Field-recording in a fintness/kickbox sports facility
(recorded, edited, and annotated by Noah Angell and Maziar Afrassiabi)
The Collected Sounds of Charlois is a set of field recordings that attempts to envision an appropriate methodology for documenting post-globalized urban space. Rotterdam has been a preeminent port city since the 14th century, with the district of Charlois functioning as a place where “newcomers” settle. The most prominent local languages spoken in Charlois are Javanese, Surinamese, Turkish, Moroccan, Antillean Creole, and Dutch, among many others. The communities here form and disband in cycles that are sometimes as short as just a few weeks. As such, the shared linguistic forms which lend a functional sense of community to a space are subject to perpetual readjustment on the ground level.
Utterances, rhythms, songs and ambient sounds will be arranged into a structural economy that is reflective of the city’s many coexisting micro-environments: a Bosnian accordion player in his store, an X-Factor style talent contest for children, an Ethiopian man practicing electric guitar and arguing with his neighbors from his window, a car stereo system playing Hindi pop music with the owner singing along, bingo games for retirees, money changing hands in a Chinese snack bar, two brothers rapping at their kitchen table, and an elderly Dutch woman singing lullabies, among other examples.
The material amassed will be edited and released on CD and LP, and made available via online archive.
Preview Samples of “The Collected Sounds of Charlois”
Car Stereo playing contemporary Hindi music
A young man’s car was parked across the street, opposite the entrance of a large apartment building. He stood on the street next to the stationary vehicle with his stereo playing loudly and with an emphasis on clean and full bass. At one point in the recording the owner of the car can be heard singing along to his car stereo.
Bingo game
At a public community center a group of retired women play bingo on a Friday afternoon. This was the final game of the day, as is evident in the nervous tapping of the announcer’s pen and the tension and release heard in the players’ voices as the winner declares bingo.
Harmonium and vocal song
An original composition by Suhail Bugti, a local Pakistani musician. This was written on the occasion of his daughter’s birth. Despite being a well-trained musician, there is not a big enough community of Pakistanis in Charlois for him to play regularly as a professional musician, so he generally plays alone, for his own enjoyment. Ideally, this piece would be accompanied by a tabla player. Suhail himself has impressive command of the tablas but in this case accompanies himself on the harmonium.
Rapper at his family’s dinner table
Alex Balentina sitting at his parent’s dinner table reciting a work in progress, the instrumental is played on the computer of his younger brother who is also a rapper. They perform together regularly.
