Refugee Sounds

Refugees may be treated like dirt. But to the far right, they’re a political goldmine.

No minority group is as thoroughly stigmatised. Not just in politically conservative, Eastern European countries but, increasingly, in liberal, Western, social democratic ones too.

Distrusted for their statelessness and incited against for their ethnicity and faith, no one in today’s Europe is as thoroughly dehumanised.

They’re the perfect excuse to close borders, deny social benefits, scapegoat for crime, and restrict human rights.

Once confined to nationalist and fascist politics, spurred on by social media agitators and populist political parties, such caricatures have become increasingly common sense.

Even Germany, once the EU’s most prominent champion of asylum rights, has closed its open borders and normalised deporting asylum seekers to unsafe countries like Syria.

That's why we've chosen to make field recordings of the refugee crisis for this project.

From the sounds of refugees being rescued at sea to the music played in refugee camps, everything that asylum seekers sound like signifies foreign to those who fear them.

Using field recordings to document their plight highlights their humanity in ways written journalism cannot.

We propose to do this by recording refugees and migrants in the following contexts:

1. In refugee camps;
2. In migrant-heavy city neighbourhoods;
3. At sites of mass refugee drownings, such as off the coast of Cutro, Italy, in 2023, using hydrophones (underwater microphones);
4. During NGO rescues at sea;
5. In places of worship, such as mosques and churches.

This work would be done in Greece, Italy, Spain and Turkey, in close coordination with local authorities and NGOs, and on the street.

Using this source material, we would produce the following media:

1. Two full-length albums of field recordings, arranged by geographic and physical context;
2. A photo book consisting of street and documentary photography of what and who we recorded and their locations;
3. A collection of essays about field recording, its relationship to traditional audio and radio journalism, and its place in podcast and streaming culture. 

The Battleground will edit and publish this work as regular editorial content on its website and newsletter platforms throughout the project.

The albums will be published by The Battleground’s audio arm, Battleground Sounds, and made available through longtime retail partner Bandcamp, as well as streaming services.

Battleground Books will distribute the eBook editions internationally through our new UK-based digital book distributor, Faber Factory.

Battleground Editor-in-Chief Joel Schalit and audio engineer Vance Galloway will undertake the project.

Schalit and Galloway have played together in post-punk and experimental political bands since 1994 and helped run the late, great Asphodel label in the early 2000s.

Vance Galloway built audio visual systems and floating recording studios to produce records by the likes of U2 and the Rolling Stones, for Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.