« There once was a man. This man came into the European war. Germany captured this man. He wishes to return to India. If God has mercy, He will make peace soon. This man will go away from here. » Mall Singh’s crackling words are heard as he spoke into the phonographic funnel on 11th December 1916 in the city of Wünsdorf, near Berlin. 90 years later, Mall Singh is a number on an old Shellac record in an archive – one amongst hundreds of voices of colonial soldiers during the First World War. The recordings were produced as a result of a unique alliance between the military, the scientific community and the entertainment industry.
In The Halfmoon Files, his experimental search for clues to these voices, Philip Scheffner follows the traces to the origin of their recording.