Cities And Memory

The field recording that inspired this composition features a Bayaka musician playing the geedal, an instrument whose sound is deeply connected to the forest, communal memory, and oral transmission. When I first listened to the recording, what struck me was not only the melody, but the space around it: the breath, the rhythm, and the sense of conversation between the player, the instrument, and the environment. The geedal, whose timbre closely resembles the adeudeu from Western Kenya, where I come from, felt less like a solo instrument and more like a voice embedded within a living ecosystem. This immediately shaped my approach to the composition, not as a reinterpretation that dominates the original or places it in the background, but as a dialogue with it, allowing the geedal to remain the bed of the music.As a Kenyan artist working across traditional African instruments and contemporary production, I was drawn to reimagine the recording in a way that honours its origins while allowing it to travel across