Razor heart wire

Jul 15, 02:41 PM

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"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 to 1989, it would've been to keep the population in.

"The abrasive and insistent tone of this machine press is sonically quite oppressive, so I have played with complex polyrhythms to recontextualise it as music, as well as ultimately reminding us of that other insistent pump that expresses our humanity, the heart."

Marianosztra prison recording reimagined by Michael Agar. 

Part of the Migration Sounds project, the world’s first collection of the sounds of human migration. 

For more information and to explore the project, see https://www.citiesandmemory.com/migration