And I know this distance between us

Cities and Memory - remixing the world

"I wanted to capture that sense of secrecy and tension that seems to exist within the narrative of the story. This idea that you cannot record in these areas and also the idea of stress associated with travel and border control etc. This idea that it's illegal to cross a border without going through this process but also illegal to record the process you go through to remain legal. The whole feeling I got was one of complete tension, frustration and claustrophobia but also the sense of getting home or beyond this.
"So I wanted to try and capture how I imagined it would feel to be bossed around while trying to remain calm and get home or to work. The piece is punctuated with moments of calmer piano but surrounded by a non-stop interference and static created through manipulating the piano and other source material - including the field recording. The idea was to generate a sense of how it feels to be in this kind of tiring and stressful environment with little or no control and perhaps a disengagement from reality that is often created in these environments.
"I started with just the field recording and piano but slowly added to this and developed this sense of suffocation/claustrophobia. As the piece comes towards a conclusion I removed many of the fx and brought it back down to just the piano. I was attempting to imagine the journey and the feeling of an ending and quiet release, at least for a time until the next journey."
UK/France border crossing reimagined by Glacis.
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