This paper analyzes negotiations over public access to French anthropologist Véronique Arnaud’s field recordings held at Centre de Recherche en Ethnomusicologie (CREM). Tracing the perspectives, concerns, and expectations of Arnaud, CREM, and the Tao community members, the study explores how archival materials can be mobilized to assert Indigenous agency and authorship and to unsettle colonial and external frameworks that have long shaped how Tao history and musical heritage are documented and classified. The paper presents selected recordings to show how co-listening and collaborative annotation reveal layers of culturally situated knowledge that reframes Tao history through Tao perspectives. Beyond preservation and repatriation, this approach positions the archive as an active site for cultural reflection and renewal, offering insights into the intersections of memory, sound, and Indigeneity. The study ultimately argues that decolonizing archival practice is not only a method for historical recovery but also a pathway for contemporary communities to reconnect with, reinterpret, and revitalize their (sonic) heritage.