My rubber dinghy

The inspiration for this piece was the current climate and attitudes from a section of the population towards immigration. It is unsettling to see the resurgence en masse of sentiments I thought were well behind us. I used a fragment of a field recording from the Bamam tribe of Cameroon, and used it as an intro for my piece, which I divided into three movements.

a) Mar Germanicus
It uses an Arabic mode (maqam) called Kurd. It represents longing, mirroring the thoughts of the dinghy's occupants, shunted in the unknown (like the ancient Romans might have viewed the North Sea) with only their fears for company.

b) Dover
It employs an Arabic maqam called Rast. It represents vigour, strength, courage, all qualities the dinghy's occupants need to summon in view of approaching the English coast.

c) Dark Duende
It appropriates a flamenco idiom, a form (Palo) called Tientos. A coda that stresses arrival, the end of the journey, a new uncertain beginning, and my homage to an ethnic group that saw and sees its fair share of prejudice: the Gitanos (Spanish Roma).

The recording is purposefully rough, unclean, even containing missteps and falls, entirely acoustic, no electric instruments, with echoes from blues and bluegrass, like a melting pot that is the eternal benefit of immigration.

I used all vintage instruments;
- a 1970 Moroccan oud, double tracked.
- an acoustic bass
- a 1950s Framus acoustic guitar played
 with a brass slide
- an African ceramic drum
- a tambourine
- handclaps recorded on 6 tracks 
- a 1970s Flamenco guitar

My everlasting thanks to my wife Mary, who took care of our three kids while I was thinking, pondering, arranging, playing, rehearsing, recording and improving my piece.

Bamum zither player reimagined by Giorgio Curcetti.

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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds