I wanted to walk through the beat
Apr 13, 2020, 06:01 PM
North Korean subway train reimagined by Cities and Memory.
"My first thought - wow, a sound from North Korea, one of the countries we were most keen to get listed on the Cities and Memory sound map.
"My second thought - this might only be a thirty-second clip, but it's absolutely rich with intrigue and fascination for me, with what seems to be governmental propaganda music being piped out through the speakers on a subway train. Is this the case every day on every train? Where else might we hear propaganda music and songs during everyday life in Pyongyang?
"In manipulating sections of the same, some promising source material came to light - the initial opening sound makes for a great, bombastic swell, the closing of the doors is an obvious percussion loop. But when I listened to part of the propaganda song while playing a G chord underneath it on various synths, the words seemed to me to form the English phrase "I wanted to walk through the beat", with a rhythm reminiscent of an early 90s house track. This became the central sample around which this recomposition from North Korea was based."
"My first thought - wow, a sound from North Korea, one of the countries we were most keen to get listed on the Cities and Memory sound map.
"My second thought - this might only be a thirty-second clip, but it's absolutely rich with intrigue and fascination for me, with what seems to be governmental propaganda music being piped out through the speakers on a subway train. Is this the case every day on every train? Where else might we hear propaganda music and songs during everyday life in Pyongyang?
"In manipulating sections of the same, some promising source material came to light - the initial opening sound makes for a great, bombastic swell, the closing of the doors is an obvious percussion loop. But when I listened to part of the propaganda song while playing a G chord underneath it on various synths, the words seemed to me to form the English phrase "I wanted to walk through the beat", with a rhythm reminiscent of an early 90s house track. This became the central sample around which this recomposition from North Korea was based."