Resetting Birds' Memories (LP + booklet)

This album presents the musical component of Kiluanji Kia Henda’s performance and installation “Resetting Birds’ Memories,” commissioned by the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) in 2021.

Conceived as an autonomous sound work and as an extension of the installation, the album unfolds in five movements: three on Side A and two on Side B.

The music was composed, arranged and produced by visual artist and musician Satch Hoyt, whose approach combines rhythmic layering, harmonic drift and an interest in sonic textures as narrative forms. Hoyt performs on keyboards, flute, processed flute and percussion. He is joined by Dirk Leyers on acoustic and electric guitar and by Earl Harvin on drums. The album also features a vocal performance by artist Donna Kukama, whose voice functions less as lyrical articulation than as an atmospheric and spatial element.

The recording was engineered and mixed by Dirk Leyers. All texts are written by Kiluanji Kia Henda, whose reflections form part of the conceptual framework of the work.

Produced by Kiluanji Kia Henda and IFFR, with co-production by Jahmek Contemporary Art in Luanda and co-publishing by Motto Editions, the release is accompanied by a sixteen-page booklet containing texts and images of the sculptural elements that appear in the installation. The booklet is designed by Trevor Lloyd Morgan and serves as a visual and textual extension of the performance environment.

As a whole, the album operates at the intersection of sculpture, sound and narrative. It translates the installation’s themes—memory, displacement, repetition and the fragile continuity between species and environments—into an acoustic form that unfolds across the five movements and resonates beyond the exhibition space.