London is in many ways a divisive city. On the surface, this may seem a curious statement: it’s a place: what can possibly be divisive about it? But it’s more than mere geography: London has a culture and an attitude: it’s a place that’s aspirational, but also a place that rejects those outside. The north-south divide is really the divide between London and everywhere north of the Watford Gap. It’s a city of extremes, not least of all extreme wealth and extreme poverty. Its long history is etched in dingy sidestreets, but these are the very places being redeveloped, gentrified, not for the benefit of inhabitants of several generations standing, but big business and big money. Every contradiction of the modern epoch is encapsulated and amplified in this sprawling metropolis.
‘A City Remembrancer’ is a work inspired by the shifting histories of London’s physical spaces, and purports to be ‘a beautifully detailed piece of sound and a nuanced, politicised eulogy to the city and its inhabitants’.
The press release goes on to explain that ‘field recordings and vocal samples paint a rich portrait of London as a gigantic palimpsest, constantly being rewritten or renewed; from the postwar utopianism of Brutalist architects, and the plight of residents now being evicted from those same monolithic estates, to ancient burial grounds dislodged by new Crossrail tunnels, or secrets being recovered from the mud of the Thames’.
As such, ‘A City Remembrancer’ exists as an exploration of those contradictions, the way the city prides itself on its history while simultaneously erasing it in the name of progress. The soundscapes it presents across its 12 tracks are layered, textured and eternally shifting. There’s a tension that permeates, too, from the urgent, swelling rhythms of ‘Tamesis’ which introduces the album.
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Big, woozy basslines and crashing beats don’t necessarily reflect the commonplace experience of London, so much as the London scene of a certain generation. It frequently feels as though we’re being escorted through the London club scene of the last 20 years, rather than is streets and social environs. Perhaps that’s partly the idea, the range of beats behind the sounds of crowds and interview snippets providing a backdrop or soundtrack that’s relevant on a more personal level. but for an outsider, it simply doesn’t work – or moreover, it doesn’t resonate: the narrative impetus and the wider atmosphere is lost in a jungle of (urban) jungle, a miasma of gloopy bass and busy rhythms.
The samples and segments of interviews are strangely unmoving, even when talk is of regeneration and the seismic changes which have seen the city change so dramatically over the course of but a couple of generations. It somehow feels forced, artificial, impersonal, more of a stilted hipster documentary with choonz rather than a passionate, personal and engaging exploration of a city in flux. Done only slightly differently, it could have had so much more impact, and while sonically and conceptually interesting, ‘A City Remembrancer’ feels like a sadly wasted opportunity.
Shape Worship Online
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