Have you noticed that there are fragments of audiotape flapping in the wind? Strands can be found all over the world, in gutters, snagged on trees, wherever tape players have ventured it seems they have chewed, snarled and spat out. These fragments create a shifting inaudible soundscape that goes unnoticed. Some of the strands have travelled far, they are worn and battered but with careful attention and re-spooling, succumb to listening.
The fact that music can cross boundaries is well known, but this is physical, it really does. As the Taliban ripped the tape from the cassettes of Kabul some of it, wind-born or caught on vehicles, crossed the borders that the people could not. Tape can migrate. Thousands of asylum seekers found themselves at Sangatte in France next to the channel tunnel as they aimed ever West towards the UK. The European ring fence is unworkable and so we have borders within the borders: people cannot cross. This would not be the first time that music has been exported and appreciated whilst the people are left behind.
In July 2002 Zoe went on a tape collection and audio recording trip to the Pas de Calais, a migration bottle neck in Europe, where the Sangatte Red Cross camp for asylum seekers was situated (now closed). During the trip interviews were made with all sorts of travelers, soundscapes recorded. As part of the DRIFT presentation of Magnetic Migration Music, you can listen to an extract from Pas de Calais, a radio mix containing voices of the Sangatte area's transient community (travelers and asylum seekers), soundscape recordings and music composed using samples of re-spooled audio tape. The other sounds from Magnetic Migration Music include found music and audio from Sangatte and the streets of London, Edinburgh, Vienna, Calais; also fragments discovered in the Aeolian islands and rural Scotland.
To listen to the stream, visit the DRIFT website at http://www.mediascot.org/drift
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