Moving, Belonging, and Sorrow in ‘A Very Different Time’ by Phil Smith

Abstract

Phil Smith’s A Very Different Time weaves poetry, music, ambience and snapshots of stories in an audio piece about movement, nostalgia, change and sorrow. It includes the voices of people he met while living in Berlin: a West African refugee; a musician and academic from the United States; a Syrian refugee escaping war; an academic of Italian/German citizenship; and a German musician who moved from a small town to the city. To this stream of voices, Smith adds layers of music, different beats, street sounds, distortion, the ambience that recall the words – valleys, mountains, water and islands –and a central poem. His use of sound separates different sections in the story, creates rhythm, and builds a story arc. The piece sounds melancholic, an exploration of what is being lost when countries or people put up barriers to keep “the other” out.