A Vanuata hymn

I heard the piece, which is a Vanuata hymn called 'You say you no want ’im married long me,' and connected with it immediately. Despite not knowing what the lyrics were about the singing was filled with emotion and a kind of melancholy that I often bring to my own work. I contacted Pitt Rivers for details on the lyrics, as I thought I would like to add my own singing to the piece, but unfortunately the sound recordist Raymond Clausen published little on his fieldwork. 

It turned out to be quite a tricky track to work with as the original recording wasn't in a consistent key or rhythm. I got around this by turning the piece into a sort of fugue; organs and choir ensembles have a breath and dissonance to them that I felt would complement the voices in the recording, and be in keeping with the original context of the song.

"You say you no want 'im married long me" reimagined by Hattie Cooke.

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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