A brief walk around the roundabout on Good Friday
I took this recording on 29 March 2024, Good Friday, Holy Week when is God is dead. I walked around the roundabout of Pio del Pilar barangay hall, which is close to where I currently live. Barangay is the smallest local government unit in the Philippines and came from the pre-colonial word balangay which were traditional boats in the Philippines. When I was growing up in a small town, a former ...
2m Jul 17, 2024
2m
The souq
"The city of Bethlehem is situated atop a hill at the edge of the Judaean desert, creating a unique blend of cultures. Bedouin from the desert interact with pilgrims in its town market and navigate its narrow, ancient streets. "This recording captures the ambiance of the "souq", the traditional marketplace located in the city's Old Core. The Souq is a confluence of vernacular units where farme...
3m Jul 17, 2024
3m
Bethlehem
"Bethlehem is situated on the West Bank, a part of Palestine; however, Israel has retained control of entrances and exits. During periods of Israeli-Palestinian conflict, such as the current situation, the city has witnessed numerous confrontations. "Due to Christian emigration, Bethlehem now has a Muslim majority, and the atmosphere feels tense. Israel's construction of the separation wall ha...
2m Jul 17, 2024
2m
Bethlehem alleys
"In the historic district of Bethlehem, visitors can easily immerse themselves in the maze of narrow alleys. Charming tiny houses and shops adorned with Arab-patterned carpets create a picturesque scene, complemented by colorful doors. The delightful soundscape of this area was captured around Manara Square. "Just beyond the bustling central Manger Square, a congregation of stands awaits, wher...
3m Jul 17, 2024
3m
Kitchen timer
My mother and I converse about anything and everything while preparing a meal. It is the ordinary moments like these that I cherish the most in my memories of my mother, who lives in what I like to call a distant 'island in an island'. This recording was made in the summer of 2023, during my visit to Aotearoa, my second homeland, after ten years of living abroad. Our native language mixes with...
10m Jul 17, 2024
10m
A journey through a wall
"This recording captures my journey from Palestine back to Israel on an empty bus, which took about two hours or more and involved passing through a few checkpoints along the way. "Life under Israeli control is notably felt in Bethlehem, where an 8-meter-tall concrete separation barrier was constructed by Israel in 2002. The stated purpose was to prevent suicide bombings and attacks, but it is...
2m Jul 17, 2024
2m
To market to market
"I am again and again drawn to markets. I regularly seek them out in both new, and familiar places. They are at the same time, unique to a particular place, time, climate and season, but there's always something familiar about them too, carried across one to another. The way people behave, the look of the stalls, the movement, the crowds, the products, the atmosphere. The freeforming flow of bo...
3m Jul 17, 2024
3m
Morphing echoes
"My work, 'Morphing Echoes,' is a field recording project that captures the sounds of Moroccan soundscape and conversation. I took an approach that incorporates various languages and dialects encountered during migration into the composition. As people become accustomed to their new environment, the initially unintelligible languages and cultures become understandable. "This process is reflect...
3m Jul 17, 2024
3m
Migrant dub
"I embarked on the Migration Sounds journey with the intention of working solely with field recordings. Yet, when I stumbled upon this recording of two Moroccan musicians in the medina of Marrakech, playing the guembri and singing, I was captivated. "The simplicity of the bass line, the repetitive vocals, and the background chatter punctuated by bursts of clapping and laughter all contributed ...
4m Jul 17, 2024
4m
De Unde
"As we journey through new lands, we seek self-discovery or a place to call home. Whether driven by safety or change, we connect with new worlds, bringing pieces of home to unfamiliar places and returning with new experiences. We build on what we know and explore what we encounter, exchanging views on life, customs, trends, language, and recipes. Even on the shortest journey, we create bonds th...
4m Jul 17, 2024
4m
Between fear and hope
"To create this small sound piece I only used a sample from the original recording, a moment from the bus journey that is part of the narrative of the original recording and which seemed to have an interesting sound dynamic. From that sample, I changed the recording tempo and added electronics, from the Touch Me device, using plants, as well as ambient electric guitar. "Were those migrants on ...
2m Jul 17, 2024
2m
Afrikaandermarkt
The Afrikaandermarkt is a market place in the south of Rotterdam. Traditionally a working class area, this neighbourhood, over the last five decades has become a gathering place of cultures from all over the world, and this is reflected in the visitors as well as the sellers and their products of this weekly market in the central square, Afrikaanderplein. This is one of a series of recordings ...
3m Jul 17, 2024
3m
Rabat market
Situated at the heart of Rabat the capital of Morocco, this recording captures the sounds of a lively market. What is unique about this market is that the sub-Saharan migrants have managed to set up small businesses side to side with the local Moroccan businesses. The market reflects a real sense of conviviality and closeness that is rarely seen in other parts of the country. The recording cap...
5m Jul 17, 2024
5m
Musicians in a hostel
This recording comes from a hostel in the medina of Marrakech. It records two Moroccan musicians, playing a guembri (a three-stringed instrument similar to a bass), drums and singing. Guests are clapping and singing along and we can hear talking and laughter. It conveys feelings of hospitality and the joy of a gathering. The music has repetitive, soothing and entrancing qualities. The hosts of...
4m Jul 17, 2024
4m
What news from the village?
Home... what makes us feel a certain way, when we are on the go, exploring new lands to find ourselves, or finding a place we can call ours? Whether we look for safety or change, we are adept at connecting to these worlds. We tend to bring a little bit of ourselves and our home to new places. We carry new experiences back home. We build on the things we know and examine the things we encounte...
1m Jul 17, 2024
1m
Ruti(era) (bus ride to the Roma Hill)
Home... what makes us feel a certain way, when we are on the go, exploring new lands to find ourselves, or finding a place we can call ours? Whether we look for safety or change, we are adept at connecting to these worlds. We tend to bring a little bit of ourselves and our home to new places. We carry new experiences back home. We build on the things we know and examine the things we encounte...
2m Jul 17, 2024
2m
Monarchs
"I often wondered if I was a migrant, until the day I recorded these monarch butterflies in Mexico in March 2015 for an art project. I was surrounded by thousands of monarchs, known for their long annual migration between Mexico and the United States, and at the same time, I was mourning my grandmother, who had passed away in France, back “home”. "I knew I would miss the ceremony and the famil...
6m Jul 16, 2024
6m
Gendered street demonstrations
"We can hear sounds of the March 8 women's day demonstration in Mexico City in which Mexican and migrant women and gender diverse people raised their voices against gendered violence and to foster solidarity and equity. The recording relates to the theme of migration as some of the participants are migrants who face multiple forms of violence across Mexico. "I joined the demonstration together...
1m Jul 16, 2024
1m
Interview with a Syrian rescue worker
"This is a casual interview recorded with Astoun, a rescue worker with SOS Méditerranée, on board the charity ship the Ocean Viking. "Originally from Syria, Astoun travelled irregularly to Europe in the wake of the Syrian civil war, and after some time in Europe decided he wanted to use his maritime background to assist others in similar situations. "Astoun spoke about his motivation to help ...
10m Jul 16, 2024
10m
Ocean Viking sea rescue
"This is the sound of three teams on rigid-hull inflatable boats rescuing around 130 people from an overloaded rubber boat in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, around 2 in the morning on the 27th of December, 2022. "The rescuees, almost all of whom were from West Africa, were attempting to reach Europe from Libya - where they had suffered extensive abuse. Among them were many children, and ...
6m Jul 16, 2024
6m
Children on board the Ocean Viking
"This is a collage of the sound of children between the ages of 3 and 9, speaking in various West African dialects, playing with my radio equipment onboard the charity rescue ship the Ocean Viking on the 28th of December 2022. "The day before, the children along with their guardians had been rescued from a dangerously overcrowded boat in the waters hundreds of kilometres north of Libya. The ch...
1m Jul 16, 2024
1m
Monarch butterflies' moonlight symphony
"I fell in love with the sound of the monarch butterflies – their beating wings – the delicacy and the strength - the very particular frequencies they sound at, the way in which the remarkable field recording allows us to hear individual beating wings, and the potential to both highlight this and to also create a layering thrum. "I read about the monarchs’ extraordinary migratory journey to ‘r...
7m Jul 16, 2024
7m
Forgotten motion
"The voices of the children in this really spoke to me. Migration can be very challenging but can also be exciting and adventurous. I wanted to convey that by using some melancholic feeling sounds but also in adding the voices of the children and optimistic sounds and patterns." Ocean Viking children recording reimagined by Firephly. Part of the Migration Sounds project, the world’s first col...
5m Jul 16, 2024
5m
Tidett
"How to intensify the chaos, courage, hope, broken life stories, action, deep sorrow, and erratic joy contained in the original soundscape? I decided not to intervene temporally. What you hear is what happened in real-time. There are modulations of rhythm and frequency, which give way to a line of three violins and a cello, a piano, and synthesized basses that seek depth and edge. "Working on ...
6m Jul 16, 2024
6m
Astoun
"Astoun’s words are a beautiful, moving, and human story of a remarkable life and sense of purpose. It is a story of direct lived experience. While Astoun speaks gently - what he talks about, about his ‘case’ to help others, is both powerful and the essence of the human spirit of giving. "For the piece we removed most of the interviewer’s questions to elevate Astoun’s voice. We retained the la...
17m Jul 16, 2024
17m
Tear/tear
"Tear/tear is a piece inspired by all the women from the global South who have migrated to the global North, and by the work of the recording’s author, Abril Rios Rivera. As I learned about Abril and her research on migrant women, I started reflecting on my own journey migrating from Colombia to the UK. Her research focuses on understanding what drives women to turn their migration hardships in...
3m Jul 16, 2024
3m
Threads across the sea
"This piece is a collaboration between composer Sarah Jenkins, sound artist Noah Lawson and poet Shukria Rezaei, and was created for the Odyssey Ensemble. The foundation for the piece is the recording provided by the Cities and Migration Sounds project, in which is heard the celebration of a group of West African migrants who had recently been rescued from an overcrowded dinghy. "The jubilatio...
5m Jul 15, 2024
5m
Mindful of Malta
"Both of my parents were from Malta. As I child growing up in Brixton in the 1980s, there was a very small Maltese community. I would go to Maltese mass with my parents. There was never an organ being played for people to sing along too, but everyone used to sing in Maltese. My parents migrated to the UK after World War Two as there was no work. I have always felt like an outsider, growing up i...
5m Jul 15, 2024
5m
Leaving Libya
Three Kenyan women are returning home from Libya through an IOM repatriation scheme. They were forced to abandon their larger suitcases when checking-in, and were attempting to repack their belongings into their carry-ons and an IOM-issued tote bag in the departures lounge. Migrants from other countries were also being repatriated on the same flight and conversed with one another in the seats ...
1m Jul 15, 2024
1m
Ocean Viking celebrations
This is the sound of asylum seekers, mostly from West Africa, onboard the rescue ship the Ocean Viking in the Mediterranean, on the evening of the 27th of December 2022. Very early that morning, they had been rescued from a perilously overcrowded rubber boat in the middle of the sea, hundreds of kilometres from land and without life jackets or navigational equipment, with very little food and ...
1m Jul 15, 2024
1m
Managing urban transit in a city of migration
What does urban sprawl sound like in a traffic-choked city? This recording is of a street intersection in a residential part of Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. The whistle is from a policeman who has been instructed to stand amidst the traffic so as to over-ride the traffic lights, because the traffic lights can't deal with the volume of urban traffic. Bishkek is typical of many cities, in experiencing b...
3m Jul 15, 2024
3m
Midday mass
This is recording of a midday, midweek mass attended by a few elderly women in the cathedral in Victoria, Gozo, and is a sound that is deeply embedded in my memory of place and immediately connects me to the experience of growing up in Malta. I am not religious but lived with my Maltese family and went to church as everyone did, saint or sinner! It is a short sound clip but for me describes pl...
3m Jul 15, 2024
3m
Après l'heure d'or
"The harrowing journey of these migrants is incredibly powerful and emotional. The field recording is their celebration after being rescued at sea by the Ocean Viking. My musical contribution hopefully speaks to this moment. It's a moment of relief, joy, community, and compassion." Ocean Viking celebration reimagined by Eulipion Corps. Part of the Migration Sounds project, the world’s first c...
2m Jul 15, 2024
2m
Reflection
"When I received the original recording, I’ve noticed this kind of a strange reflection that exist in an environment of recording. All sounds, despite whole noisiness of the space, were somehow reflected almost like a regular delay line. I took this phenomenon as a main subject in composition. "During the work on the material, I’d been trying to "zoom in" on the sound and try to express this i...
4m Jul 15, 2024
4m
Phantomwhere
"This field recording made me think of different layers of migration - firstly, the population’s general tendency to move to the capital from other parts of the country. Secondly, the people moving between the parts of the city. Thirdly, an internal migration - drifting away from the traffic jam to a dreamlike space where the environmental sounds are muffled and become a flow of thoughts and me...
3m Jul 15, 2024
3m
Nomadication
"The original field recording and story was a testament to home, a sound, a smell, a feeling that takes us back to somewhere we once called home. I wanted to capture some of that in a hazy distant feel of the first part of the track, the distant sounds of church bells in a hazy memory, but I wanted the second part of the track to be powerful, driven, purposeful - a forward momentum before the r...
6m Jul 15, 2024
6m
Binario 2
"This track is composed entirely from samples taken from the original recording. I have worked with the textures, resonances and naturally occurring rhythms in the recording. The sounds of the train moving along the tracks, the mechanical sounds of doors opening and closing, and the movements and voices of people on and off the train, as well as the white noise in the recording are the main com...
8m Jul 15, 2024
8m
Dominic's song
 Dominic is an immigrant from Senegal, West Africa, who has been living in Padova in Italy for a number of years, performing as busker in the same spot every single day. We had been enjoying listening to his beautiful voice and songs from his home every time we visited the city for several years until last year we finally stopped and spoke to him to hear a little bit of his story. He's a fixtu...
2m Jul 15, 2024
2m
Trenitalia: voices of migration
 In the recording, we hear the arrival of Trenitalia 20984, a regional train headed to Trieste Centrale station. As the train comes to a stop, voices of Italians and migrants are audible, suggesting a diverse mix of individuals disembarking. The migrants, predominantly from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, among other nationalities, are intercepted on the train, likely en route to seek asylum ...
7m Jul 15, 2024
7m
La campana della sera
This sound comes from the local church of the town in northern Italy where I grew up. It's been a regular, dependable, unchanging part of my life until I left home, and even after I left home, first moving cities, and then countries, and only came back to visit. The "campana della sera" (evening bell) used to ring every night at 21:00 for exactly five minutes. I believe it used to signal the e...
4m Jul 15, 2024
4m
Almaty railway station, main hall and platform
 This recording was made in the midst of my migration from Russia to Uzbekistan, through Kazakhstan. At this moment, I have been in a position of forced exile for a little over a month. If I were to describe my condition, the words would be shock, depression and complete confusion. But at the same time there is hope for the best. At the time of recording, I am at the station with my fellow exi...
7m Jul 15, 2024
7m
Migration dedication
"Dear Dominic, "This is dedicated to you: a true inspiration for me. "I am also a musician and sound worker immigrant, Italian in Berlin. Here I am with my flute, trying to weave my celebration of you and your music, now our music. "I am immensely proud of you as an immigrant and a musician, to succeed in changing the landscape of a city by bringing music of your roots and your heart. I don’...
2m Jul 15, 2024
2m
Eritromea
"I didn't know much about Eritrea, or its history, so it was interesting to dig deeper in to that history and that of Eritrean culture, the Eritrean diaspora and the church in Rome where the field recording was made. I kept the field recording as it was, and looped it for ten minutes, as I found the recording powerful and wanted to keep that going throughout the piece, and to construct the musi...
11m Jul 15, 2024
11m
In the station
"The field recording notes really struck me, especially that feeling of shock and confusion. I’m realizing that the sense of a place, the experience of it, those feelings don’t exist in themselves, but they’re a conversation/confrontation with the listener’s sense of self. "I played flute along with the recording, and that maybe acts as the "self," and then I used an echo to move in and out of...
7m Jul 15, 2024
7m
Nostalgia from the east
 "Nostalgia from the east" fuses techno beats with Indian sitar, tabla, and Arabic vocals, creating a unique blend of modern and traditional sounds. Inspired by a field recording from the bustling streets of India, the track captures the essence of migration and cultural exchange. The ambient street noises serve as a backdrop, adding depth to the rhythmic techno layers. The live-recorded sitar ...
6m Jul 15, 2024
6m
The rhythm of routine: sounds from my street
This recording captures the vibrant and dynamic sounds of a neighborhood in motion. As we listen, we hear the distinct bark of dogs, a common presence in many communities, signaling either the arrival of their owners or responding to the bustling street life. The intermittent honking of cars weaves through the audio, painting a picture of a busy roadway, perhaps with traffic navigating through ...
2m Jul 15, 2024
2m
Promises
"The recording and the story behind it were so pure and real that I couldn't do much. I used the recording with almost no processing and then a simple melody came out naturally. The drone of a Lyra 8 sustains the entire piece and it blends perfectly with the soundscape of the recording. "Promises" is a statement about leaving, coming back and imagine a different end of our stories." Tehran str...
10m Jul 15, 2024
10m
Dear Sourya
"Sourya's recording from the balcony of her grandmother's soon-to-be demolished house in Kolkata struck me sonically as a conversation between the different sounds on the street - crows, cars, bicycles. "It also moved me as a story - at some time in our lives, in some circumstances or other, we all have the experience of saying goodbye to a place full of memories. I tried to combine these resp...
3m Jul 15, 2024
3m
Promises of home
This recording was taken with an iPhone-mounted mic in a late spring afternoon, just before the supper time as I was walking along a beautiful narrow pedestrian-only passage along the mountain and the river carving through the mountains in norther Tehran. Along this road many restaurants line-up one after the other on the edge of the mountain and the river. Popular amongst the citizens to escap...
2m Jul 15, 2024
2m
The balcony to the world
Between 1997-2000, me aged 7-10, my mother and I used to live at my grandparents house. For a few years now, this house had been abandoned, with no one living there and the house falling into disrepair. More recently, this house has been sold and slated to be demolished for a new property to be developed there. Before the handing over of the house to the new owners, I got to visit the place a f...
3m Jul 15, 2024
3m