To see and remember

"To See and Remember" is a composition incorporating elements from a 1965 expedition field recording from the Chocó Department, in Colombia, by Jonathan Ambache and Richard Saumarez Smith, who were then fellow students at the University of Cambridge. The recording that I selected, made on 5-inch reel tape, captures the sounds of the local Emberá people playing music with flute, drums and other percussive instruments. 

During my research, I discovered a 100-page diary kept by the field recordists, now preserved in the archives of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. Reading the manuscript, it became clear that Ambache and Saumarez Smith were deeply committed to presenting the sounds of a culture from an isolated part of the world – as they wrote in their diary, “we wanted to be put entirely in their hands.”

While studying the manuscript – often with the field recording playing on loop – I realised that some passages of text could work well as spoken-word accompaniment to the composition I had already begun creating. It also became apparent that I was approaching the work from the point of view of the field recordists themselves, rather than focusing solely on the environment depicted in the material, as I would normally. I was, in a sense, trying to hear and see the world as they did.

My compositional process involved listening repeatedly to the original field recording in my audio production software, allowing its textures and rhythms to wash over me and guide my decisions. I cut up and rearranged sections of the recording and manipulated them around a drum loop, often stretching the tempo to slow down the percussive strikes and the trill of flute, creating drone-like reverberations. I then gradually added synthesisers, electric guitar and bass guitar, layering various modulation, delay and reverb effects. The final stage involved recording myself reading extracts from the diary, giving voice to the field recordists’ written words alongside the “abundant music” of the Emberá people.

Chocó flute and drum music with rattle reimagined by Jase Warner.

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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