Created by Christopher DeLaurenti.

He writes, “Phonography has been sometimes been defined as “creative field recording,” taking and placing microphones out into the world in unusual ways and unexpected places. In this program phonographer Christopher DeLaurenti presents several specimens of subaudible phonography – field recordings from outside the realm of human hearing.

This program features four examples. “Below the written pitches of Brian Ferneyhough’s ‘Superscriptio’ for solo piccolo” spectrally extracts sound beneath the written pitches of Brian Ferneyhough’s “Superscriptio” to reveal recording anomalies, latent undertones, and mechanical noises. It’s akin to hearing the piece through a hydrophone.

In “Silences normalized from the complete organ works of Olivier Messiaen (part 1)” I amplified room tone to reveal the inner workings of an organ and its environment, including residual tones, traffic, stray speech, and tiny electrical anomalies.

The third example is an odd specimen of radio transmission—a rarity for its length and depth of activity: “Open Carrier, Citywide One Manhattan.”

In the United States, an “open carrier” is police parlance for a radio that has been inadvertently left on in Talk/Transmit mode. An open carrier stalls and paralyses broadcast traffic, leaving so-called “dead air” to reveal sudden gaps, smudges of hiss, gently swaying drones, beeping alerts, fragmented words, quick phrases, recessed conversations, and other unexpected artifacts. It’s like butt-dialing everyone who is listening to the radio. I recorded this example by accident in 2004 during the protest against then-president George W. Bush and the Republican National Convention in New York.

The final example is an excerpt from “of silences intemporally sung: Luigi Nono’s Fragmente-Stille, an Diotima.” Here, I have inverted Nono’s only string quartet by muting the audible passages played by a string quartet. Then I elevated room tone, discreet ambiance, and other assumed silences above the threshold of audibility. You will hear on-the-fly tunings, annunciatory gasps, hurried breaths, sul ponticello bowings, and creaking chairs; these eruptions and outcries fuse with flickers of ambient sound. You might also hear artifacts of the recording process, especially digital glitches and artificial echo. Visit delaurenti.net for more about Christopher DeLaurenti and subaudible phonography.”

More information at https://wavefarm.org/radio/wgxc/audio-archive/y0dgtt

American novelist, short story writer, essayist, painter, and spoken word performer William S. Burroughs is sonically explored in this episode. Born 100 years ago and died in 1997, Burroughs’ cut-up period — the mid-1950s to mid-1960s — is explored here, with a special focus on Burroughs use of bodies and diseases as transmission metaphors. Ronald De Feo wrote in Modern Occasions in 1972, “in ‘The Ticket that Exploded,’ he scatters among his short-winded and repetitive fantasies a metaphysics, an eschatology, a theory of possession by demonic tape recorders, a theory of sexuality, an assault on advertising as a form of brainwashing, the usual quota of flashbulb-and-firecracker sodomies, and some suggestions for mind-changing party games.” This show cuts-up Burroughs’ words and mixes them with other odd sounds and stories. Two in particular about the body as transmitter or receiver. The episode samples Lucille Ball, talking about her molar radio, and an episode of the 1960s American television show “Gilligan’s Island” in which the title character’s tooth becomes a radio receiver. Then radio artist Anna Friz talks about whale radio, and other sonic signals sent by underwater creatures, from a talk in Toronto, Canada at the “Trans-X Transmission Art Symposium.” Burroughs words on disease, bodies, and transmission are cut-up throughout the show. Produced by Tom Roe from Wave Farm and WGXC in New York, in the United States.

“Morton Feldman Says, Robert Ashley,” from April 9, 2011 Wave Farm/WGXC broadcast. Performed by Bill Hellermann and Max Goldfarb. Hellermann and Goldfarb perform Robert Ashley’s “Morton Feldman Says” live in WGXC 90.7-FM’s Hudson Studio on April 9, 2011. Wave Farm Executive Director Galen Joseph-Hunter introduces the broadcast, and asks a few questions afterward. Click here to download the audio file. (28:11)

German composer Hans Schüttler creates live radio dramas, and was recently in New York City for a workshop and performance at Harvestworks as part of 2013 New York Electronic Art Festival. Hans Tammen from Harvestworks put together this audio tour of Schüttler’s work. It includes excerpts of “Death of an Underwater Diver” and others. This show was produced for Wave Farm‘s WGXC in New York.

Hans Schüttler produces radio dramas for German public radio WDR, DeutschlandRadio Berlin, NDR, and others. He has produced radio dramas for writers such as Günther Eich and Vladimir Grossman, but also his own productions in various genres. As an audio artist he also created works for theater productions and audio books. Schüttler studied piano with Nicolai Posnjakow, and currently teaches at the Universities of Kassel, Rostock and Halle. As a pianist and composer he worked together with a wide range of artists such as Manos Tsangaris, Dieter Schnebel, Barry Guy, Dror Feiler, Anthony Braxton, Howard Johnson, Jay Oliver, Jimmy Carl Black, Dangaa Khosbayar Hosoo, Ge Suk Yeo, Kuyn Dong Yeo.
Download an mp3 of the show here.

Sam Sebren and Liz LoGiudice to bring you a glimpse into the transmission of Anguilla rostrata, aka the American eel. Sebren and LoGiudice trace the eel’s story from the Hudson River to the Caribbean, sometimes by way of Europe and the Pacific. Sebren and LoGiudice look at the American Eel Project’s Hudson River Estuary Program. Teams of scientists, students, and over 200 community volunteers monitor and count glass eels at 12 HREP sample stream locations along the Hudson River in New York State in the United States.

Each year, glass eels – the tiny, transparent young fish – navigate the Atlantic Ocean all the way from the Sargasso Sea to the rivers along the East Coast. Every March and April, these young fish migrate into the rivers and freshwater streams, where they mature for 20 years or more before returning to the Sargasso Sea to mate and die. This episode of “Radia” tracks their progress in the Hudson River, and around the world. The entire show serves as a metaphor for the “Radia” stations and weekly transmission.

Liz LoGiudice is an environmental educator and eel devotee who helps to coordinate the Hudson River Eel Project in Greene County. Sam Sebren is a volunteer citizen scientist for the HREP American Eel Research project, and a multidisciplinary artist who began his career in the East Village New York arts scene in the 1980s. A prolific maker, Sebren’s visual works take form in installation, collage, painting, photography, video, and public works. His sound-based works have ties to noise and no-genre music (Menlo Park Recordings). Sebren also uses the medium of radio to activate dialogue around ecological and social justice issues impacting New York’s upper Hudson Valley. LoGiudice and Sebren collected and edited audio from various eel experts and volunteers of all ages at various locations during the 2012 eel counting season. For more information about the Hudson River Estuary Program, or to volunteer, go here: http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/49580.html

This episode was produced through the Wave Farm studios at WGXC 90.7-FM in New York, in the United States.

From free103point9 in upstate New York, a story of sound effects, subverting a documentary-style radio show with bits of radio theatre created entirely of sound effects. Foley effects in films, and live theatre and radio sound effects are explored. Also music from Spike Jones (“The Sound Effects Man”), Rufe Davis (“I’m a Sound Effects Man”), and Dymaxion (“The Haunted Radio”), plus fake commercials, and excerpts of pop songs (“Paper Planes” by M.I.A. and “Pop Life” from Prince) and more. (27:58) Audio file:

http://data.free103point9.org/r/q5/46/23/Radia_s29_n405_free103point9_WGXC_Sound_Effects.mp3

free103point9 is a non-profit arts organization defining and cultivating the genre Transmission Arts by promoting artists and works with, for, and about the electromagnetic spectrum — the airwaves. Transmission arts programming from free103point9 Online Radio airs every Saturday and every night from midnight to 6 a.m. on WGXC 90.7-FM, a 3300-watt radio station in the Hudson Valley in New York State in the United States.

http://www.free103point9.org/