All posts by Karl Schönswetter

Show 881: sometimes i feel like i have no friends by Claire Rousay (WORM)

This piece is loosely based on the live performance Claire Rousay did at WORM.  Many of the same texts, samples, and forms were used in both the live and recorded versions of this piece. The recorded version, which is being broadcasted, features synthesizers, guitars, and field recordings that the live performance did not. This is due to the abundant resources the studio at WORM has. Thematically, the composition revolves around the idea of friendship, what makes it good/bad/valid.
Claire Rousay is based in San Antonio, Texas. Her music zeroes in on personal emotions and the minutiae of everyday life – voicemails, haptics, environmental recordings, stopwatches, whispers and conversations – exploring and maybe “exploding” their significance. Stylistically Rousay draws on domestic musique concrete, voice recordings, percussion and multi-instrumentalism. She has built up an extensive body of work in a relatively short time, proving herself to be a most intruiguing contemporary sound artist. WORM is delighted to welcome her for a residency and a gig.

Credits:
Claire Rousay (BMI) – electronics, field recordings, guitar, 
synthesizer, voice.
Emily Harper Scott (BMI)  – piano.
youtube samples from – Defying Odds Donnelly, CAMELOT331.
Produced @ Worm, november 2021

Show 877: RADIOPOST(e) (Radio ARA)

Formed in Autumn 2020 RADIOM(e) is a network of radio artists from the Greater Region which is comprised of Luxembourg and the surrounding regions of France, Belgium and Germany. Throughout 2021 the artists from the network sent each other audio postcards from their local area and beyond. Their radio post was revisited by Natalie Rubchenko for this Radia episode. For more information on the artist network, please visit radiom-radiome.eu

Show 868: LoFi Manifesto by Vienna Radia Collective

Muffins by julia, photo by marianne

For this recording we have dedicated ourselves to the Lo-Fi Manifesto, which provided the basis for a live recording and jam session. The LofiDogma was published by a Swiss cultural foundation and is inspired by the Danish film “Dogma95”.

Nine articles severely restrict the use of technology in music recording and create the charme of home-recorded music. We have adapted the manifesto, shortened it to 8 articles and explicitly allowed a synth. The rules are:

  • The piece must be recorded in one day.
  • All musicians and instruments must be in the same room.
  • A maximum of ten mixer channels may be used.
  • All channels must be mixed together into two channels during the recording.
  • Only equalisers and compressors may be used to influence the sound, synth is allowed!
  • Only one effects device may be used in the mix.
  • Nothing may be cut, added or corrected afterwards.
  • A result must be published.

What you will hear was recorded on the 31st of October 2021 at the Sendeschluss in Vienna.

Musicians:

Barbara Huber (noseflute, violin, xylophone and flute)
Marian Potocar (Bass and Electric Guitar)
Karl Schönswetter (Drummachine and Synth)

Idea & Research:

Peter Wetzelsberger (kollektiv-magazin.com)

Show 858: Toxic Temple by Anna Lerchbaumer and Kilian Jörg (Ö1 Kunstradio, guest slot)

Depleted soil, over-asi: dic seas, polluted atmospheres.
People are haunted by what they have suppressed. They can no longer escape the toxic.

In their long-term art project “Toxic Temple”, Anna Lerchbaumer and Kilian Jörg, approach the beauty of oil streaks, the grandeur of techno scrap, the sublimeness of radioactivity and the tran: scen: dence of extinction.

Building on their previous research for their project “Toxic Temple”, the two young artists acoustically and poetically explore the connections between spiritu: ality and tox: isi: ty.
Toxic Temple by Anna Lerchbaumer and Kilian Jörg

The piece in its whole length can be heard on kunstradio.at

Show 841: klimatolypse jetzt by Peta Klotzberg & Max Glatz (Radio Orange 94.0

via archive.org

when the actor max glatz and performance artist peta klotzberg challenged themselves to create the auditive experience of a radio play – “klimatolypse jetzt” – they where looking for a project that captured issues arising out of the now + here. while some of the scenes have a dreamlike logic and are quite associative, they tried to scetch a scenario of a not-so-far climatolypse resulting from today ́s problems, and our constant overlooking of climate crisis agendas. so the play arises out of a clash of reality and distopia.

peta klotzberg is a vienna-based performance artist who avails herself to experiments with text, methods of acting, physical body movement and improvisational dance and recently with auditative tools such as music, sound and noize as instruments of communication and spreading ideas. the content of her works circulates around preservation and protection of given ressources as well as keeping a critical eye on structures of systems in the big picture as well as everyday issues. austrian theater actor and performer, max glatz studied philosophy and acting in vienna. he played i.a. in Dschungel Wien, Teater im Spielraum, with theater.wozek, wozek.film, TimeOut and Bluatschwitz black box. his work centers around spiritual and ecological themes. „klimatolypse jetzt“ is his first radio work. we both feel deeply connected to nature and are concerned about climate change and how we are wasting our resources.

the creation process of the radio play lasted about a year and a half and we did research in magazines, newspapers, videos and documentaries which took us all around the globe in our minds. during this time many things occurred such as forest fires in california and australia, thawing permafrost soil, a collective of accusers marching towards the European Court of Justice to sue the governments… we developed some fairy-tale-like and some more realistic characters, who are more or less lovable. there is the chaotic and leisurely university professor dr. florian lichter, e.g., who is burning for the issues of climate change in his public speeches. some strange guy who ́s profession it is to applaud such unconvenient climate savers in a way that they are silenced. a teflon-coated chancellor and his lady sunshine, observed in both public and private. you will meet a a triangle of revolutionists deep down in an austrian forest planning to take over the world by the help of trained martens and a gas that interferes with the nervous system and controls the minds of mankind in a strange way…

for “klimatolypse jetzt” – our first radio play – we experimented with acting techniques, with recording of sounds, such as martens running across metal surfaces and spent hours searching in open source sound libraries and asked native russian speakers to help out with a short dialogue on “sissy brooch and mozartkugeln”. we also used the form of ancient greek chorus, a revolutionary manifest, direct speech, interviews and narrative, and drew a bow to st. stephan ́s place with its famous pigeons and accordeon sounds. we took interest in writing a modern fairy tale.

sit back, listen and enjoy the journey.

voices:
max glatz & peta klotzberg (radio play), katrin daliot (presentation)
sounds:
home recording and free sources under creative common licence
music:
“erbarme dich” from j. s. bach, st. matthew passion
“aloha ́oe” by liliʻuokalani, performed by kahealani hamakua, kaniho giminiz, and aldrine guerrero, www.ukuleleunderground.com
recording studio:
florian widhalm, www.scopeaudio.com

Production: 2020

Show 816: Sounds Queer? (Orange 94.0)

A show by the wiener radia kollektiv, Orange 94.0, Vienna

via archive.org

Sounds Queer? was founded in 2014 by Zosia Hołubowska as a flying queer synthesizer laboratory and is now – with Adele Knall and Violeta Gil Martínez – a vital collective of three. It is a Vienna-base collective working on the intersection of electronic music, sound art and queer activism. Their approach was a unique one in Vienna that has been the spot for feminist networks and labels for many years such as female pressure, unrecords label, temp-records.

Sounds Queer? Starts with the eternal question: How does sound sound queer? and opens a wide process field between queerness, open hardware, software, music production or  marketing. The idea of the project is to create a safer queer space through music, using music for process oriented discourse. During Corona they moved their workshop programme to the virtual space and offer online workshops.

In Oct 2019 they released a tape with odd, weird and queer and mostly unpublished tracks by former SQ? teachers and supporters: Aja Ireland, Masha Dabelka artist, Zdrada Pałki Waterflower, Qeei and Carlin Dally, and the three of us, Mala Herba, Matte/Glossy and Krach.

This radia show features music productions of the collective-members Krach (xxx ), Matte/glossy (let it die), Mala Herba (Mermaid Seduction) and an additional production by Aja Ireland (GrimeInside)

https://www.soundsqueer.org

https://soundsqueer.bandcamp.com/

Show 806: Waiting for PPE (guest slot)

via archive.org

A Grandmother marvels despite the virus she is able to continue gardening
as she has always done and the birds will always keep singing.
She listens to the distance sounds now.
Isolated voices of people, a child next door.
A fly.
The garden is a sanctuary, vibrant of living and growing, death is not
present.
Occasionally she hears planes overhead, she wonders if they bring PPE.
A long away siren.
A conversation with a passing man, who tells her a women with the same name
as her own was buried this week.
Purerehua the roaring hovering stirs the final lament and farewell.

This show is placed on a guest-slot. Presented by wellington.access.radio 106.1 FM.

Show 791: Abre Cadavre

© Barbara Kaiser
via archive.org

The Vienna Radia Collective – worked out the common transmission with online video sessions during the covid-19 closing and confronted with the common work in front of the monitors and the mirrored mutual reality made us think of the novel Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll. 

We used the Radia proven method of “Cadavre Exquis” to mirror and reflect our sonic ideas mutually.  Our program “Abre Cadavre” consists of small parts that went around in our collective and the last 30 seconds of each piece of the predecessor’s piece were the basis for the next one. 

Unconsciously a journey through a sonic magic land with sound, text and surprising transitions was created.

Contributions by Barbara Huber, Barbara Kaiser, Lale Rodgarkia-Dara, Karl Schönswetter and Peter Wetzelsberger.

Thanks to Alex, Feli, Martina, Susanne and Susi for their voices. 

Screenshot on jit.si

May you live in interesting times.

Show 765: 3019 – a radio play by Vienna Radia Collective

Photo: Karl Schönswetter

To define a dwelling place, for a terrestrial, is to list what it needs for its subsistence, and, consequently, what it is ready to defend, with its own life if need be. This holds as true for a wolf as for a bacterium, for a business enterprise as for a forest, for a divinity as for a family.
Bruno Latour – Down to Earth

via archive.org

The year is 3019, the atmosphere has sunk to 50 cm, the sun burns the earth’s surface and people hide in caves and dig in the earth for food and riches of past civilizations. The elite has retreated to “red” and left the earth to the impoverished 99% and their fate. Humans long for the top, but still have to crawl because getting up is deadly. A new man enters the colony cave and messes things up. Will he possibly crawl up? And what will he find there?

Text by Barbara Huber, Karl Schönswetter & Peter Wetzelsberger
Voices by Daniela Fürst, Barbara Huber, Barbara Kaiser, Lale Rodgarkia-Dara, Jürgen Rendl, Karl Schönswetter, Peter Wetzelsberger

The play uses excerpts of:

  • Dream on my Nazareth
  • Atemlos durch die Nacht by Helene Fischer
  • Wenn ich einmal reich wär’ by Ivan Rebrov
  • Don’t Give Up by Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush
  • Step by Step by NKOTB
  • Radia Show 753: Space Audacity by Soundart Radio

The play uses sounds from freesound.org:
https://freesound.org/people/Glaneur%20de%20sons/sounds/104949/
https://freesound.org/search/?q=blubbern
https://freesound.org/people/dcf77/sounds/324576/
https://freesound.org/people/digifishmusic/sounds/73690/

Show 750: enttäuschungen (disappointments) (Guest Slot: Radiofabrik)

by Peter Haas for Radiofabrik

Well – expectations of radio (seeing something?) and expectations of the arts (something beautiful?) and disappointments, respectively: such tight packages of overlays (the findings and the collected flotsam) so that it’s not that easy anymore….

But always those voices and these sounds and then something’s saying something….

From times when it was hard for an amateur to tinker with good mixtapes, an addiction salvaged into times where they’re easy to make, but hard to curb….

Peter Haas is an amateur in many fields

Fallen into this transmission where the voices of Ivor Cutler, Sabine Gizelt, Birgit Sattlecker, Richard Tuttle, forced entertainment, Johan Simons, Robert Gernhardt, Erik Hable, Meese, Hillary Clinton, my own, and so on.

Music by Ivor Cutler, Clemens Band Denk, Karine Polwart, 8orror, FSK, Robert Wyatt, The International Nothing, and so on.

With support by Peter Wetzelsberger, A, Didi Neidhart, Hans Pollhammer.

Missing (but maybe next time): Thomas Hirschorn, Gerhard Spring, Endo Anaconda, Ed and you.