Do the dunes move with the moon or the moon with the dunes?
Jul 19, 12:40 PM
"The recording inspired me mostly through the story behind it and through its mundaneness and relatability. The subject of the recording is part of an (originally) nomadic group of people, the Mrazig, which had me reconsidering the notion of migration for this piece. I wanted to know more about the peoples in this area, so I read up on the Mrazig and Imuhar/Amazigh people in the area.
"The concept of migration for me is one of upheaval, of great change, of being uprooted and placed into a new environment. Approaching migration as a seasonal or recurring motion through a larger home was fascinating. The recording itself is of such a mundane activity, cooking, which felt weirdly out of place in the context of constant motion, but it provided an amazing through-line or fixed reference for moving the music against. We all have to eat.
"I didn't process the sample itself a lot. I duplicated the recording and stretched/pitch shifted it to get multiple layers of musical motion. Then I played around with some synthesizers, the main one of which was a string modeling synth with which I made the violin sounding parts. I liked the fragility of the sound in relation to the severity of the environment in which these people live, as well as in relation to the colonial violence they have endured.
"I wanted to capture my interpretation of the feeling of living as a nomad, of living in a home that spreads out over a huge area, living with the land and its changes."
Saharan cooking recording reimagined by denote.
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
"The concept of migration for me is one of upheaval, of great change, of being uprooted and placed into a new environment. Approaching migration as a seasonal or recurring motion through a larger home was fascinating. The recording itself is of such a mundane activity, cooking, which felt weirdly out of place in the context of constant motion, but it provided an amazing through-line or fixed reference for moving the music against. We all have to eat.
"I didn't process the sample itself a lot. I duplicated the recording and stretched/pitch shifted it to get multiple layers of musical motion. Then I played around with some synthesizers, the main one of which was a string modeling synth with which I made the violin sounding parts. I liked the fragility of the sound in relation to the severity of the environment in which these people live, as well as in relation to the colonial violence they have endured.
"I wanted to capture my interpretation of the feeling of living as a nomad, of living in a home that spreads out over a huge area, living with the land and its changes."
Saharan cooking recording reimagined by denote.
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