We engage with a specific recording as a multivalent object prompting recall of both autobiographical and cultural/collective memory, sharing an initial recomposition of a song from this recording as an initiative to amplify its content and reach through a contemporary mix drawing on electronic music-making possibilities. Several years later Jim decided to put together MindCandy, a collection of demos on DVD. On the archive closed, and for the next several years was idle. It ran continuously for the next 6 years, and 16,234 files were catalogged (7.1 gigs in total).

We outline the ‘re-ordering’ strategy enabling us to ‘release’ information caught by the Dammanns, and work towards culturally contextualised understandings of the pasts spoken of by their interviewees. The Hornet Archive was opened on Sep 4, 1992. Darius Keeler and Danny Griffiths formed Archive in 1994 together with female singer Roya Arab and young rapper Rosko John. We explore interconnected texts in a ‘coloniser archive’ of stories, songs and historic narratives in Khoekhoegowab, recorded by German linguist Ernst Dammann and his wife Ruth in Namibia in 1953-1954 and housed in Basler Afrika Bibliographien, Switzerland. The archive houses a vast collection of commercially released 78s, 10 albums, 12 albums and singles, 7 singles, EPs, CDs and re-issue pressings.

The archive songs