"Bethlehem exists in duality: both as a real city and an imaginary notion in the minds of so many throughout different locations and cultures across the world. Those people who actually set foot there can be present for all number of reasons, but the thing that stood out to me from the field recording was its normality - the honk of the car horns, children’s voices … but above all, the sound of commerce taking place. The goods on sale may vary in bazaars around the world, but this is a place like any other, where humans come together to exchange all manner of things - and that includes Sami’s special tea. 

"I approached the composition from the position of wanting the sound of the city to infuse the feel of the track. I used a range of traditional instrumentation from the general region, but used a musical language that I’m more familiar with. In the alleyways, the sound would be more all-encompassing and reverberant. I found a clip of a boy speaking which sounded very like he was saying “Wake Up”. So that underpinned the structure of the track itself - since it seemed to me to be the best comment on the topic of migration that continually rises in public debate. We’re all human. And every man, woman and child has an equal right to exist."

Wake up... 

Bethlehem alley recording reimagined by Dug Campbell.

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