sounds from all over the world, taken from the archives of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford.It's a partnership between the museum and Cities and Memory, which is one of the world's largest sound projects, aiming to remix the world, one sound at a time. 100 artists were invited to each choose one field recording, to be inspired by the stories, the places and the history behind that sound, and to recompose that recording to reflect their own creative and emotional response to the sound.In this programme, throughout you'll hear first an excerpt from the field recording, and then the composition that sound inspired. The final collection presents a new way of listening to these recordings and the stories behind them, and suggests new ways of using sound to help us understand humanity, past and present.You can explore the entire project at https://citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds1. Afternoon beneath a palm shelter (Central African Republic) - recorded by Louis Sarno, 1986We sing together - micca2. Natar (song) on conch and musket (Vanuatu) - recorded by Raymond Ernst Clausen, 1962Duet for conch shell and synthesiser - Cities and Memory3. "Merer Pake": an nDavu trumpet signal (Vanuatu) - recorded by Raymond Ernst Clausen, 1962Drawn to the circle - Ana Habesh4. "Sapeh (type of three-stringed boat lute) being played (Malaysia) - recorded by Leslie Bennett, 1960To the land of the hornbills - Daniel Chudley - Le Corre5. Balonyona playing the geedal (bow harp) (Central African Republic) - recorded by Louis Sarno, 1992The rainforest - Liboi6. Instrumentals featuring the hyang piri and hojok (South Korea) - Laurence Rowland and Ernest Picken, 1972How I learnt to live with ghosts - Tim Saul7. Bayaka women singing yeyi (polyphonic song) in the forest (Central African Republic) - recorded by Louis Sarno (1993)Yeyi by Neil Foster8. Beggars singing for charity (Morocco) - recorded by Audrey Butt, Michael R. Emerson or Ralph Hudson Johnson, 1961Nothing changes (a begging I will go) by Subphotic9. Women singing (India) - recorded by Nicholas Justin Allen, 1981Kinnaur calling - Sonic-Soma10. Geedal (bow harp) played in the forest with male voices accompanying (Republic of Congo) - recorded by Louis Sarno, 2002Talea - Sonic Investigation Unit

This episode draws on experimental and review literature on mirror-gazing, strange-face illusions, anomalous self-experience, dissociation, agency, face pareidolia, and face-distortion disorders, especially the work of Giovanni B. Caputo, Caputo/Lynn/Houran, Mash et al., Bregman-Hai and Soffer-Dudek, Derome et al., Palmer and Clifford, and Blom et al. Historical and occult context comes from research on catoptromancy, John Dee's angelic scrying records, the British Museum's “Dr Dee's Magical Mirror,” Campbell et al.'s Antiquity study on the mirror's Mexican/Aztec obsidian origin, and Mesoamerican material on Tezcatlipoca and the “Smoking Mirror.”Links For The Occult Rejectshttps://linktr.ee/theoccultrejectsOccult Research Institutehttps://www.occultresearchinstitute.org/Cash Apphttps://cash.app/$theoccultrejectsVenmo@TheOccultRejectsBuy Me A Coffeebuymeacoffee.com/TheOccultRejectsPatreonhttps://www.patreon.com/TheOccultRejectsCore Scientific Sources: Mirror-Gazing, Strange Faces, and Altered Self-ExperienceCaputo, Giovanni B. “Strange-Face-in-the-Mirror Illusion.” Perception 39, no. 7, 2010, 1007–1008.Key use: This is the main science anchor for the episode. Caputo showed that prolonged mirror-gazing under low illumination can produce strange-face apparitions, including distortions, unknown faces, monstrous faces, animal-like faces, archetypal faces, and faces of relatives or deceased people.Caputo, Giovanni B., Steven Jay Lynn, and James Houran. “Mirror- and Eye-Gazing: An Integrative Review of Induced Altered and Anomalous Experiences.” Imagination, Cognition and Personality 40, no. 4, 2021, 418–457.Key use: This is one of the strongest overview sources. It reviews empirical studies on mirror-gazing, psychomanteum work, and eye-to-eye gazing, especially in relation to altered perception, anomalous experiences, bodily experience, and self-identity.Mash, Joanna, Paul M. Jenkinson, Charlotte E. Dean, and Keith R. Laws. “Strange Face Illusions: A Systematic Review and Quality Analysis.” Consciousness and Cognition 109, 2023, article 103480.Key use: Newer review source. Useful because it supports strange-face illusions as a reliable phenomenon in both mirror-gazing and interpersonal gazing, while also warning that stronger research is still needed on mechanisms and prevalence.Bregman-Hai, Noa, and Nirit Soffer-Dudek. “Mirror-Gazing-Induced Dissociation Impairs Self-Reported and Implicit Sense of Agency: A Causal Investigation of Dissociation and Agency Under Controlled Laboratory Conditions.” PLOS ONE 21, no. 2, 2026, e0341316.Key use: Excellent source for the agency section. This connects mirror-gazing-induced dissociation with weakened sense of agency, which pairs well with mediumship, possession, automatic writing, and the feeling that “something else” is present.Derome, Mélodie, Eduardo Fonseca-Pedrero, Giovanni Battista Caputo, and Martin Debbané. “A Developmental Study of Mirror-Gazing-Induced Anomalous Self-Experiences and Self-Reported Schizotypy from 7 to 28 Years of Age.” Psychopathology 55, no. 1, 2022, 49–61.Key use: Useful developmental source. It connects mirror-gazing-induced anomalous self-experiences with age, self-perception, and schizotypal traits.Caputo, Giovanni B. “Visual Perception During Mirror-Gazing at One's Own Face in Patients with Depression.” The Scientific World Journal, 2014.Key use: Useful for the emotion/self-face relationship section. Caputo found that strange-face apparitions were reduced in patients with depression compared with healthy controls, including shorter duration, fewer strange faces, weaker intensity, and lower emotional response.Tramacere, Antonella. “Face Yourself: The Social Neuroscience of Mirror Gazing.” Frontiers in Psychology 13, 2022, article 949211.Key use: Strong support for the idea that mirror-gazing is like seeing yourself as another. It connects self-face perception with social neuroscience and the overlap between how we perceive our own face and the faces of others.Chakraborty, Anya C., and Bhismadev Chakrabarti. “Looking at My Own Face: Visual Processing Strategies in Self–Other Face Recognition.” Frontiers in Psychology 9, 2018.Key use: Useful for the self-face recognition section. This study looks at how people process their own face compared with other faces.Conty, Laurence, Nathalie George, and Jari K. Hietanen. “Watching Eyes Effects: When Others Meet the Self.” Consciousness and Cognition 45, 2016, 184–197.Key use: Best support for the gaze/presence section. It argues that direct gaze captures attention and triggers self-referential processing, which helps explain why a mirror can make the viewer feel watched.Face Perception, Pareidolia, and Monstrous DistortionPalmer, Colin J., and Colin W. G. Clifford. “Face Pareidolia Recruits Mechanisms for Detecting Human Social Attention.” Psychological Science 31, no. 8, 2020, 1001–1012.Key use: Best source for the “face-making brain” section. It supports the idea that illusory faces are not treated as meaningless noise; they can recruit mechanisms involved in social attention.Blom, Jan Dirk, Bastiaan C. ter Meulen, Jitze Dool, and Dominic H. ffytche. “A Century of Prosopometamorphopsia Studies.” Cortex 139, 2021, 298–308.Key use: Use carefully as a comparison source, not as a direct explanation for all scrying. Prosopometamorphopsia is a rare condition where faces appear distorted, showing that face-processing systems can produce frightening facial distortions under certain conditions.Psychomanteum, Grief, and Seeing the DeadHastings, Arthur, Michael Hutton, William Braud, et al. “Psychomanteum Research: Experiences and Effects on Bereavement.” OMEGA: Journal of Death and Dying 45, no. 3, 2002, 211–228.Key use: Main grief / dead-in-the-mirror source. Use carefully. It does not prove afterlife contact, but it supports the idea that mirror-gazing, darkness, memory, and grief can produce powerful experiences interpreted as contact.Moody, Raymond A. Reunions: Visionary Encounters with Departed Loved Ones. New York: Villard, 1993.Key use: Main modern popular source for the psychomanteum as a grief-contact chamber. Use as practitioner/popular context, not as the strongest academic evidence.Terhune, Devin B., and Matthew D. Smith. “The Induction of Anomalous Experiences in a Mirror-Gazing Facility: Suggestion, Cognitive Perceptual Personality Traits and Phenomenological State Effects.” The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 194, no. 6, 2006, 415–421.Key use: Good supporting source for anomalous experiences in a mirror-gazing facility. Pairs well with Hastings and the Caputo review.Kamp, K. S., Evgenia Steffen, Louis A. Kasket, and others. “Sensory and Quasi-Sensory Experiences of the Deceased in Bereavement: An Interdisciplinary and Integrative Review.” Schizophrenia Bulletin 46, no. 6, 2020, 1367–1381.Key use: Strong source for the grief section. It supports the point that bereaved people often report sensory or quasi-sensory experiences of the deceased, including feeling a presence, seeing, hearing, smelling, or sensing the dead.Hewson, Helen, and colleagues. “The Impact of Continuing Bonds Following Bereavement: A Systematic Review.” Death Studies, 2024.Key use: Useful for continuing bonds. It helps frame ongoing inner relationships with the dead as part of bereavement rather than automatically pathological.Historical, Religious, and Occult Mirror DivinationJohnston, Sarah Iles. Ancient Greek Divination. Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.Key use: Broad academic background for ancient divination systems. Not only mirror scrying, but very useful for framing divination as a serious religious and cultural practice.“Technical Divination and Mechanics of Sacred Space.” In Technologies of the Marvellous in Ancient Greek Religion. Cambridge University Press.Key use: Useful for ancient catoptromancy. This chapter discusses mirror divination as a technical mode of ancient divination involving reflective/catoptric knowledge and assumptions about divine intervention in human knowledge.Lee, Mireille M. “The Gendered Economics of Greek Bronze Mirrors.” Hesperia 86, no. 1, 2017.Key use: Useful for Greek bronze mirrors as social, gendered, material, and possibly magical/divinatory objects.Pitt Rivers Museum. “Mirrors.” Body Arts Collection Resource.Key use: Good museum-level source for folklore around mirrors and catoptromancy. Useful for basic show-note support on the traditional belief that mirrors could reveal the future.John Dee, Black Mirrors, and ObsidianBritish Museum. “Dr Dee's Magical Mirror / Dr Dee's Magical Speculum.” Collection object 1966,1001.1.Key use: Essential object source. The British Museum identifies the object as Dr. Dee's magical mirror or magical speculum, made of obsidian, catalogued as Aztec, and broadly dated to the 14th–16th century.Campbell, Stuart, Elizabeth Healey, Jago Cooper, Naomi Speakman, and others. “The Mirror, the Magus and More: Reflections on John Dee's Obsidian Mirror.” Antiquity 95, 2021.Key use: Essential academic source for Dee's mirror. The study uses geochemical analysis to show that the British Museum obsidian mirrors are Mexican in origin, with Dee's mirror matching the Pachuca obsidian source.Nature. “A ‘Spirit Mirror' Used in Elizabeth I's Court Had Aztec Roots.” 2021.Key use: Short science-news summary of the Antiquity findings. Useful for quickly explaining that Dee's mirror was traced to a source near Pachuca, Mexico.Smithsonian Magazine. “Obsidian ‘Spirit Mirror' Used by Elizabeth I's Court Astrologer Has Aztec Origins.” 2021.Key use: Useful public-facing summary of Dee's mirror, its Aztec/Mexican origin, and its connection to Elizabethan occult culture.Dee, John, and Meric Casaubon, ed. A True & Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many YeaAlso want to remind people about the website, if you're into reading we have tons of information by multiple contributors, and we got t-shirts up on the site if you're interested. Fun fact, the art is all based on the eyeball. A

They named their band after a cabinet in Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum, and once formed a band with Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood... this week on the BBC Introducing in Oxfordshire & Berkshire podcast, Dave catches up with Charms Against The Evil Eye.Plus, Lauren meets Niki Kini at her immersive headline show... but did she have a sweet or spicy experience?! And, Alex has a report from Reading's excellent Are You Listening? Festival with Lost Velvet and Puma Theory.Here's this week's track list: • The Race - Best Is Yet To Come Ace Clvrk - Heavenly Waters Folly Oh Yes - Zombie Of Silicon Valley Haints - Hollow Temples The Subtheory - Things that caught my attention Niki Kini - Murder You 1-800 GIRLS - sometimes [tipped by Jaguar at BBC Radio 1 Dance] The Afterword - An Illusion My Crooked Teeth - Stay At Home Twin Skeletons - Useless DRZ - Like U The Deadbeat Apostles - Keep it to Yourself Felix Ross - Everything's Changing Sofia and the Antoinettes - I Don't Know What I'm Doing on Earth, I Don't Know What on Earth I'm Doing [tipped by Jess Iszatt at BBC Radio 1] Charms Against The Evil Eye - Dark Matter Kelly Michaeli - Tephra Hey! This is Brad - Just Listen Frozemode - dirtyman [tipped by Alyx Holcombe at BBC Radio 1 Rock] Lost Velvet - Burnt Puma Theory - Hit & Run (Live at Farm Road Studios) Meli Foster-Turner - Serendipity Murds - Land Of Me Eva Gadd - Have It All • If you're making music in Oxfordshire and Berkshire, send us your tunes with the BBC Introducing Uploader: https://www.bbc.co.uk/introducing/uploader

Veins of Influence: Colonial Sri Lanka (Ceylon) in early Photographs and Collections by Shalini Amerasinghe Ganendra (Neptune Publications, 2023) is a pioneering monograph that brings a rich array of early images (specifically of Sri Lanka (Ceylon)) into the global discourse of photography, pairing a striking lens of visual appreciation with distinctly humanizing perspectives. In the context of colonial photography, “veins of influence” delineates the circulatory pathways through which images operate, tracing not only their material production and dissemination, but also the curatorial, creative, cultural, epistemic narratives they generate across time. The over 450 images featured are from the: Royal Collection Trust; Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford; Royal Commonwealth Society, Cambridge University; Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; Rothschild Archives and, also by the famed Victorian photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron. (A little known fact is that Cameron spent the last 4 years of life in Ceylon and died there.) In addition to these UK collections, this publication includes early photographs from important local family collections and period publications. The collections are mainly those of influencers and the writing considers images by both studio photographers and hobbyists, for commercial and non-commercial purposes. This seminal publication is for general audiences and specialists. Ganendra's unusual analysis of these collections adds another layer of understanding of the viewing and imaging of Ceylon specifically, importantly also offering another approach to the understanding of colonial images generally. Shalini Amerasinghe Ganendra's impact on cultural development has been defined by nearly three decades of cultural programming including exhibition and scholarship, with notable focus on Sri Lanka. Ganendra is Sri Lankan born and lives in Malaysia. She read law at Cambridge University (1987) and qualified as a Barrister and New York Attorney. She was the first Sri Lankan specialist to be appointed to the Tate Gallery (UK) Acquisitions Committee (SAAC) and has served on numerous judging panels including for the Commonwealth Arts Award and as a nominator for the Sovereign Art Prize and Aga Khan Architecture Awards. She was most recently a Chevening Fellow at Oxford and has held visiting positions at the University of Oxford, including at: the History of Art Department, St. Catherine s College and the Pitt Rivers Museum. She was made a Dame of the Order of St. Gregory the Great (Vatican) in 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Veins of Influence: Colonial Sri Lanka (Ceylon) in early Photographs and Collections by Shalini Amerasinghe Ganendra (Neptune Publications, 2023) is a pioneering monograph that brings a rich array of early images (specifically of Sri Lanka (Ceylon)) into the global discourse of photography, pairing a striking lens of visual appreciation with distinctly humanizing perspectives. In the context of colonial photography, “veins of influence” delineates the circulatory pathways through which images operate, tracing not only their material production and dissemination, but also the curatorial, creative, cultural, epistemic narratives they generate across time. The over 450 images featured are from the: Royal Collection Trust; Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford; Royal Commonwealth Society, Cambridge University; Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; Rothschild Archives and, also by the famed Victorian photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron. (A little known fact is that Cameron spent the last 4 years of life in Ceylon and died there.) In addition to these UK collections, this publication includes early photographs from important local family collections and period publications. The collections are mainly those of influencers and the writing considers images by both studio photographers and hobbyists, for commercial and non-commercial purposes. This seminal publication is for general audiences and specialists. Ganendra's unusual analysis of these collections adds another layer of understanding of the viewing and imaging of Ceylon specifically, importantly also offering another approach to the understanding of colonial images generally. Shalini Amerasinghe Ganendra's impact on cultural development has been defined by nearly three decades of cultural programming including exhibition and scholarship, with notable focus on Sri Lanka. Ganendra is Sri Lankan born and lives in Malaysia. She read law at Cambridge University (1987) and qualified as a Barrister and New York Attorney. She was the first Sri Lankan specialist to be appointed to the Tate Gallery (UK) Acquisitions Committee (SAAC) and has served on numerous judging panels including for the Commonwealth Arts Award and as a nominator for the Sovereign Art Prize and Aga Khan Architecture Awards. She was most recently a Chevening Fellow at Oxford and has held visiting positions at the University of Oxford, including at: the History of Art Department, St. Catherine s College and the Pitt Rivers Museum. She was made a Dame of the Order of St. Gregory the Great (Vatican) in 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

Veins of Influence: Colonial Sri Lanka (Ceylon) in early Photographs and Collections by Shalini Amerasinghe Ganendra (Neptune Publications, 2023) is a pioneering monograph that brings a rich array of early images (specifically of Sri Lanka (Ceylon)) into the global discourse of photography, pairing a striking lens of visual appreciation with distinctly humanizing perspectives. In the context of colonial photography, “veins of influence” delineates the circulatory pathways through which images operate, tracing not only their material production and dissemination, but also the curatorial, creative, cultural, epistemic narratives they generate across time. The over 450 images featured are from the: Royal Collection Trust; Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford; Royal Commonwealth Society, Cambridge University; Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; Rothschild Archives and, also by the famed Victorian photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron. (A little known fact is that Cameron spent the last 4 years of life in Ceylon and died there.) In addition to these UK collections, this publication includes early photographs from important local family collections and period publications. The collections are mainly those of influencers and the writing considers images by both studio photographers and hobbyists, for commercial and non-commercial purposes. This seminal publication is for general audiences and specialists. Ganendra's unusual analysis of these collections adds another layer of understanding of the viewing and imaging of Ceylon specifically, importantly also offering another approach to the understanding of colonial images generally. Shalini Amerasinghe Ganendra's impact on cultural development has been defined by nearly three decades of cultural programming including exhibition and scholarship, with notable focus on Sri Lanka. Ganendra is Sri Lankan born and lives in Malaysia. She read law at Cambridge University (1987) and qualified as a Barrister and New York Attorney. She was the first Sri Lankan specialist to be appointed to the Tate Gallery (UK) Acquisitions Committee (SAAC) and has served on numerous judging panels including for the Commonwealth Arts Award and as a nominator for the Sovereign Art Prize and Aga Khan Architecture Awards. She was most recently a Chevening Fellow at Oxford and has held visiting positions at the University of Oxford, including at: the History of Art Department, St. Catherine s College and the Pitt Rivers Museum. She was made a Dame of the Order of St. Gregory the Great (Vatican) in 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/photography

Veins of Influence: Colonial Sri Lanka (Ceylon) in early Photographs and Collections by Shalini Amerasinghe Ganendra (Neptune Publications, 2023) is a pioneering monograph that brings a rich array of early images (specifically of Sri Lanka (Ceylon)) into the global discourse of photography, pairing a striking lens of visual appreciation with distinctly humanizing perspectives. In the context of colonial photography, “veins of influence” delineates the circulatory pathways through which images operate, tracing not only their material production and dissemination, but also the curatorial, creative, cultural, epistemic narratives they generate across time. The over 450 images featured are from the: Royal Collection Trust; Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford; Royal Commonwealth Society, Cambridge University; Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; Rothschild Archives and, also by the famed Victorian photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron. (A little known fact is that Cameron spent the last 4 years of life in Ceylon and died there.) In addition to these UK collections, this publication includes early photographs from important local family collections and period publications. The collections are mainly those of influencers and the writing considers images by both studio photographers and hobbyists, for commercial and non-commercial purposes. This seminal publication is for general audiences and specialists. Ganendra's unusual analysis of these collections adds another layer of understanding of the viewing and imaging of Ceylon specifically, importantly also offering another approach to the understanding of colonial images generally. Shalini Amerasinghe Ganendra's impact on cultural development has been defined by nearly three decades of cultural programming including exhibition and scholarship, with notable focus on Sri Lanka. Ganendra is Sri Lankan born and lives in Malaysia. She read law at Cambridge University (1987) and qualified as a Barrister and New York Attorney. She was the first Sri Lankan specialist to be appointed to the Tate Gallery (UK) Acquisitions Committee (SAAC) and has served on numerous judging panels including for the Commonwealth Arts Award and as a nominator for the Sovereign Art Prize and Aga Khan Architecture Awards. She was most recently a Chevening Fellow at Oxford and has held visiting positions at the University of Oxford, including at: the History of Art Department, St. Catherine s College and the Pitt Rivers Museum. She was made a Dame of the Order of St. Gregory the Great (Vatican) in 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

Artists in conversation with the Pitt Rivers Museum curatorial team at the Century of Sounds launch event in Oxford on 27 February 2026. Featuring: Laura Irving laura dymphna Nick Drake Panel presented by Christopher Morton, Pitt Rivers Museum A Century of Sounds is a partnership between Cities and Memory and the Pitt Rivers Museum, inviting listeners to explore compositions created by 100 artists from a century of incredible recordings from the museum's sound collections.Explore the full Century of Sounds project at https://www.citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

Artists in conversation with the Pitt Rivers Museum curatorial team at the Century of Sounds launch event in Oxford on 27 February 2026. Featuring: Ilaria Boffa Salma Ahmed Caller Neil Spencer Bruce Panel presented by Philip Grover, Pitt Rivers Museum A Century of Sounds is a partnership between Cities and Memory and the Pitt Rivers Museum, inviting listeners to explore compositions created by 100 artists from a century of incredible recordings from the museum's sound collections.Explore the full Century of Sounds project at https://www.citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

A Century of Sounds feature on the Battiti show on Rai Radio 3 in Italy, broadcast on 26 February 2026. Featuring:- Drawn to the circle by Ana Habesh- Mwana wevhu by Ndinibeatz- Kinnaur calling by Sonic SomaPlus discussion of the project and our partnership with the Pitt Rivers Museum. 

Korea: three instrumental pieces of music, featuring the hyang piri (double-reed wind instrument or oboe) and hojok (double-reed wind instrument, also known as taepyeongso), recorded at the Institute for National Classical Music in Seoul.From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being one of a small number of recordings issued or released by foreign broadcasting corporations or radio associations.Recorded by Laurence Rowland and Ernest Picken.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

The Land is Our Mother is based on a collection of field recordings of digeridoos made for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies from the archive of the Pitts River Museum. Information about the recordings is limited but they were originally recorded on reel to reel tape.The recordings are rich and varied, some including song, but I eventually had to choose some of my favourites to build the piece. I was particularly interested in using the rhythms as these are such a key aspect in the power of digeridoo playing.The piece is called the Land is Our Mother in reference to the feelings of Indigenous People towards the land, its evolution and their rights to live in the land. Indigenous People have lived in Australia for at least 60,000 years and have a deep respect and spiritual connection to the land which is often expressed through digeridoo playing.“The land is our mother. Like a human mother, the land gives us protection, enjoyment and provides out needs economic, social and religious.” (Djinyini Gondarra, Aboriginal Elder)Didgeridoo music reimagined by Laura Hills.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

I chose this recording - an orchestral Korean recording from Seoul, 1972 - after initially earmarking another sound, but this one spoke to me with its uplifting, playful and mischievous spirit & felt right. Atmospherically, it evoked a busy market place or a ceremonial dance, putting me in mind of the benevolent chaos of the ‘hungry ghost' concept - more of which later.The instruments featured in the recording are: traditional Korean percussion - probably a Janggu - and two double-reeded wind instruments : the Hojok and the Hyang P'iri, both similar in tone to an oboe and known for their loud and powerful sound. After several listens through, I honed in on particular phrases that I liked - ones I might start building a new sound world around. My approach is to improvise with electronics and various instrumentation, until I generate clusters of "sympathetic" musical ideas that complement the source recording and suggest further layers. I view this as a collaboration - a conversation between me and the recordings.One of the first things I noticed was the challenge of finding accompaniment that felt in tune, because the original recording is not in standard Western tuning - as you would imagine. My years of playing South East Asian Gamelan and love of tuned percussion, would help me to embrace the piece's wonderfully "wonky" quality.The recordings were really inspiring to work with, generating lots of material which needed to be focussed. My initial piece reached an impasse, so I started a second piece which became the piece you will hear - along with some incorporated moments from the first piece. I became concerned that the work was becoming “too much about me” - maybe the recording's were getting lost a bit - so I used the trick of using some film footage of Korean life in the 70s, and importing it into Logic for me to watch whilst composing - a way of keeping me in tune with the original essence of the time, location and character of the recording. I also wanted to incorporate the sound of the Korean language somehow and in the process of developing the piece I'd started to feel like I was "dancing with ghosts": the ones inhabiting the recordings, but also my own recently departed loved ones. So not surprisingly, the piece became an homage to ancestral spirits.It all fell into place when I introduced the Korean phrases "ghost dance" and "dancing with ghosts", and settled on the title "How I learnt to live with ghosts". This seemed a fitting double meaning to me, after deeply engaging with this haunting sound recording, I felt I'd danced and collaborated with a moment in the past, from a different culture and time, always conscious of honouring and respecting the origins of the sound and its social and cultural history. I hope that my sonic storytelling has succeeded in that intention, mixing together the personal and the source material into a compelling listen.Instrumentals featuring the hyang piri and hojok reimagined by Tim Saul.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

The sound that I was allocated for this track was described as a Zande drinking song, from a collection of wax cylinder recordings of Zande songs, dances and spoken language made by social anthropologist Edward Evans-Pritchard in South Sudan between 1928 and 1930. I spent some time thinking about the collection of songs that was taking place across the world from the end of the 19th Century right up to that time, and wondered what kind of 'drinking song' might have been collected right here, where I am in the North York Moors National Park. I listened to lots of source recordings of English drinking songs from the EFDSS Full English digital archive, but I was drawn back to the Mummers play that we perform in Whitby every year, and the character of the Doctor, who has a little bottle in his inside-outside-jacket-pocket. It's a little Nip Nap, and it's most effective if you let it run down your tip tap. It will cure all ills, and do you good. When I was listening to the recording, I was struck by the rhythmic drive of the cylinder, inserting itself into the song, unbidden. That set the tempo, and the composition came into being. Drinking songs are sung the world over. We have more in common that could ever set us apart. For me, the union of cultures through music is a shoot of hope in a world of division. Something to raise a glass to at the very least!Zande drinking song reimagined by Rebecca Denniff.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

 "Didgeridoo music": collection of didgeridoo recordings prepared by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (now the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies), with commentary.From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being one of a number of miscellaneous or individual ethnographic field recordings (rediscovered during a recent research project).Recorded by Alexander Cornelis van der Leeden and John Robert Cleverly.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

This was one of the more difficult pieces I've worked on, although it was enjoyable working through the process. I struggled quite a bit at the beginning, as the field recording has both harmonic & rhythmic structure which varies in tempo quite a bit… so I wasn't sure how to approach this initially.After some thought and a fair bit of trial and error, I decided to pick up my guitar (and play the piano) and simply play along with them without overthinking it too much… so the tempo may be a little rough in places! Guitar and piano simply panned out to left/right, adding some bass/cello towards the end. I tried to match my chords with their harmony and I did feel as if I were joining in with them! I noticed the call and response structure in the field recording, so tried to incorporate this as well at either end of the piece.I wouldn't say it's very genre-specific, but it's more me joining in with them and it's from the heart. Hopefully it conveys the warmth I felt from listening to the field recording - I hope I have done the Bayang justice in my piece.Bayang men's songs reimagined by Jaspal Singh Bhogal.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

This track is based on the recording of Metimbo of the Aka tribe in the Central African Republic playing the Bubulu (Potbowl). I chose this recording because the rhythmic complexity of the playing was so interesting to me. At first, I was thinking of approaching this exciting recording through many pre-planned ways, but it was proven to be unsuccessful. So I decided to return to the recording itself and try to experiment as much as I could with the sound. I let the sound design go as wild as possible, and any musical elements should later follow it. The result is a track that is filled with many variations of the recording, achieved through multiple sound design stages. Every sound that is not a drone, bass, or synth sound is made through the extensive processing of the source material; this means all drums, percussion, textures, and glitch effects came from one origin. The music is wildly different, but I tried to keep the spirit of playfulness in Metimbo's playing intact during the whole track. The title "v4-4" means the fourth revision of the fourth version of this track.Metimbo playing the bubulu (pot bow) reimagined by 8110118.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

Hearing the vocal music of the BaAka for the first time was a powerful, emotional experience for me. This led me to explore some of the other sounds in the Louis Sarno archive, and to his book and film "Song from the Forest", where I learned more about the context and culture behind this music. In arranging and orchestrating my piece, which blends electronica with neocIassical elements, I wanted to reflect elements of nature. I used calabash, seed based shakers, and deeper, shamanic drums to reflect the forest, with its earthy, natural rhythms. In the original field recording I noticed bright flickers of birdsong around the BaAka voices, and I wanted to leave these environmental sounds in the mix. Later in the piece I introduced higher sounds like strings and voices, a call towards the infinite sky beyond the high forest canopy, and I wove some electronic colours and textures, like tape processed synths and arpeggiators, around the whole. Listening to the BaAka recordings, I hear a joyful positive energy resonating in the music, but I also feel a poignant melancholy, perhaps a response to my ongoing learning about the fragility of this unique culture, a way of life that harmonises with nature rather than living in opposition to it. Competing interests in the Congo Basin Rainforest continue to threaten the BaAka, and the destruction of their forest habitat continues. This composition is my reflection on the uniqueness and fragility of this ancient way of life, a way of life that has so much to teach us.Bayaka women singing yeyi in the forest reimagined by Neil Foster.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of wax cylinder recordings of Zande songs, dances and spoken language made by social anthropologist Edward Evans-Pritchard in South Sudan between 1928 and 1930.Recorded by Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel recordings of music and spoken language (principally Thulung Rai) made by anthropologist Nicholas Allen in Nepal and India between 1970 and 1981.Recorded by Nicholas Justin Allen.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a large collection of cassette tape and digital audio tape recordings of Bayaka music and soundscapes made by ethnomusicologist Louis Sarno mainly in the Central African Republic (and the Republic of Congo) between 1986 and 2009.Recorded by Louis Sarno.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of wax cylinder recordings of Zande songs, dances and spoken language made by social anthropologist Edward Evans-Pritchard in South Sudan between 1928 and 1930.Recorded by Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

"Ishi no ghi sholu": an agricultural work song performed by a group of Sümi Naga male singers.From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of wax cylinder recordings of Naga (Angami, Sümi, Lotha, Chang and Sangtam) songs made by administrator and anthropologist John Hutton in India between 1915 and 1919.Recorded by John Henry Hutton.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

When I first heard this recording of men gathered around a guitar, singing fragments of traditional songs and inventing lyrics on the spot, with women and children laughing in the background - it hit me: music isn't just sound, it's connection. It's a reminder of the timeless beauty in coming together, sharing stories, passing down traditions, and creating something meaningful in the moment.Curious about what the singers were saying, I reached out to people from Central Africa, and the response was surprising - those improvised lyrics were built from single words in regional slang. In this kind of music-making, it often starts with one word, then another, and before you know it, a whole verse is born. It's spontaneous, alive, and beautifully organic.For my remix, I used the main melody of the original field recording as the foundation, blending in those improvised words as fillers. I also incorporated the traditional rhythm of Soukous - a guitar-driven genre from Congo, often referred to as Congolese rumba, which mixes Afro-Cuban folkloric influences.Just like our ancestors sang around the fire, united by song, we too continue this tradition today - whether around a campfire or through modern technology, remixing old recordings into something new. Music is more than entertainment; it's a bond, a message, a celebration of community, and a bridge to the past. From kings sending musicians ahead of their armies to show unity, to modern-day communities of music lovers sharing sounds across the globe - we keep passing the sound from generation to generation. And that's what keeps us together.Afternoon beneath a palm shelter reimagined by micca.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

This piece is built around a field recording from the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum of Berber beggars singing for charity.Listening to this recording, across time, what struck me was not difference but familiarity. Themes of begging, homelessness and poverty recur in traditional songs from all cultures, spanning the centuries. Despite differences in place, language and technology, poverty, hunger, social injustice, and the vulnerability that comes with these things, remains constant.Through my organisation in Whitby, Flash Company Arts, I frequently work with people experiencing homelessness and fragile economic circumstances. Hearing this recording, made more than 60 years ago, felt uncomfortably relevant to my daily work. These voices could belong to anyone, anywhere, right now.The lyric “A Begging I Will Go” is borrowed from an ancient English folk song, first printed on a black-letter broadside in 1684. And still today, all over the world, people wake each morning to the same words: A begging I will go.Nothing changes.Beggars singing for charity reimagined by Rebecca Denniff (Subphotic).———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

I selected the recording of a night forest in the Central African Republic without looking at the description, simply because it sounded magical. I usually search the recorded sounds for inspiration to tell stories that are more or less personal, but this time it was different. As I started reading about the origin of the sound, chosen solely for its magical aspect, I found myself lost in the discovery of a real-life hero who devoted his life to the collection, protection and conservation of the sounds and culture of the Bayaka people. I met legendary ethnomusicologist and fantastic human being, Louis Sarno. From that moment, I felt that I could not use the rainforest sound as a simple backdrop for my personal musing, I felt the need to bring back to life the magic of the forest and the love and passion that Louis Sarno devoted to his life's work. The word "magic" that drew me to select this specific recording, kept echoing in my head, so I let the magic guide me, and what could be more magical than an incantation? At that point, it was simply a matter of filling in the elements usually found in an incantation: the desired effect, capturing and preserving the sounds of life; the ingredients, all freely found in the dream of a night forest; the spell, pronounced in the name of Louis Sarno's life work; the special effects, unmissable touches for someone devoted to sounds; and finally the real-live love and poetry of life itself. Likimbi forest camp late at night reimagined by M Cristina Marras.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

"Sapeh (type of three-stringed boat lute) being played": the instrument was recorded in Sarawak by collector Leslie Bennett.From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being one of a small number of recordings of the musical instruments in the institution's collections being played or discussed.Recorded by W. Leslie Bennett.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of Berber (Ait Haddidu) music and soundscapes made by members of the Oxford University Expedition to the Atlas Mountains of Southern Morocco in 1961.Recorded by Audrey Butt, Michael R. Emerson or Ralph Hudson Johnson.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a large collection of cassette tape and digital audio tape recordings of Bayaka music and soundscapes made by ethnomusicologist Louis Sarno mainly in the Central African Republic (and the Republic of Congo) between 1986 and 2009.Recorded by Louis Sarno.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

I listened to the piece and researched any historical links between Plymouth, my home town and Sarawak, were the original recording by Leslie Bennet was made. It turns out there were three white "Rajahs" of Sarawak and they were members of the Brooke dynasty: James Brooke, who founded the rule in 1841; his nephew Charles Brooke, who succeeded him; and Charles' son, Charles Vyner Brooke. Although not from Plymouth, all three of the “Rajahs of Sarawak” are buried in the small churchyard of St Leonard's at Sheepstor on Dartmoor, just outside of Plymouth. James Brooke did at one time set sail from Plymouth in 1838, arriving at Sarawak the following year.The name for Sarawak means the land of the hornbill. This piece is an ode to this journey. I listened to the recording of the Sapeh and learnt the rough pentatonic scale used. I isolated a few segments and tried them on guitar to get the ideas flowing. The recording of the Sapeh is sampled and utilise throughout the piece. At times I have used it to double the bass line or to give a new melody line or rhythm.The main “nautical” melody is built upon a four bar segment of the original recording. The clicks and resonance of the instrument are also used to give some ambience and texture. I have used acoustic guitars, hand drums, mandolin, electric guitars, sequenced midi instruments and drums using GarageBand. I also used open source recordings of seagulls in Plymouth and Hornbills in Sarawak.Sapeh (three-stringed boat lute) reimagined by Daniel Chudley - Le Corre.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

The recording I worked with was pure beauty. A simple, pure sound of a conch shell being played - according to my further research, these conches can be hand-stopped to produce different notes and tones, and when played on the reefs in Vanuatu, can “make the whole reef resonate in sympathy”.Conch shells are also used ceremonially, for instance, to celebrate and denote the quality of boars that are killed for meals as part of a ceremony called Maki. A sound of beauty, then, but also of ceremonial significance - a treasure. At the same time, the sound reminded me irrevocably of a piece called “Conch Calling” from one of the ambient albums that's had the greatest influence on how I think about music, Underground Overlays from the Cistern Chapel by Stuart Dempster. On this album, trombonist Dempster takes a troupe of musicians into a two-million gallon underground cistern, with a naturally cavernous reverb that turns the simplest melodic patterns into some of the deepest, most beautiful drones you've ever heard. I wanted to respect - and highlight - the naked beauty of the pure sound from the original recording, and at the same time to imagine a duet across time and space, between conch shells from Vanuatu, and 21st-century synthesisers. Ancestral drone music, paired with today's ambient music. This piece is built, respectfully, around a repeated 12-second loop of the conch shell, which remains throughout, while synthesisers and arpeggios paint the air around it. This is a duet for conch shell and two synthesisers. Writing it, I was held in a moment forever, and I hope it brings a moment of stillness and contemplation for the listener too.Natar (song) on conch and musket reimagined by Cities and Memory.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

This project is inspired by a 1958 field recording of a Bamum girl singing a religious song in Fumban, West Region, Cameroon, recorded by Lois Mitchson on a ¾-inch reel tape. The archival voice forms the emotional and conceptual core of the project. The recording of the young girl singing praises about the Sultan Njoya who was part of the monarchy which dates back to the fourteenth century, is sampled and fused with layered percussion, reflecting the rhythmic richness of traditional African music, where percussion functions as both structure and communal expression. The title “Mwana Wevhu”, meaning “Child of the Soil” in Shona, draws from my Zimbabwean heritage and speaks to ancestry, land, and spirituality. Musically rooted in 3-step house, a South African subgenre of electronic music, the project blends Central African archival sound and culture, Southern African rhythm, and Zimbabwean language and identity. This intentional cross-regional fusion symbolises the idea that Africa is one, diverse in culture yet deeply interconnected. “Mwana Wevhu” bridges past and present, tradition and innovation, using music as a unifying force.Bamum girl singing religious song reimagined by NdiniBeatz.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

Natar (song) with Markany Lei on conch and Wani on musket.From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a large collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of music and soundscapes made by ethnomusicologist Raymond Clausen mainly on the island of Malekula (Malampa Province) in Vanuatu between 1960 and 1979.Recorded by Raymond Ernst Clausen.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of songs and musical instruments made by journalist Lois Mitchison in Cameroon during 1958.Recorded by Sonja Lois Mitchison.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

Drawn to the Circle began with a field recording of a boar tusk horn calling people into a full circle. The sound comes from Malekula Island in Vanuatu, performed by Melteg Ike and Mal Maru of the Big Nambas cultural group, and recorded by Raymond Clausen in 1962. When I first heard it, I was struck by how two players became one sound. It felt less like music and more like an invitation — a call to gather.The idea of the circle stayed with me. A circle has no front or back, and no one stands above another. Across cultures, people meet in circles to listen, to share, and to mark time together. In this recording, the call draws people inward, toward community. I spent time researching the Big Nambas people and the island of Malekula, using archival material from the Pitt Rivers Museum. Looking at landscapes and objects helped me imagine the life around the sound. The piece came together quickly after that, shaped by thoughts about what connects us as humans. I found myself wondering how a call rooted in one community could arrive here with me in Athens, and how it might speak to my own sense of belonging.When composing, I treated the field recording as something living. The cello and voices follow its texture and tone, moving with it rather than leading it. My partner and baby daughter participated in the process and helped me record some of the percussion. Their presence became part of the piece, making the act of recording feel communal — less like producing a track, and more like standing in a circle together and responding to the call.Working with this recording has been a privilege. It has reminded me how deeply human the act of gathering is, and how sound can carry that impulse across place, time, and generation."Merer Pake": nDavu trumpet signal reimagined by Ana Habesh.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

“The Hills Remember” is a concept piece on the “domination paradigm” — a cultural logic shared across systems of oppression. The work explores the intersections of religious nationalism, religious violence and colonisation, authoritarianism, capitalism, misogyny, domestic and child abuse, gender- and sexuality-based violence, racial oppression, and rape culture — systems all linked by hierarchies of power justified through ideological and cultural narratives that normalise inequality and violence as methods of destabilisation and control.Initially inspired by a field recording from circa 1916–1919 of the Angami Naga singing their love song “Lozoruu, Hoiyi Ollie", the project took on a life of its own when artist Savannah Rae (Fawn Response) sat with the recording while researching the tribe and its historical context. After listening deeply to the emotion in the performance and reflecting on the lyrics — “though the villages are separated the herds graze together, upon the ridge there is a great stone to sit upon” — within the context of the religious colonization the Angami endured, Savannah was moved to research both the culture of the Angami people and the role religious colonization played in subverting it.Through this research, she discovered an unlikely through-line linking one of the religious crusaders responsible for the Christian indoctrination of the Angami Naga to the religious-based trauma she experienced as a child at the hands of radical televangelists. With a background as a therapeutic educator and trauma and behavioural specialist, Savannah broadened her inquiry to better understand the overlapping psychosocial mechanisms driving religious colonisation and extremism, religious nationalism, child abuse, sexual abuse, and exploitation.As the research deepened, and in recognising the scope required to create a piece that could meaningfully hold this material, Savannah enlisted the support of longtime friends and musical collaborators Oliver Ignatius (musician, producer, engineer, and owner of Holy Fang Studios), and Brian Ducey (musician and assistant engineer at Holy Fang Studios). Additional support included original works and samples related to the concept from friend and writer, comedian, and musician Joe DeRosa, as well as friends and musical collaborators Mitch Wells (Thou, Big Garden), Craig Oubre (High, Big Garden), drummer Tyler Coburn (Thou, Bursting), and contributions from her sister Jess and niece Willow.The composition includes multiple historical audio samples of sermons related to religious colonisation and nationalism, including those specific to the Angami; samples of Angami songs and dances; research compiled and read by Savannah — sped up in places to bypass the conscious mind; scripture and first-person religious colonisation accounts processed through AI voices; prayers; references to Angami folklore; field recordings of native birds; original songs and excerpts inspired by the emotional resonance of the work; original poetry; a channeled hymnal; and a question posed by a seven-year-old child in modernity, already questioning those who use religion to justify atrocity.Juxtaposing elements of noise with sound healing and music therapy, the piece sonically mirrors emotional modulation —seeking to hold the weight of deeply disturbing truths without becoming stuck in that heaviness, and instead modeling how to feel it and allow it to move through us as a path toward empowered expression. It is a channeled and researched effort to unpack and honour the context of something as hyper-specific as the historical field recording of the Angami, into a space that is universally resonant and urgently applicable today.An extended cut will follow and will be pressed to vinyl. In the meantime, and in all times, please remember gentleness; please remember peace."Lozorüü" - Angami Naga love song reimagined by Fawn Response———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

A talea is both faithful and transformed. It remains genetically identical to the source, yet grows into something new through a different environment. It is not preservation or betrayal. It is organic continuation, the way traditional music has always moved through time and space.Our composition embodies the talea principle by maintaining an unbroken genetic thread to the source field recording while allowing that material to flourish in an entirely new sonic environment. The original recording serves not as a piece to be preserved intact, but as living genetic material — its essential characteristics, its rhythmic DNA, remain present throughout our transformation. Yet just as a talea cutting develops new leaves, new branches, new forms of expression when planted in different soil, our work has reimagined these elements through a compositional language that could not have existed in the original context.The melodic contours, harmonic implications, or rhythmic gestures embedded in the field recording have been interiorised and then allowed to grow according to new rules — different timbral choices, altered temporal frameworks, reimagined spatial relationships. What makes this approach powerful is that the connection remains audible and traceable; listeners can sense the rootedness even as they encounter something unmistakably fresh and contemporary.This method honours how musical traditions have always evolved — not through static repetition, but through the kind of generative transmission that the talea metaphor captures so precisely. Our composition demonstrates that fidelity to source material and creative innovation are not opposing forces but complementary aspects of the same organic process. The original recording lives on, not as a frozen artifact, but as active creative DNA that continues to generate new musical possibilities through our intervention.After listening both individually and collectively to the original field recording, and consulting the accompanying material, we recorded multiple improvisations in an eight-hour studio session, then chose our favourite take.Musicians:Francesco Ganassin: clarinet, electronics, dziga loop (custom made electronic instrument)Enrico Milani: cello, objectsSergio Marchesini: piano, electronicsAndrea Ruggeri: percussion, electronicsGianluca Segato: lap steel guitar, electronicsAlberto Zuanon: double bassGeedal in the forest with male voices reimagined by Sonic Investigation Unit.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

I saw this recording before I heard it. At the Pitt Rivers Museum at the start of the project. The physical object: an original Edison wax phonograph cylinder from 1914. I was struck by how modern it seemed in some ways; the corporate branding on the label. I imagined it being purchased from a shop. Then I saw it was a recording made in Nagaland and I thought of my friend, Temsu, an artist from Nagaland. I thought of Nagaland: such a fascinating place, so rich in tradition and culture; megaliths, hills and jungle. Then I heard the recording, the voices singing rhythmically, a work song designed to make the hours pass and how the hours have passed – into years, decades, a century. I wondered about those people and how little I will ever know of their lives. And the voice that introduces the recording too, an anthropologist now just as lost to time as the singing Nagas, his world on the brink of being consumed by an industrial warfare that within a generation would reach Nagaland too in one of the biggest, most significant battles of the second war, now largely forgotten here. I thought of Vaughn-Williams and of Butterworth (he himself lost in that first war), I thought of their reinvention of folk music at that time and all of the periodic rediscoveries of folk music since. This led me to a work song melody with its purpose lost, morphed into a hypnotic repetition. The richness of individual lives melted down and boiled by time; all of it forever lost, only dust and ghosts scratched into wax. "Ishi no ghi sholu": agricultural work song reimagined by Jon Griffin.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a large collection of cassette tape and digital audio tape recordings of Bayaka music and soundscapes made by ethnomusicologist Louis Sarno mainly in the Central African Republic (and the Republic of Congo) between 1986 and 2009.Recorded by Louis Sarno.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

Researching this sound and the U'wa people gave me an opportunity to scratch the surface of their deeply complex seasonal customs, involving dance, storytelling and performance. Ann Osborn (the sound recordist) documents this in her study "The Four Seasons of the U'wa: A Chibcha Ritual Ecology in the Colombian Andes".What I learned inspired me to tell a new story. In this piece you hear about Ray Collective, a dance group who couldn't be more culturally, temporally or geographically removed from the U'wa, but for whom performative seasonal ritual is the connective tissue. Looking back on it, I can see how this piece subconsciously reflected my wrangling with the ethics of this project and concerns I had around cultural appropriation. It's interesting that even in Ray Collective, where members are drawing from and reworking a shared UK-based cultural/folk heritage, similar themes about what constitutes respectful reinterpretation and what is fair to use or repurpose came up a lot. It got me thinking about themes like rightfulness, ownership, permission and agency - and more specifically, how female and non-binary people relate to these within the context of a British cultural heritage that has for the most part, precluded their meaningful involvement. This may sound heady in retrospect, but ultimately, I set out to make peace that was fun, and in which the listener would get a sense of the real and present joy experienced within Ray Collective. I can see why it might feel problematic that I'm in any way drawing a line between the complex mythos of the U'wa culture and a group of women mucking about in Bournemouth, but my intent was purely to focus on commonality - the need to gather, dance and create rituals in harmony with the rhythm of the seasons. All of the instruments/sounds you are hearing in this piece have been created by sampling recordings from Ray collective sessions (usually people singing the word Sun) and mixing them with the U'wa sound (which from my research, I believe is a conch shell signalling the beginning of a ritual performance). I've never used this sampling technique, nor really made bits of bed music for a piece before, and it was a really tough but rewarding process. The voice you hear speaking is Lizzie Maries, founder of Ray collective. I cut so much nuanced and insightful discussion from our interview and hope she'll forgive me. I should also credit both Lorna Rees who composed the 'Singing for Sun' refrain that crops up a lot, and Billy Nomates, Ray Collective's composer- you hear a rough sample of her song at the close of this piece. And of course, all the wonderful Rays for humouring me and my recorder. U'wa drones reimagined by Laura Irving.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

Geedal (bow harp) played in the forest with male voices accompanying.From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a large collection of cassette tape and digital audio tape recordings of Bayaka music and soundscapes made by ethnomusicologist Louis Sarno mainly in the Central African Republic (and the Republic of Congo) between 1986 and 2009.Recorded by Louis Sarno.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

Spoken word recording of Mekana discussing a case of adultery.From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of wax cylinder recordings of Zande songs, dances and spoken language made by social anthropologist Edward Evans-Pritchard in South Sudan between 1928 and 1930.Recorded by Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

"Merer Pake": an nDavu trumpet signal for a full circle tusked boar.From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a large collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of music and soundscapes made by ethnomusicologist Raymond Clausen mainly on the island of Malekula (Malampa Province) in Vanuatu between 1960 and 1979.Recorded by Raymond Ernst Clausen.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

The song "Narel" made me think about the power of separate and unique voices working together. The name Narel in Hebrew also mean "singing". I was inspired to use the field recording to make new voices that I could remix in different ways and recombine to form a new whole. In my version of "Narel", the field recording is manipulated in various ways to create different instruments - choirs, guitars, strings - upon which a new composition is built.Narel (song) reimagined by Kid Kin.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

Narel (song) performed by Peter, Sali and Mal Sekini.From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a large collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of music and soundscapes made by ethnomusicologist Raymond Clausen mainly on the island of Malekula (Malampa Province) in Vanuatu between 1960 and 1979.Recorded by Raymond Ernst Clausen.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

"You say you no want 'im married long me" (song performed by men, women and children).From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a large collection of reel-to-reel tape recordings of music and soundscapes made by ethnomusicologist Raymond Clausen mainly on the island of Malekula (Malampa Province) in Vanuatu between 1960 and 1979.Recorded by Raymond Ernst Clausen.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

From the sound collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, being from a collection of cassette tape recordings of songs and instruments made by playwright David Mowat across several different states in India during 1987.Recorded by David Mowat.Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

The field recording that I worked with was a wax cylinder recording of a Zande funeral song. One of the things that really struck me when I first listened to it was how this funeral song is buried beneath the imperfections of its recording medium – you just hear this single impassioned, grieving voice breaking out through layers of noise and obfuscation. I thought there was something strangely poignant about hearing this almost century-old funeral song, originally intended to memorialise a lost loved one, itself having become an imperfect and dwindling memory.Following on from hearing the recording in this way, I wrote the song 'Int. Exteriors (Day)', which aims to convey how it feels to find yourself momentarily severed from the material present moment. How it feels, for example, to be internally going through intense emotions but not feeling able to express them out in an everyday public space.In terms of how the field recording itself is incorporated in 'Int. Exteriors (Day)'; the recording emerges throughout the song in a few different ways – it is run through a vocoder, adding a ghostly layer of harmony to the synthesiser and guitars that drive the music; and later on, samples of the emotive song bleed out in the composition alongside the crackles and hiss and artefacts of the original recording medium.Zande funeral song for a woman reimagined by Mute Branches.———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds

This has been the most difficult piece I have ever written for Cities and Memory. What could I add to a recording made by Patti Langton of a young Moru man - Timon Beri? The recording was of Timon singing and playing a lamellophone. Whatever I ever I did, it felt like cheap exploitation. The recording was beautiful, authentic and real.In my research I came across a paper by Patti Langton called Personal Reflections on Fieldwork: A Moral Dilemma and it resonated and hit hard with how I was feeling about what I was creating with this field recording. In the end, with the deadline fast approaching I separated Timon's voice from the lamellophone and decided to use his voice as a sort of tribute to him, even though it was heavily processed. As I was scouring for further inspiration, I found a vocal sample which says "we dance, we dream, we love" and this became the title of the track as well as being the light in the piece. Up to then it had been a brooding dark piece of dark electronica which I felt represented not only my frustration but also the backdrop of war and famine which was and still is so prevalent in Sudan. After all, what can a piece of music be against the backdrop of so much human tragedy, but I felt the lyric spoke of the human experience that everybody, from whatever culture, race or creed can identify with. We all dance, we dream, we love.Sanza (lamellophone) music reimagined by Rob Knight. ———Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds