We dance, we dream, we love (for Timon Beri)

This has been the most difficult piece I have ever written for Cities and Memory. What could I add to a recording made by Patti Langton of a young Moru man - Timon Beri? The recording was of Timon singing and playing a lamellophone. Whatever I ever I did, it felt like cheap exploitation. The recording was beautiful, authentic and real.

In my research I came across a paper by Patti Langton called Personal Reflections on Fieldwork: A Moral Dilemma and it resonated and hit hard with how I was feeling about what I was creating with this field recording.

In the end, with the deadline fast approaching I separated Timon’s voice from the lamellophone and decided to use his voice as a sort of tribute to him, even though it was heavily processed. As I was scouring for further inspiration, I found a vocal sample which says "we dance, we dream, we love" and this became the title of the track as well as being the light in the piece.

Up to then it had been a brooding dark piece of dark electronica which I felt represented not only my frustration but also the backdrop of war and famine which was and still is so prevalent in Sudan. After all, what can a piece of music be against the backdrop of so much human tragedy, but I felt the lyric spoke of the human experience that everybody, from whatever culture, race or creed can identify with. We all dance, we dream, we love.

Sanza (lamellophone) music reimagined by Rob Knight. 

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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