Field Recordings ~ Vol. 1: Desire, Desire, a Bawdy Escape

Field Recordings is a series of self-published mixtapes, part of Songs of Flax, a research project by Liza Prins and Marie Ilse Bourlanges
March 2024

The first mixtape in Field Recordings, a series that explores the radical potential of work-song practices, through archival and reinterpreted material. The tapes in Field Recordings are made in the full confidence that people have always and everywhere rejected their marginalized positions based on gender and race, ability and class, etc., and that they have always and everywhere had a political imagination at least as developed as our own and those of our contemporaries. For centuries, we have been escaping into (songs full of) love and desire to forget about a tough workday; for centuries, this escapism has also contained or mutated into (songs of) active dissent. The order of the mixtapes in the Field Recordings series follows this insight by starting with this tape exploring love songs and their functions in the workplace. At least two tapes will follow that will bring you rhythms of work and song of dissent respectively. 

This mixtape is a love offering, like those we used to make for our budding crushes.
~
Concept and editing by Liza Prins
Archival research and design by Liza Prins and Marie Ilse Bourlanges
Sound editing by Bergur Anderson
Reinterpretation of songs (nº6 and 11) by Joana Guiné
Introduction text by Liza Prins
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Printed in riso at Terry Bleu, Amsterdam
Edition of 50 copies
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With the generous support of Mondriaan Fonds.
Many thanks to André Avelas, Brian McKenna, Miquel Hervàs Gòmez and Hugo Rocci.