This summer, I’ve spent more time in cities than I would have preferred - London, Leeds, Brighton, Dublin, Norwich; even a small fishing town such as Hastings is getting a bit too hustle and bustle for my tastes these days.

I know some find city life revolutionary and energising, a vibrant, vast melting pot of opportunities, that is, if you manage first to scratch past the top crust of constant noise, crowds, pollution, and cost without being completely overwhelmed. Safe to say, cities are not my jam.

So why on earth then am I recommending ‘City Life’ (1995) by Steve Reich as this week’s Sunday Listen, an orchestral suite combining live instruments with sampled sounds, that uses the cacophony of the metropolis as its raw material?

Principally, I just like it, that should be reason enough. But also, I’ve found it a strangely soothing companion in recent weeks as I’ve fought my way through the battlefield of major transport hubs with my trusty noise-cancelling headphones and a stare only a mother could love.

‘City Life’ takes no time to attune itself to the rhythms and pulsating urban energies of the city. From the first movement, there’s a sense of ceaseless machinery and physical exertion in motion created both by Reich’s signature interlocking rhythms (typical of his style) and by the sampled machinery and voices of the city itself, translating perfectly into the feel of traffic flow, pedestrian movement, and the sheer momentum of urban existence. The use of percussive elements, from resonant wood blocks mimicking door slams to the sharp crack of sampled car horns, adds layers of sonic realism; it's certainly a piece that demands your attention, whether you like it or not.

What elevates this above mere colourful musical cosplay, however, is how Reich then takes this gibbering, fragmented soundscape and gradually forces us to listen differently, to find the hidden musicality and humanity within the seemingly chaotic. I particularly like how Reich uses recorded speech throughout – voices from New York City streets, snippets of interviews, a radio report – extracting the melody of those phrases and weaving them into the very fabric of the composition. The sampled fragments are pitched, stretched, and repeated in rhythmic counterpoint with the live ensemble, so that a recorded utterance of “check it out!” becomes a musical motif as integral as any melody played by the clarinet.

The sampled voices are not abstract here; they carry specific inflections, emotions, and a direct connection to the human experience of the city. The city, Reich suggests, is not only a place of overwhelming noise, but also of fragile moments of connection with the lives of others. By taking these fleeting, often unheard moments and placing them center stage, the music becomes the human voice, embodying its nuances, blurring the line between the impersonal urban backdrop and the intensely personal human drama unfolding within it.

Even decades later, the sounds, anxieties, energy and pace captured in 'City Life' remain acutely relevant to life in any major city around the globe. It somehow remains perpetually in focus, because at its core, it speaks to an enduring human experience – the frustration, melancholy, and awe that we all often feel with contemporary urban life. If we were just to train our ears a little truer, to hear past the initial clatter, we might yet discover underneath the din a communal rhythm of existence, the sound of a shared space, where our many disparate lives all momentarily converge.

Enjoy your Sundays!

Will