It took a year or more to think of a sequel to The Exeter Whisper (2018), a radio work realised with 400 primary school children in which a short text decayed and revivified under pressure of being passed along individually and being misheard and reinterpreted. This time I searched for a transparent and static text as a point of departure. I settled on the phrase “God Save The Queen” for five reasons. First, it is something one never actually says; secondly, it is something one never actually thinks; thirdly, everyone in the UK knows precisely what it means and carries a civic weight; fourthly, it is essentially meaningless, especially perhaps to a republican atheist such as myself; and finally, it is a phrase which will become extinct when the present Queen dies, as she shortly will. Initially I wanted to have lots of people repeat the phrase so as to provide a map of regional accents and dialect, perhaps drawing on Members of Parliament as speakers. The corona virus crisis meant that faced with the Radia deadline I had instead to do this sketch on the spot, using a standard industrial sound effects unit which brought out the tones of my own received pronunciation and seemed instantly to dictate rhythm, diction, and a sense of musicality and ham theatre I had not anticipated. This is a live recording made in real time on the afternoon of Tuesday 16 March 2020 in Resonance FM’s Frank Howling Studio. It is dedicated to Michael Umney and Margot Gibbs on the occasion of the postponement of their wedding. Title by Anthony Moore.
Tag Archives: Resonance FM
Show 756: Passage Pending – various artists (Resonance FM)

One of seven events as part of “Suspensions: London->Manchester,” “Passage” was a live transmission on Resonance Extra from a moving train between London Euston and Manchester Piccadilly, on 5 September 2019, co-curated by Agata Kik and Ania Mokrzycka (Irruptive Chora), David Rousell (Biosocial Lab, Manchester Metropolitan University) and Catharine Cary (Royal College of Art/SenseLab). The concept for this broadcast was “moving from one place to another, changing in one way or another, moving through, across, under, between, allowing oneself to be moved.” Joined by artists Jasper Llewellyn, Andre Fogliano, Nicola Tirrabasso, John Hardy, Erik Lintunen and Cole Robertson, on this journey the curators were attuned to what the philosopher Erin Manning has called “Minor Movements.” The broadcast audio, featuring contributions from all the aforementioned, was cut up and moved about by Ed Baxter on 6 September 2019 for this Radia transmission. The live broadcast producer and on air announcer was Michael Umney.
One of seven events as part of “Suspensions: London->Manchester,” “Passage” was a live transmission on Resonance Extra from a moving train between London Euston and Manchester Piccadilly, on 5 September 2019, co-curated by Agata Kik and Ania Mokrzycka (Irruptive Chora), David Rousell (Biosocial Lab, Manchester Metropolitan University) and Catharine Cary (Royal College of Art/SenseLab). The concept for this broadcast was “moving from one place to another, changing in one way or another, moving through, across, under, between, allowing oneself to be moved.” Joined by artists Jasper Llewellyn, Andre Fogliano, Nicola Tirrabasso, John Hardy, Erik Lintunen and Cole Robertson, on this journey the curators were attuned to what the philosopher Erin Manning has called “Minor Movements.” The broadcast audio, featuring contributions from all the aforementioned, was cut up and moved about by Ed Baxter on 6 September 2019 for this Radia transmission. The live broadcast producer and on air announcer was Michael Umney.
Show 729: Circular Thinking by Mark Vernon and Jenn Mattinson (Resonance FM)

Using interviews and field recordings pertaining to all manner of cyclical processes, circuits, loops, spinning things and rotating machines Circular Thinking is a multi-channel work by Mark Vernon and Jenn Mattinson. The piece was commissioned by the Octopus Collective for The Hub, an outdoor ambisonic sound system situated in the town centre of Workington, UK. Sourced from across the region of Cumbria (north west England), the material used in the composition of the piece includes recordings of a potters wheel, a launderette, wind turbines, speedway races, a water mill, bicycle wheels, a clock restorer’s workshop and a tour of the Cranston’s sausage factory where they make the famous spiralled Cumberland ring sausages.
Show 700: “We all emerge some hours later, baffled” by James Greer and Neil Luck (for Resonance FM)
Tokyo is a city in a continual state of performance, a panoply of lives compressed into a dense metropolis. Underneath all the glossy commerce, all the confronting pop culture, all the tourists, however, is the city’s strange and fascinating underbelly – a rich strata of human subcultures. Over one humid, woozy summer weekend James Greer and Neil Luck traverse the marginalia of Tokyo at night, negotiating its train lines, visiting deserted bubble-era ghost towns, underground jazz venues, salaryman drinking spots, and a tiny bar repurposed as a theatre. “We all emerge some hours later, baffled” is their disorienting mix of reconfigured field recordings and half remembered reflections.
James Greer: www.jamesagreer.com
Neil Luck: http://www.neilluck.com/about/about.html
Resonance FM: https://www.resonancefm.com/
Show 672: Strangeness by Erik Lintunen (Resonance FM)
STRANGENESS: a documentary composition exploring everyday emergences of weirdness across both human and non-human lifeworlds – a combination of eld recordings, interviews and other sonic obscurities that voice perspectives on the absurdity of living.
The broadcast is a contribution from Erik Lintunen – a young sound artist currently studying and working in London – on behalf of Resonance FM.
Show 643: Kogawa & Aufermann @ addicted2random (Resonance FM/Radio Corax)
In July 2013 on the invitation of Radio Corax’s addicted2random festival Knut Aufermann and Tetsuo Kogawa created a duo performance, with Knut’s feedback electronics set inside the glass hall of the Händel house, and Tetsuo streaming his homemade AM transmitter interference live from Tokyo.
This is a replacement Radia show.
Show 642: Larry Shipping In Der Abtei Und Saaleaue Bei Planena (1. Teil)
A remix of the Resonance Radio Orchestra work commissioned by Radio Revolten featuring Ed Baxter (concept, texts, electronics), Adam Bushell (percussion), Marie Anne Fliegel (speech), Peter Lanceley (electric guitar, singing), Kim Moore (viola), Joe Qiu (bassoon), James Taylor (vibraphone), Milo Thesiger-Meacham (electronics, harpsichord) and Chris Weaver (electronics).
The spoken part of the text is in German and an illustrated text can be found here. Imagine an x/y axis in which the pedantry of the words is in proportion to the dissolution of the actual broadcast and you are entering into the mind of this work, the last part of a sequence begun in Spring 2015 with Score for Open Heart Surgery on Charlie Watts and continued in 2015/16 with Heart Like a Duck. It is a long-winded meditation on the nature of memory, the violence of identity, the origin of writing, the pressure of locale, all the usual stuff… influenced by Elias Canetti, WG Sebald et al.
The lyrics to the songs, sung in English, are made up of fragments from 1920s’ and 1930s’ rural American blues – Charley Patton, Robert Johnson, Willie Brown, Kid Bailey, Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James etc – as was the case with The Death of Kodak (which drew solely on words from a single song by Blind Willie McTell, Travelin’ Blues).
So – a synthesis, one that is self-indulgent, portentous and entirely fugitive. Note: Larry Shipping is the belief of some One Direction fans that two of its members are in a secret gay relationship. In this context, the point is the perverse, subversive and abundantly creative mode of consumption that Larry Shipping entails, and the cordon sanitaire it forms. On first contemplating the area around Halle, the flow of the river in the image above was suggestive.
Recorded at Radiophrenia, Glasgow; Telegraph Hill Festival, London; and Radio Revolten, Halle, Spring 2016 to Spring 2017.
Made in Europe.
Resonance FM
Show 613: Trajectory by Milo Thesiger-Meacham (Resonance FM)
In this piece, ‘Trajectory’, devised by Milo Thesiger-Meacham, he and Patryk Gierczak very simply explore miscommunication. Recorded simultaneously in two separate studios, without any communication or forethought, this experiment relied only on the musicians being able to hear each other’s sounds. Produced by Milo Thesiger-Meacham, in association with Resonance FM. Painting by Milo Thesiger-Meacham. Engineered by George Rayner-Law.
Show 587: From Darkness To Light (Resonance FM)
From Darkness To Light was written by Johny Brown and produced by Chris Brierley with extra recording by James Stephen Finn. The main voice of the piece was taken by Tam Dean Burn, other voices taken were Inga Tillere and Chris Brierley. The music was courtesy of the Band Of Holy Joy Scrap and Salvage Movement derived from a live performance devised by Tam Dean Burn. Writing credits for the music belong to Andy Astle, Christopher Brierley, James Stephen Finn and Johny Brown.
Bad Punk is a weekly one hourly show of sound collage and abstract text produced by Band Of Holy Joy and broadcast on Resonance Fm every Friday night at 10pm they can be contacted c/o badpunkradio@gmail.com and Band Of Holy Joy can be visited at www.bandofholyjoy.co.uk
Show 561: ‘Balfron Tower’ by The Bermuda Triangle Test Transmission Broadcasts for Resonance FM
Poplar, East London: Erno Goldfinger’s Balfron Tower hums. Melanie Clifford & Howard Jacques are two of the artists living and working there with Bow Arts, while the tower awaits renovation. For this 28 minute portrait they recorded and played back on various devices sounds from within the building: the humming of the enormous, ancient heating system; the lifts; radios in the basement; playing marbles in the stairwell and sounds from outside: the derelict playground at the base of the tower; kicking a football; stroking the concrete. The piece is constructed from live improvisational play: all sounds are field recordings played at varying speeds.
Testing sounds and ideas within and without the broadcast studio: The Bermuda Triangle Test TransmissionBroadcasts is a weekly radio programme made by sound artists HowardJacques & Melanie Clifford with collaborators. Broadcast live on London’s radio arts station Resonance 104.4FM & online www.resonancefm.com Thursdays 23.00 – 00.00 GMT. Each programme is a unique improvisation, constructed live. Recent broadcasts archived here: https://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/playlists/bermuda-triangle-test-transmissions