This is the outcome of a WhatsApp call between my parents in Belgium and me in Canada about the final chapter of their house in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They recalled how two Zairean Ph.D. students, who just met in Brussels, decided to buy a house in Kinshasa without seeing it. They bought a home to prepare for their return to Zaire/DR Congo together after their academic program. The return never happened. Now retired, they just sold the house 36 years later. The house my brothers and I never grew up in is gone.

Like any call with my parents, I learned about way more than what I asked for. It is a snippet of the experiences and trajectories of the Congolese diaspora of their generation in Belgium. It is also a glimpse of how I experienced it as their child who left that same Belgium as soon as they could. The House of Kinshasa is a five-part sound project about the diasporic realities of transmission, return, and housing for a family spread over DR Congo, Belgium, and Canada. In this first part, I intertwine my parents’ story with my perspective, field recordings, and bits of CKUT’s archive. With the participation of my mother and my father.

Audio sources from CKUT’s archive include (in order):

• Café. CKUT, 24 Jun 2022
• “Child presentation.” Homelessness Marathon 2005. CKUT, 11 Jan 2005
• “Origins of the XX Files.” XX Files. CKUT, 25 May 2016
• “Economic Empowerment.” Black Talk. CKUT, 31 Jan 1992
• “Roundtable Discussion on Black Identity as Immigrants to Canada.” CKUT, n.d.
• “Diana Sharpe Interviews Prof. Joel Harder and Analyzes the Lumber Situation in Congo.” Amandla. CKUT, 2007
• “Roberta Bondar, Canadian astronaut, Discovery Space Shuttle.”, CKUT, n.d.
• Black Talk. CKUT, 1991, cassette side B

Po B. K. Lomami (Pauline Batamu Kasiwa Lomami) is a self-taught undisciplinary artist, art administrator, and artistic and public programmer. They are a Congodescendant from Belgium currently based in Tiohtià:ke-Mooniyang-Montreal. Exploring Afrofuturist principles and methodologies, Lomami’s art practice revolves around the displacement of work, the becoming of their subjectivity, and the possible collective futures with black, crip, queer and Afrofeminist perspectives.
https://pobklomami.art

“The Haystack” addresses modern practices for data gathering and surveillance, approached through the development of evolving sonic landscapes. Four chapters are compiled, each drawing from different methods of data monitoring, including tapped telephone calls, recorded conversation, the sonification of network traffic, and the internal sounds of communication technology itself. Haystack is the sound of dystopia, as told from the eyes of a machine.

For more work by Micheal Dean please go to https://soundcloud.com/m-dean-1

This episode of Radia focuses on concept of failure and its sources using radio art as its exploratory medium. Failure of technology, Failure of language, Failure of colonialism, Failure to induce laughter…ultimately, failure to fail and many more expressions of failure, inaction and irrelevancy of success.

James Goddard lives in Montréal, QC. He pays his bills by resisting oppressive working conditions and supporting better food options at Le Frigo Vert. He once interned at CKUT 90.3FM, before that he worked at CFRC 101.9FM and CHMA 106.9FM. His writing has appeared on Weird Canada and in Syphon magazine.

CKUT’s Audio Smut Radio Collective presented a sound art installation for Montreal’s Perverscité Festival this past August. They merged queer sex stories, both true and fictional, poems and spoken word pieces, recorded in audio form, or performed live. The results reflect surprising facets of being queer, being trans, memorable moments and empowerment.

Explicit sexual content and language warning! check your local broadcasting on-air guidelines.

The Montréal Tape Run was a project spearheaded by crustacés tapes in collaboration with Berlin’s Staaltape, whose Berlin Tape Run series inspired the Montréal version. A cassette tape circulated from hand to hand across the island of Montréal in September 2013. 10 individuals were involved. Each runner received the tape, recorded a few minutes of sound on it, and transferred it to the next runner. This edition of Radia features 8 of the 10

pieces of sound off the Montréal Tape Run:

1- Magali Babin : Archives 1989-99   – tape recorders : 1 realistic, 1 talkboy deluxe, 3 general electric, 1 répondeur radio shack. start 1 après l’autre. durée de la pièce. stop 1 après l’autre.

2- Alain Lefebvre : piece for crustacés tapes 2012    –  tape deck output, pedals, tapedeck input (window)

3-Hélène Prévost : Crayon Maçon    – un mic live dans mon studio à partir de 2 enregistrements (field recordings) et une action live. démolition d’un mur intérieur, 2 tailleurs de pierre à l”extérieur, moi aiguisant un crayon.

4- anne-f jacques : bialetti express  –  enregistreuses, ruban en boucle, besoin d’un café

5- martin tétrault : à rebours, voyager 1      – source: “message from earth”, “sounds from earth” 1 disque en or 12″ installé dans le sonde voyager 1.  méthode : montage audionumérique transfert sur machine à cassette califone 4530

5-donna silicon : rainbow banana

6-grkzgl : villeray, sauce western (prise 4)bo^tie à ressorts, fuzz, égalisateurs, etc

7-n tobin : tape worm

Copies of the Montréal Tape Run are available through crustacés tapes in exchange for a postcard or a present sent to: 4555 rue Pontiac Montrea, Québec H2J 2T2

Montréal based audio artist and independent researcher  Mario Gauthier performed an hour-long radiophonic piece containing excerpts of writings and compositions by John Cage for the occasion of his centennial on September 5, 2012. Mario has prepared an abridged version of the original broadcast for radio, the result flows in a stream of consciousness manner weaving  Gautier voice, with Cage’s through text and and sound in  an enticing dialogue. Mario is a member of  the Montréal ensemble Theresa Transistor, and was a producer and host at The CBC in Montréal from 1986 – 2003.

Radio is created where radio is listened to. Ckut’s Andrea Jane Cornell takes the listener out of conventional listening spaces and ways of thinking about hearing and listening. Using our on air broadcasting studio with its equipment as a complex musical instrument, she brings us
sound within sound.

On July 23rd, 2011 CKUT’s  Magic Sound Mountain Collective made a furtive ascent of Mount Royal and found a spot along one of the less trodden foot paths through the forest where they installed 6 hand made speakers that were used to diffuse multi channel sound compositions for the forest dwellers, invited guests and nature enthusiasts who happen upon the installation while enjoying a hike through the mountain.

(Image source)

These are the clues – Follow the sound.

Produced by Erin Weisgerber and Dominique Ferraton at CKUT Radio in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Featuring the voices of Kristopher Rosadiuk, Michael Pedruski, Erin Weisgerber and Dominique Ferraton.