Brushbox Mountain by Richard Kennedy
At Diffusion, one of our favourite activities is introducing people who’ve never worked with audio before to the wonderful world of sonic arts and composition! This time, we had the pleasure of bringing Richard into the fold.
Richard was planning a trip to the stunning Northern Rivers region of NSW, Australia, so I handed him a ZOOM recorder and encouraged him to give it a go. His reaction? “What do I do with this?” But since he’s got a knack for snapping gorgeous photos on his iPhone, I told him to think of it the same way—just capturing beautiful snaps, but with sound.
When he returned, we sat down, set up Audacity on his laptop, and I guided him through some basic editing and listened to his piece come to life.
Now, why not join Richard on his journey? It starts at the Brunswick Heads breakwater, heads up river towards Mullumbimby, then meanders around the High Street and Market at the Showgrounds. From there, we head up Left Bank Road towards Mullumbimby Creek, stop by to visit Barry Reeves at his place, “Brushbox Mountain”, and enjoy drinks on the balcony during a tropical downpour. We wrap up by wandering through the bush and garden, and finally ending our adventure at the beautiful beach of Byron Bay.
Show 1021: Nitz-Live for KAMIZDAT (Radio Študent)
Show 1021: Nitz-Live for KAMIZDAT (Radio Študent)
Tine Vrabič (Nitz) is one of the most active protagonists of the Slovenian electronic, club and experimental music scene. For more than a decade, he has been DJing and performing live in the most prominent clubs and festivals at home and abroad. He is also known as the former programme manager of the Ljubljana Klub K4, the head of the AmbientSoup label and series, a member of the CLSTRFNK collective (Evano, Nulla) and the author of the Senzorama show on Radio Študent, which covers electro-acoustic, experimental and ambient releases of all eras. Together with harpist Urška Preis (rouge-ah) he also forms the experimental duo II/III (two out of three).
This 27min piece was played live in 2023 for Kamizdat label night, representing a blend of cuts from old releases and newer live jam recordings which were never released.
SC:
BC:
https://ambientsoup.bandcamp.com/
Radio Študent Radia.fm programme curated by Urška Savič.
Show 1020: May It Come by Gregory Whitehead for Wave Farm
With a title that descends from a well-known passage in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, May it come that the sounds of the bardo shall be known as one’s own sounds, the piece opens with an improvised DIY ventilator that fails to sustain my bravewaves, waves that eventually flatline into a heavily decomposed electromagnetic soup. Then comes a freely associative consideration of the Beefheart Affliction; the dangerous game of creating schizophonic monsters; the compost heap of radio’s intrinsic entropy and instability; the creative possibilities released through the fractures of a broken subjectivity; a synthetic voice ripened, to the point of bursting; a piece of flesh that we shall call Figgy Pudding; a bit of brain beneath a fingernail; a scratched radio thanatophony; and a pair of eyes reflecting a Hegelian Night that becomes —- awful.
Gregory Whitehead: Artist, writer, radiomaker, text/sound poet, singer of tales, playwright and media philosopher. Since his first tape and radio experiments made during the 1980s, he has created a long list of radio plays, hybrid documentaries and acoustic adventures for the BBC, Radio France, Deutschland Radio, Australia’s ABC, NPR and other broadcasters. Often interweaving documentary and fictive materials into playfully unresolved narratives, his aesthetic is distinguished by a deep philosophical commitment to radio as a medium for poetic navigation and free association. In his voice and text-sound works, he explores the tension between a continuous pulse and the eruption of sudden discontinuities, as well as linguistic entropy and decay.
Whitehead’s plays have won numerous awards, including a Prix Italia for Pressures of the Unspeakable, a Prix Futura BBC Award for Shake, Rattle, Roll and a Sony Gold Academy Award for The Loneliest Road, which was described by the jury as “a master class in sound”. His 2005 BBC production of Normi Noel’s play No Background Music, featuring Sigourney Weaver, also received a Sony Gold Academy Award. On the Shore Dimly Seen, a “boneyard cantata” enquiry into no-touch torture, was short-listed for the 2015 Prix Italia.
Whitehead has experimented and collaborated within acoustic theatre, puppet theatre, dance theater, installations and mixed media cabaret. In film, he wrote the script and played the main character Walter Sculley in the 2003 docufiction, The Bone Trade , later becoming the centerpiece for an installation at Mass MOCA. Over the past several years, he has contributed voiceworks and sound to two experimental documentaries: Awareness and Lift Up Your Voices, by Arttu Nieminen.
Co-editor of the pioneering anthology Wireless Imagination: Sound, Radio and the Avant-Garde (MIT Press), his philosophical essays and hybrid speculative fictions have appeared in a wide variety of publications. A selection of writings has been published as Almanach de plaies insensées. Since 2012, he has published online exploratory researches within the context of an ever-mutating Desperado Philosophy.
show 1019 Radiacollage – flux détendu 2 by SuzyCue for Radio Panik
FR collage aux multiples coïncidences confectionné à partir de samples radio et de divagations au sein de microsillons d’une autre époque.
voyage unique et aléatoire non reproductible deux fois.
EN a collage of multiple coincidences made from radio samples and rambling through LPs from another era.
a unique, random journey that can not be reproduced twice.
links
SuzyCue
PicklsXP
show 1018 Worm Tracks by Richard Scott for Radio Worm
The first electronic music I ever played as a teenager was on a Hammond organ. The drum machine and rhythm generators in particular fascinated me; simplistic devices but somehow very creative, and something in the sound was strangely compelling. I heard Lee Scratch Perry, Sly and the Family Stone, Cabaret Voltaire and Suicide do some remarkably enduring music with such drum boxes, which of course later went on to become a basic element of electronic dance music in general. With this piece I revisit some of these dusty old machines and also some of the other vintage instruments in the studio at Worm, plus my modular synthesiser and sampler, instruments from Rob Hordijk and some occasional blasts of modulated radio.
Richard Scott is a Berlin-based creator and performer of forward-leaning electronic and electroacoustic music. Once a saxophonist focused on free jazz and group improvisation, for the past two decades he has been working intensely with a variety of technologies, methods and musical forms. In recent years he has concentrated his energies on creative composition, improvisation and production, with a particular emphasis on analogue modular synthesisers; including those remarkable instruments created by Don Buchla, EMS, Serge Tcherepnin, Émilie Gillet and Rob Hordijk.
https://www.richard-scott.net/
Recorded and composed in the Worm/Klangendum Studio, Rotterdam, July 2024, a Worm/Klangendum/Concertzender production.
Show 1017: 𝓝𝓪𝓾𝓯𝓻𝓪𝓰𝓮 : 𝐹𝓁𝑒𝒸𝒽𝑒𝓈 𝒹’𝑒𝓉𝓇𝒶𝓃𝑔𝑒𝓈 𝒿𝑜𝓊𝓇𝓈 ; 𝓃𝓊𝒾𝓉𝓈 𝓈𝑜𝓊𝓇𝒸𝑒 𝒹𝑒 𝓁𝒾𝒷𝑒𝓇𝓉𝑒, by XM Tran (La Mousson/Jet fm)
https://archive.org/details/radia_s53_n1017_jetfm_naufrage-lamousson-by-xmtran
A live performance recorded in Les Ateliers Magellan, Nantes, France, on the 4th of July 2024.
With: XM Tran, sound, voices, linocut, ink on paper & Barylin Tone, baritone guitar, objects.
About the performance:
“𝓝𝓪𝓾𝓯𝓻𝓪𝓰𝓮”. Première édition : 𝐹𝓁𝑒𝒸𝒽𝑒𝓈 𝒹’𝑒𝓉𝓇𝒶𝓃𝑔𝑒𝓈 𝒿𝑜𝓊𝓇𝓈 ; 𝓃𝓊𝒾𝓉𝓈 𝓈𝑜𝓊𝓇𝒸𝑒 𝒹𝑒 𝓁𝒾𝒷𝑒𝓇𝓉𝑒.
En 1904 est édité le livre “Les Naufragés de la Barbade”, qui décrit l’arrivée accidentelle d’une famille blanche sur une île Caribéenne. Les personnages sont tour à tour horrifiés du manque de confort local, apeurés et fascinés par les “sauvages” peuplant les lieux, et amusés de tuer des espèces animales pour le sport. En tant qu’enfant d’exilé vietnamien dont les trajectoires en bateau ne sont pas qu’accidents de parcours, cette lecture se transforme en une collection d’un livre entier d’œuvres poétiques, dans un élan de réappropriation décoloniale.
—
“𝓢𝓲𝓷𝓴𝓲𝓷𝓰”. First edition: 𝒜𝓇𝓇𝑜𝓌𝓈 𝑜𝒻 𝓈𝓉𝓇𝒶𝓃𝑔𝑒 𝒹𝒶𝓎𝓈; 𝓃𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉𝓈 𝓈𝑜𝓊𝓇𝒸𝑒 𝑜𝒻 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝑒𝒹𝑜𝓂. The book “The Castaways of Barbados” was published in 1904 and describes the accidental arrival of a white family on a Caribbean island. The characters are first horrified by the lack of local comfort, then frightened and fascinated by the “savages” populating the place, as well as amused to kill animals for sport. As a child of a Vietnamese refugee whose ship trajectories are not just accidental mishaps, the book turns into a collection of deeply personal and decolonial poetic works.
About the artist:
En tant que personne queer issue de la diaspora vietnamienne, le travail artistique de XM TRAN est centré sur la question de l’identité, et notamment sur le vide laissé par l’exil, avec la nécessité de recréer des fictions pour réparer la mémoire familiale. En célébrant la diversité des identités de la diaspora vietnamienne, l’artiste aspire à mettre en lumière ses fantômes grâce à des pratiques révolutionnaires comme la création sonore, la poésie et la linogravure, entre mythologies techniques et paysages fantasmés.
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As a queer person of Vietnamese descent, XM TRAN’s artistic work focuses on the issue of identity, and in particular on the void left by exile, with the need to recreate fictions to repair family memory. By celebrating the diversity of identities of the Vietnamese diaspora, the artist aspires to highlight their ghosts through revolutionary practices such as sound creation, poetry and linocut, between technical mythologies and fantasized landscapes.
🔗 https://linktr.ee/xmtran
Show 1016: C.O.R.N!, Radio Helsinki (Graz)
A compilation of pieces by the Graz based concept band C.O.R.N! (Patrick Wurzwallner, Nick Acorne), who as NI (natural intelligence) have dedicated themselves to the improvised emulation of pop music and beyond. Their corpus of musical content is contemporary, exuberant and for the most part freely available online.
Website:
Show 1014: Bratislava: Voices of Freedom (Kanal 103)
Against the backdrop of Slovakia’s terrifying socio-political turmoil, this documentary radio piece explores Bratislava’s vibrant and courageous independent music and cultural scene and some of the community spaces in which it develops. Now they are facing their biggest challenge, to keep it alive and kicking.
We’ve been there (for the bad parts mostly), and we are still stuck there.
From Skopje to Bratislava, with love.
…
Recorded and edited by Gjorgji Janevski (summer 2024)
Additional interviews and recordings by Vid Bešter (Radio Študent)
Voices: Jonáš Gruska, Matúš Kobolka, Adela Mede, Poli, Daniel Vadas, Janneke Van Der Putten, Oliver from the garages, Olja Triaška Stefanović, Rozalia Vlaskova, Tomaš Hučko.
Music excerpts from Adela Mede, Bolka, Jonáš Gruska, Fissures, Patrick Balthrop, Rrrr
The publication of this article is part of PERSPECTIVES – the new label for independent, constructive, multiperspective journalism. The project PERSPECTIVES is being implemented by seven editorial teams from Central Eastern Europe under the leadership of the Goethe-Institut. The author of this article participated in the PERSPECTIVES Journalists-in-Residence Programme at the Goethe-Institut Bratislava.
Show 1013 Where is my horse? (Soundart Radio)
Let’s bring some new questions to our radio making
Where do we live? Where is my horse? Where comes the air from? How to build healthy relationships? Wie viele Leute kennst du hier? Is there a silent place here? Warum? Warum gerade jetzt? Why am I here? Welche Eissorte? Warum? When is it 17 o‘ clock? Where is my horse? What do I hear? Where do you live? What sound do you like to hear when falling asleep?
Perhaps we won’t find all the answers this time, but there is always next year, by the lake.
Produced in the ‘long form sound installation’ workshop at Radiocamp, Bodensee, Mai 2024 by Insa Trölenberg, Lukas Zittlan, Lukas Lammer, Alexander Schab, Laszlo Ivanovic, Normann Schuh, Anna Claus, Gerald Wang, Kika Demange, Lisa Humsickes, Roman Kalex, Mo Borghorst, Celik Armet, Susann Tonne, Saskia Ackermann, with Lucinda Guy and Alice Armstrong.
Show 1012: SONIC HUGS BY COLIN BLACK FOR THIS SONIC LIVE (Guest Slot)
No matter where we live in the world, we all feel alone from time to time, some of us more than others, some of us to the point we can’t bear it anymore … this collection of new works entitled Sonic Hugs is a reminder that we are not alone. With this objective at hand, I invited nine of Australia’s most distinctive & esteemed artists to create original new works that express their interpretation of a “sonic hug.” At the time, I remember wondering, just how will these artists combine the ideas of “sonic” and “hug” into their new works? If we explore the word “hug” by itself, then we usually start to think of the following: hug … to anticipate a hug, to be hugged, to have been hugged, and that research has shown that a hug can reduce feelings of loneliness and the harmful physical effects of stress. A hug can also boost feel-good hormones such as dopamine and serotonin, the antidepressant hormone that reduces feelings of loneliness, controls anxiety and elevates mood. Psychologically, a hug builds trust, boosts self-esteem, and creates a sense of safety, creating a pathway towards a deeper connection.
But this was not just a hug, but a Sonic Hug … then I also remembered a quote from an interview I did for my PhD with Andrew McLennan about his experiences as an ABC radio producer working with artists at The Listening Room program where he explained, “But artists don’t always do expected things …”[1] In this context, McLennan is discussing the potential awkwardness between the public media programming directives and the artist’s desire for creative, uncensored, boundless possibilities. While with the Sonic Hugs collection, there are differences (e.g. there is no overarching government programming directive other than the request to compose a sonic hug), artistsboth delivered works that met and challenged my expectations, all of which I found sonically highly stimulating and was touched by. What emerged from this diverse mix and treatments of the subject matter is a multi-faceted creative exploration of embrace, connectedness, and community.
If we listen deeper into these individual new works, in the order that they will be presented, we can hear that with Cat Hope’s 7 Options (as performed by The Low Tone Orchestra), we are listening to how musicians empathise with each other during a live recording as they are “moving in and out of each other’s timbre,” in effect exploring varying degrees of sonic connections. With Ros Bandt’s Sonic Hugs, we enter a personal autobiographical soundscape of tenderness that, as Bandt explains, “metamorphose into a new magical energy empowering love, kindness, sharing, community, co-operation and selflessness, a larger hug from nature and the cosmos.” In Eve Klein’s Mantra of Enfolding we imagine our first embrace and connection as a zygote in our mother’s womb. Robert Sazdov’s “I Cried” Spasovden, electroacoustic compositional structure is based on “20-second sonic sections that aim to deliver 12 sonic hugs.” Next, Stephen Adams brings us Close To Your Ears in which a single vocal gesture develops and is augmented with other elements to create intimacy, as Adams asks the question, “What is a sonic hug?” With, Claire ‘Furchick’ Pannell’s Berjalan, amongst other things, reaches across cultural boundaries by using music as a type of universal language. In Jim Denley’s Mixmaster Troposphere we explore embracing the Australian environment and place and is intended as a sonic hug to the Aboriginal people (Wayilwan, Gamilaraay and Wiradjuri) who had previously gathered on the remote site in the Warrumbungle National Park where the work is recorded. With David Chesworth’s Cohesion Calisthenics we are listening to the “personal experiences of embodied hugs and being in larger social gatherings, which we sometimes struggle to be part of.” Finally, with Colin Black’s Embosomed, we are exploring the light and shades of embrace, a reaching out for connection and fragility.
I now invite you all to open your ears to this new collection of works that affords vulnerability, speaks from different levels and dimensions and brings focus to the need for more interpersonal/social connectedness and cohesion.
Colin Black, August 2024
Download the album from https://thissoniclife.bandcamp.com/album/sonic-hugs
Find more info here (pdf).
Artwork by Nuša Smolič / Instagram: nusa.smolic