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
Armenian Quarter, Old Jerusalem
Here, you can listen to an old man playing his accordion in the Armenian quarter of Jerusalem. The Armenian presence in Jerusalem dates back to the 4th century AD, coinciding with Armenia's adoption of Christianity as its national religion, leading to the settlement of Armenian monks in the city. Consequently, this community is recognized as the oldest continuously existing diaspora outside the...
2m Jul 15, 2024
2m
The radiance is everywhere
I. Breathing Steps II. Lightwell III. To fight? No, to sing! "In the field recording I chose, a street musician plays and hums the tune of the Kozachok on the accordion, while people are heard passing by in Jerusalem’s Armenian Quarter. I was immediately captivated by the sound of the accordion, but also by the unforced openness with which the musician hummed the tune. Reading about the record...
18m Jul 15, 2024
18m
Amed sunrise
David, my diving instructor at Amed in Bali told me that he had moved to Indonesia more than 20 years ago after growing up in West London. David is a lovely guy and clearly adores where he lives - he suggested that his life in Bali had been made possible, alt least in part, by selling his one-bedroomed flat in West London. His small business employs local staff as scuba instructors, and Ketut,...
2m Jul 15, 2024
2m
The ocean's guests
"Rob tells us about David, a British diving instructor, and Ketut, his Indonesian colleague and friend. While the two men share the sunrise in Amad, Rob notices the stark difference of perspectives between them. One emigrated easily to Indonesia, while the other does not have the resources to make this choice of moving abroad. "The field recording oozes a peaceful atmosphere : the rooster sign...
5m Jul 15, 2024
5m
Moria detention centre riots, 27 April 2016
A riot breaking out in the old refugee detention centre in Moria on the island of Levos, in Greece. Detainees broke out of the camp after a child was allegedly beaten, setting part of the camp on fire and breaking down the fences. Police eventually intervened, firing tear gas and forcing detainees back into the camp. The riot took place in April 2016, just after a deal between the EU and Turke...
2m Jul 15, 2024
2m
Stamping razor wire for border fences in Marianosztra prison
This recording was made in early 2016, while gathering material for a BBC radio documentary about Hungary's hardline migration policy. Inmates in the prison behind the Marianosztra Monastery were feeding metal tape through stamping machines to make razor wire to fortify Hungary's border fences against migrants and refugees. The razor wire was also being exported to other countries. The inmates...
1m Jul 15, 2024
1m
Preparing the sled dogs
In this recording you have a typical soundscape of Sisimiut’s “dogtown” during winter. Amidst the sound of recreational snowmobilers and dogs howling and pulling at their chains, two Greenlanders are preparing traces and getting their pack of dogs ready to go dogsledding in the backcountry. 4,500 years ago, the Inuit migrated from Canada to Greenland across the sea ice by dog sledge. Modern Gr...
5m Jul 15, 2024
5m
We have been burning a long time
This is a poem in Dari about the fire that devastated the Moria refugee camp in September 2020, leaving many thousands without shelter. It's by a young Afghan called Zabi who recorded it on his phone and sent it to me for a radio documentary I was making about the fire's survivors a year later. I never met Zabi, but he kept in touch as he smuggled himself to Athens in the back of a truck and t...
9m Jul 15, 2024
9m
The ferry
This is the sound of a ferry for the island of Chios loading at the port of Piraeus in the spring of 2016. I recorded it standing on the deck looking out at the densely packed tents of refugees and asylum seekers in empty warehouses on the harbour side. Many of them had arrived from the islands on similar ferries, often hidden in the backs of trucks, to escape being returned to Turkey or held i...
2m Jul 15, 2024
2m
Raven calls
I moved from Australia to Sisimiut, Greenland in 2021. I’d visited several times before as a tourist and had fallen in love with the place so much that I spent a couple of years positioning myself professionally so that someone would give me a job so I could get a work visa. When most people imagine the animals of Greenland, they immediately think of polar bears. But it is not common to see th...
3m Jul 15, 2024
3m
Displaced every year
I returned to Empantchá, a neighborhood in Bissau, in 2021 hoping to find the families of the abandoned houses I encountered during the rainy season of 2020. The neighbours told me they would be back for the dry season. In this recording, you can listen to a conversation between the head of the household, my interpreter, and myself. Our discussion takes place in three different languages: Biss...
10m Jul 15, 2024
10m
Razor heart wire
"I am first generation born in Australia. All my ancestors were Hungarian, which also was my first language. I grew up in Australia with migration stories of escape from Soviet Hungary in the 1950s as well as horror stories from WW2. "The only migration sounds from Hungary was ironically the sound of a razor wire machine pressing out bales of lethal wire to keep unwanted immigrants out. Prior ...
3m Jul 15, 2024
3m
Atash/fuego/fire
 "Fire is a very powerful element, and despite the fact that it can devastate everything it touches, it can also provide the warmth and sustenance necessary to survive. We live in times of war, and I believe that Zabi's poem invites us to reflect and be empathetic about the situation experienced not only by him and his family but by thousands of people who have been displaced from their homes a...
2m Jul 15, 2024
2m
Mória (in journey)
"In my work, I have extensively explored themes of migration; it is a topic that moves me deeply. The field recording, I must admit, is challenging and intense, given its source: a riot at a refugee detention centre in Greece. I wanted to construct a piece that transmitted the build-up and reasons for the riot and gave way to other viable possibilities as well. "My approach to each piece is un...
7m Jul 15, 2024
7m
Aegean buds
"The field recording of the ferry for the island of Chios loading at the port of Piraeus in the spring of 2016 moves and inspires me because of its background story and the picture that comes to my mind while listening and reading about it, followed by a taste of anger and injustice. The vivid dichotomy between the densely packed tents in empty warehouses along the harborside, and the everyday-...
3m Jul 15, 2024
3m
Katabatic dogs
"Scientists think that humans migrated north of the Arctic Circle with their dogs about 25,000 years ago and began using them to pull sleds roughly 3,000 years ago. So, the Greenland dog is a very old breed of man’s best friend. For thousands of years, they have been used by Innuits and Greenlanders for travel and survival in the Arctic. It was also the Greenland dog who successfully pulled the...
3m Jul 15, 2024
3m
The trickster
"I gravitated towards this raven recording from Greenland for a few reasons. Personally, I love birds, have two pet parrots, and find ravens quite captivating. As someone who grew up and spent most of his time in the Pacific Northwest, I regularly see and hear ravens. I love hearing the strange repertoire of sounds they produce, and they can even mimic human speech. They're a remarkably intelli...
8m Jul 15, 2024
8m
Everything is everything
"I like the rhythm of the conversation in the original field recording so I have written a soundtrack piece to go with it. As it's based in Africa so I have used African drum sounds to create a sense of place. I have then overlayed various melody rhythms using instrument sounds that I felt matched the drums. "I have also used processed samples from the original recording to add some emphasis i...
4m Jul 15, 2024
4m
Like monsters
"The field recording that I worked with is from 2016 and was captured by Maria Margaronis. It contains the voice of Mohammed, one of the many refugees who were stuck in a makeshift camp in Greece, as they were trying to make their way up north into central Europe. I wasn't aware of this incident back then so I did a little digging and read a few news articles about the situation of the refugees...
3m Jul 15, 2024
3m
Numbers (a sea of fear and laughter)
"The sea - a thing of beauty, calm, enjoyment, holidays and fun for children. It is also an immense power, rage, frightening, uncontrollable, and a place of fear and death. "I decided to use only the original sound file of the children laughing and playing in the sea but I also wanted to highlight the two sides of the water - a place of enjoyment and short respite from the difficulties of the ...
6m Jul 15, 2024
6m
Dandelion three times parallel
"I wanted to take the concept of migrating and explore it through the three languages I deal with on a daily basis, its meaning, the act and art / way of immigrating and how it opens you up and connects you with often parallel adversities, yet resisting every external impulse and becoming aware of the internal impulses. "How one seeks to unite with others for different reasons, as the social b...
8m Jul 15, 2024
8m
Conversations
"The field recording resonated with me as the theme is about families who have moved around the world and come together to meet and talk about food, farms and gardens. I was born in the US and grew up near Chicago where my father’s family settled from Germany in 1911. "I have cousins in Germany and I now live in Wales, with a Welsh husband. My older daughter, Ellen, was born in Scotland, but n...
7m Jul 15, 2024
7m
Altın bir kafes (A golden cage)
"When I was a kid, we used to visit an open-air animal market in Kadıköy, İstanbul. It was a part of our daily routine before taking a shared taxi back home. An opportunity to see different species of animals was an excitement for a little one. I am familiar with various birds from there. However, all were caged and imported from another part of our world to my hometown. "Maria Margaronis capt...
7m Jul 15, 2024
7m
Um Europa keine Mauern
Protest against racism and strict EU/Germany migration laws in Bremen, Germany. Protesters are chanting "Um Europa keine Mauern – Bleiberecht für alle und auf Dauer!" (No walls around Europe – Permanent right to stay for everyone!) Recorded by Pedro Oliveira. Part of the Migration Sounds project, the world’s first collection of the sounds of human migration. For more information and to explo...
3m Jul 15, 2024
3m
Grandma meeting boyfriend
This recording is of my Grandma meeting my boyfriend. My Grandma is an ethnic German who was born in Russia in 1932 who speaks Mennonite Low German, Russian and German. She is a bit deaf so we have to repeat some things and say them louder. She resettled to Germany in 1991. My boyfriend is American and speaks English and broken German. He lives with me in Vienna, Austria. I was born in Siberia...
19m Jul 15, 2024
19m
A sea of fear and laughter
In the summer of 2016 I got to know an Afghan family who living in the Vial migrant camp in Chios. They had fled Afghanistan because of direct threats to the father's life from the Taliban, but conditions in the camp were so dire that they were thinking of going back. I took the parents and four young children down to the beach for a day; they had not seen the sea since crossing from Turkey a m...
2m Jul 15, 2024
2m
Caged birds singing
In the summer of 2016, the Greek island of Chios was home to hundreds of Syrians, Afghans, Palestinians and others, searching for safety in Europe. Many were camped in grim conditions in the town's medieval castle. Just round the corner from that camp was a shop selling caged songbirds--canaries, lovebirds, parakeets. I made this recording as refugee children and adults wandered by. The photo ...
1m Jul 15, 2024
1m
When the tents fly
In the early spring of 2016, when the Western Balkan migration route to Europe was closed, more than 14,000 people on the move from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere were living in a muddy, makeshift camp site at Eidomeni on the Greek-North Macedonian border hoping to make their way north. This is the voice of Mohammed, from Syria. Recorded by Maria Margaronis. Part of the Migration Soun...
1m Jul 15, 2024
1m
Mahsa's energy
"This blues song is dedicated to Mahsa Amini (1999-2022). Mahsa was a young Kurdish women who was visiting her brother in Iran, when she was severely beaten for not conforming to the strict Islamic dress code. She died several days later in a hospital in Tehran, Iran. "I took the protest chants (that occurred later in Paris) and divided them into two tracks. The first chant occurs at the begin...
5m Jul 15, 2024
5m
The (displaced) forest's spirit
"After spending a week listening to the Bosque seco - dry forest - in Piura in the north of Perú and learning so much more about it, I felt like that beautiful and resilient forest - that thrives in the harshest conditions and still finds a way to save water and energy to go through the driest weather - and people who are being forced in many ways to migrate from their lands because of colonisa...
11m Jul 15, 2024
11m
Femme-vie-liberté
On Sunday, October 2, 2022, thousands of individuals took to the streets of Paris in a massive display of solidarity, denouncing Iran's Islamic leadership and supporting the Iranian demonstrators and the Femme Vie Liberté uprising. The protest was prompted by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died in custody allegedly for not wearing the mandatory Muslim veil according to authorities. ...
2m Jul 15, 2024
2m
Voices - a protest
Voices. On 19 December 2023 France approved a new immigration law. It is a law that makes it harder for families of immigrants to join them, limits the support for migrants from outside the EU, establishes staying illegally in the country as a crime, suppresses the automatic right to citizenship for those who are born in France from foreign parents and demands a fee from foreign students in the...
10m Jul 15, 2024
10m
Partie de pétanque
This is a recording of a part of a traditional south french metal ball game. On the background there are many typical cicada that immediately give an ambience. I am from the Netherlands and I moved to France years ago. But every time I moved, French people immediately hear I'm not from France. In the present recording from last year I remember very well how very local people, those who might b...
4m Jul 15, 2024
4m
Love thy neighbour
I live on a very ordinary suburban street - the sort of place you really wouldn't take any notice of as you drive past - with pebbledash houses, a storage centre and a supermarket at one end of the road, and a recreation ground at the other. On first look, it might seem rather sleepy - even a bit bland. But it is a place defined by migration. The people who live here come from an extraordinary...
8m Jul 15, 2024
8m
Ukrainian and English family having dinner
The recording is of a Ukrainian mother and her daughter having dinner with the daughter's English boyfriend. The mother is a Ukrainian refugee living in Oxford. Having dinner together each evening is important for us. In this recording, we are eating a Ukrainian borsch prepared by the mother. Recorded by Peter Walsh. Part of the Migration Sounds project, the world’s first collection of the so...
1m Jul 15, 2024
1m