Show 209: Even The Dead Wear Headphones

Recorded live at the London College of Communication, 12 March 2009.

Ed Baxter writes: This is a large-scale ensemble work which relies on bricolage. It follows the traditional (quite English) detective procedural format, chosen for ease of generating material. The script was developed in a couple of sessions with John Wynne’s undergraduate students at the LCC. About ten of them contributed to the text in one way or another, ranging from small ideas to large portions of the finished dialogue. Others worked on gathering sound effects, providing incidental and live music and sound beds. Others still worked on the technicalities. Some people did a lot, and a few didn’t turn up. We recorded it in one take as a 45 minute piece, with some longish scenes designed to be edited in the Radia mix. The final take was interrupted by a fifteen minute forced break (computer malfunction, inevitably) which threatened to destroy the momentum of the performance. No one of the performers (about 25 of them) could hear the whole thing as it unfolded, so there was a lot of trial and error and guesswork involved. The idea was that by sticking precisely to the script it would somehow work. In this edit you can hear the joins, flaws and false starts. I think it has enough charm to get by – and apologise in advance to the majority of Radia listeners for the very English and very text based nature of the work. Thanks to John Wynne for the gig, Ciaran Harte for his Wellesian vision, Chris Weaver for support and Nick Hamilton for the edit.

NB this drama contains strong “post-watershed” language. Any resemblance to any persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Licensed under Creative Commons.

Cast List: Clinton – Russell Callow; Close – Alan Shotter; Weiner – Valdemar Gudmundsson; Mower – Daniel Scroggins; Lousier – John Wynne. design, music and effects production, script development and performance by Alberto Sanchez, Alexander Williams, Allan Shotter, Andrew Wordsworth, Ashkaan Fattahian, Calle Buddee Roos, Daniel Scroggins, Dawid Wasilewski, Drew Campbell, Giuseppe Giunta, Greta Pistaceci, Jakob Gierse, Janno Vaartjes, Jonny Hill, Luciana Bass, Max Thornton, Mikko Virmajoki, Niall Farrell, Philipp Köster, Robert Kubicki, Romain Heaf, Ruben Ganev, Russell Callow, Ryszard Salmanowicz, Sean Simpson, Stefan Newcombe-Davis, Sutchara, Thomas Laxton. Written and workshopped by Ed Baxter and first year students on the LCC sound-art course. Produced by Ciaran Harte. Directed by Ed Baxter. With thanks to Chris Weaver, John Wynne and Nick Hamilton. The full 45 minute version of this piece is also available: contact info _at_ resonancefm.com

Show 208: In the name of Science by Andrej Ancevski/Andreas Hz

In a dark and dusty basement in suburban Skopje, we have found an analogue AM radio receiver dating from 1954. Tinkering with the knobs we scanned Europe’s AM airwaves and recorded the process. The first half of the show is some of the raw recording, while the second are two tracks made by experimental artists Andrej Ancevski (AHz) and Martin Anastasovski using the only the recorded samples as generated sounds, layered and run through various effects.

Andrej Ancevski/Andreas Hz is an electronics engineer, music producer and everything in between. Likes to listen to radio and the world around him, tinker with machines and gadgets, play some music to nice people in clubs and sip martini when no one is looking.

Show 207: Sparkles

This is a joint effort from several artists, some pieces made for Soundart Radio’s “First Spark” festival in February 2009, remixed here for Radia.
We thought we’d celebrate switching on our new transmitter (1000 times more powerful than the old one) by remembering the forgotten festival of Imbolc, and the first stirrings of light and warm weather. You’ll hear me going on about this in the introduction to the show and making some excuse about being a rural station.
So this show starts with Chris Mockridge’s recording of building and lighting a fire in their (old, cold) home… then an Imbolc piece by Jackie Juno, like me she’s interested in new ways of engaging with these ancient festivals http://brianabbott.info/jackie_juno.htm
Then there’s quite a big chunk of our new neighbour Ergo Phizmiz‘s “The invention of Birds” which was an installation in the Dartington Gallery. Actually this bit is from the opening night so it’s Ergo and DJ Salinger together sort of DJing along to the installed piece. I didn’t intend to use quite so much of it but it was hard to choose a short bit. There’s a bit more of it later on.
Then there’s “For Emma” a spoken word thing by Isobel Anderson, who used to be a student.
There’s a thing by Joe Prosser, a writing student here at Dartington… does it have a title? I don’t know.
Lastly “For Bridget” by Graham Burchell. Bridget is St. Bridget and a goddess too, the “Bridie” that Jackie mentioned earlier in the show and Imbolc is her time.

Show 206: 3 pieces from Radio Campus

A show in collaboration with Silence radio (www.silenceradio.org).

We are inviting you to a travel through 3 sound pieces from 3 different belgian artists, realised within the “soundscape forever” project.

1 – “Ruisselle” from Philippe Vandendriessche ( fév 2007 – 1’49 )

“Sur les hauteurs de Spa, un plateau enneigé et désert, une rivière gelée, qui coulait sous un vitrail de glace transparente. Des cavités s’étaient formées et l’eau faisait des mouvements de remplissage et de vidange dans des sortes de bouteilles de glace.”

“Surroundings of Spa town. A deserted plateau covered in snow, a frozen river that runs through this transparent ice window. Cavities had formed and water was then doing some mouvements to fill and empty those imaginary iced bottles.”

2- “Greetings from Italy” from Damien Magnette (Sept 2008 – 4’12)

“During the disorganised trip, our guide had messed around with road maps and itinaries. The “souvenir” diaporama will then finally be one mosaic landscape. ”

“Pendant ce voyage désorganisé, notre guide a brouillé la carte et retourné le plan.
Le diaporama souvenir sera finalement un seul paysage, réalisé en mosaïque.”

3- “Nous, les défunts” from Yannick Dauby,( Sept. 08, 18”55)

“Temple de Longshan à Taipei, septième mois du calendrier lunaire. Nous revenons, affamés, dans leur cité. Ils nous consacrent leurs récitations, leurs choeurs. Ils démultiplient les nourritures spirituelles. Nous errons un peu, puis ils nous guident jusqu’à la rivière en de longues processions. Bientôt nous nous réconcilierons avec eux et calmerons nos plaintes, avant de repartir dans le Royaume Inférieur.”

“Longshan Temple, Taipei, 7th month of the moon calendar. We come back, starved, in their city. They offer us some lectures, some songs. They multiply spiritual foods. We walk around a bit, then they guide us though the river in long processions. Soon we will reconciliate with them and calm down our moanings before going to the Inferior Kingdom.”

Show 205: Radiodance Opus.01:”Y Do B?” by F. Ribeiro

Radiodance Opus.01″Y Do B?” starts from the voice, the presence of the verb and the dance of electromagnetic fields to compose a body program of synaesthetic flexing of the body limits, it’s listening s and gestures. In the metaphysical inversion of the body (udob), the representation of the clash of embodiment springs a question: why do we keep insisting on engineering the “being”? Why do we still believe in artistic performance when it has no longer the power to update the world? We ask the listener to watch his body with utmost attention during the broadcast and dance.

Voices (heard and un-heard): Veridiana Zurita, Julia Rocha, Daniel Fagundes, Daniela Dini, Gabriel Kolyniak, Guilherme do Vale, Chico Science, Frank Zappa, Key Sawao, Ricardo…
http://sons.maquinas.com.mx