Monthly Archives: April 2018

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Show 682: The melody of a fallen tree by Radia Collective Vienna (Radio Orange 94.0)

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It’s springtime. We would like to go out and listen to the renaissance of nature. This is a radia transmission of the Vienna Radia Collective made out of different pieces about the sounds of nature:

Herbstträumereien

“die herbstträumereien” was a soundinstallation for the project “nixe” at the musikprotokoll in graz, austria, 2015. barbara kaiser and ernst reitermaier (“die audiotapete”) combined the very contemplative and peaceful considerations of ludwig salvators book “song of trees” with fieldrecordings they had collected around the world: the sound of seawaves from croatia, spain, new zealand/the noise of wind from wales/chirping crickets from new zealand and burgenland/the sound of trees from upper austria/some straw from lower austria/creaking stairs from styria and more ..

Favoritner Baumsong / My favorite treesong

In Favoriten the wind always blows and the naked spring trees of Laaer Wald give us a sound – or two. In the rhytmic/non-rhytmic event of spring storms the microfone is exposed to the heavy breathing of the earth. Favoriten is ‘outer-district’ of Vienna and not far from the recording location the deathsman used to execute his deadly work.

Recordings by b# in Laaer Wald, 8th of April 2018
Text written by Ambrose Bierce (The Devil’s Dictionary)
Voice by Darren Guy

Baum Traum

Written and produced by The Sir Teens.
Recorded at Sendeschluss, April 2018

Spring is the beginning of Autumn

Recorded by Marco Zinz (The Grand Post). Sounds available at Österreichische Bundesforste.
Arrangement and Voice by Karl H. Schönswetter.

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Show 681: NOTHING LIKE US EVER WAS by Gregory Whitehead & Ice Cristals by Leni Süß (Radio CORAX)

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Can radio art comment, torpedo, disrupt and cross the flood of information we are facing today? This show’s radio pieces have in mind the approach of the philosopher Santiago Zabala, who trusts in the power of art works to raise awareness “for an emergency that is absent because of the very danger it implies.”

NOTHING LIKE US EVER WAS
radio performance by Gregory Whitehead
with vocalist Laura Wiens

based on Carl Sandburg’s „Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind“:

The past is a bucket of ashes.

1

The woman named Tomorrow
sits with a hairpin in her teeth
and takes her time
and does her hair the way she wants it
and fastens at last the last braid and coil
and puts the hairpin where it belongs
and turns and drawls: Well, what of it?
My grandmother, Yesterday, is gone.
What of it? Let the dead be dead.

2

The doors were cedar
and the panels strips of gold
and the girls were golden girls
and the panels read and the girls chanted:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation:
nothing like us ever was.

The doors are twisted on broken hinges.
Sheets of rain swish through on the wind
where the golden girls ran and the panels read:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation,
nothing like us ever was.

3

It has happened before.
Strong men put up a city and got
a nation together,
And paid singers to sing and women
to warble: We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation,
nothing like us ever was.

And while the singers sang
and the strong men listened
and paid the singers well
and felt good about it all,
there were rats and lizards who listened
… and the only listeners left now
… are … the rats … and the lizards.

And there are black crows
crying, „Caw, caw,“
bringing mud and sticks
building a nest
over the words carved
on the doors where the panels were cedar
and the strips on the panels were gold
and the golden girls came singing:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation:
nothing like us ever was.

The only singers now are crows crying, „Caw, caw,“
And the sheets of rain whine in the wind and doorways.
And the only listeners now are … the rats … and the lizards.

4

The feet of the rats
scribble on the door sills;
the hieroglyphs of the rat footprints
chatter the pedigrees of the rats
and babble of the blood
and gabble of the breed
of the grandfathers and the great-grandfathers
of the rats.

And the wind shifts
and the dust on a door sill shifts
and even the writing of the rat footprints
tells us nothing, nothing at all
about the greatest city, the greatest nation
where the strong men listened
and the women warbled: Nothing like us ever was.

ICE CRISTALS (14:00 min, 2017/2018)
by Leni Süß
field recordings: Halle/Saale, 2017, Wegajty 2015, Ürzig 2016 and Baracoa, 2015
Many thanks to the story tellers Anke Zimpel, Sviatlana Haidalionak and Sarah Washington.

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Show 679: Honi soit qui mal y pense by mABuSeKi (Radio Campus Paris)

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Titre : « Honi soit qui mal y pense »
La pièce : Europa, Europe, Heureux qui comme Pénélope. Ma foi, langues étrangères à nous-même.
Frédéric II: « Hunde, Wollt Ihr ewig leben? » Cette phrase, l’a-t-il dit afin de motiver ses généraux prussiens la veille d’une bataille ou en vantant son amour pour le français, langue de l’esprit aux côtés de l’allemand, langue de la guerre ? Du côté du Rhin, rien d’autre à signaler que des broutilles du type Die Suppecroisière, Zürich-Strasbourg en une journée et la soupe est toujours chaude. Pfff. Mais qu’apprend-on à l’école ? « Ariane, ma sœur, de quel amour blessée, – Vous mourûtes aux bords où vous fûtes laissée ! » Prochain épisode. « Ti rata poum-pier, t’katz hat yo mâga wé – legt ouf t’er Canapé – oun trink Kaméla thé. »

Europe is the subject. Maybe the underlining subject of this Klangstück. Some existing languages – like the one used as material for this piece –  are evidence of a transnational reality sometimes forgotten and replaced by the history of the building of the nation-state over several centuries. Europe is an idea that for some time now has the apparence of a political whole, an imperial ambition sometimes mixed with universalism. But with boundaries. They are static, and if one decides to change them, then the question of sovereignty rises. War, conflict, bellicosity.
Citizenship is a nation-state characteristic, a part of the mechanics. Europe cannot be a political whole based solely on this nation-state model. But a European identity can emerge through the idea of citizenship built together from scratch, not a nation-state built and imagined by leaders.
The question of language is at the same time a quality and a difficulty in this construction.
Back to boundaries. The Rhine is the embodiment of a frontier where you can find sounds of what could be a European Heimat : East/West, North/South. We have a long way to go, all of us. Europe is a body with intestinal problems; full of subconsciously deliberate mistakes (actes manqués) and a wealth of several sickly personalities. And if we are winning on one side, we are definitely losing on the other. It is the minimum. But this is only a conversation.

Honi soit qui mal y pense is a cut up of archive samples recorded all over Europe. A plane over the Balaton lake, a voice in a train through Switzerland, consumptive memories of a person born during WWII in a German town which today is French.

 

Auteur : mABuSeKi (MCOTF / EL)
Ancien bassiste reggae reconverti en claviériste (reggae toujours). Appréciateur en matière de radiophonie, tout du moins sa mise en œuvre, la sorcellerie de la mise en onde. Pour toute réclamation merci de vous adresser à Paul.

mABuSeKi (MCOTF / EL) is a former reggae bass player, reconverted to keyboard player, but still into reggae. He is a great admirer, mover and shaker of all matters related to radiophonics. Any complaints should be addressed to Paul.