The process for this piece began with several questions as an artist, and the creative license to use the original field recording. It felt detached (culturally) and extractive in my use of the recording, especially when we consider how this may have been recorded.

My reservation toward it also stemmed from the fact that I didn’t understand the context or what was being sung bout in the recording. My approach to the recording would be inadequate if it relied on these.

I deep-listened to the recording a lot, letting it inform my response, which, in my case, was rhythm (a drum from the original recording). I also tried to sonically imagine the vast Nile savannah that the Nuer walked and shepherded their cattle through. I used parts of the original recording, not the Nuer singing, but a piano at the end, which was perhaps used to mark the end of the field recording, along with some hiss noises.

I like to think of the final piece as inspired by the Nuer singing on the original recording, while preserving the original singing.

Original recording from the Pitt Rivers Museum Collection. In tandem with Cities and Memory for the A Century of Sound project.