notes
it is time for another sonic transmission. today Friday 9th September at 13:00hrs, LYL Radio, France will broadcast the 'Temple of Faitiche'.
this show is now available for playback here:
https://lyl.live/episode/temple-of-faitiche-34
the temple, was created by German electronic musician and artist Jan Jelinek and the faitiche label. guest artists are invited to contribute to the contents of the temple. i was invited to select 30mins of material. each piece inspired by a series of preoccupations, current fascinations, bleeps, assemblages and original materials foraged from the blackbody_radiation archives. don't be put off by reading the text. it is intended to frame the sound and musical choices i was faced with, and also to contextualise those within the genre of mix selections.
as Eve Arnold once said:
"The social media world teaches us that most problems can be summed up in 208 characters and instant reaction is the way to think about problems."
so, to the title. 'Location, Source & Interactions'.
In one sense this was an introduction to my enthusiasm for composition, location recording and a reflection of my own current obsessions – music i had listened to throughout the last year and in another way, it was a jumping off point to present certain influences old and new and to position those in a new context.
like slicing a locations space with a sound. that sound event makes it then become place.
negotiating many author's works to generate a meaningful output within an established format is actually an interesting challenge. i prefer to use sound as a medium to convey a sense of adventure, a mood. even with the huge amount of streaming platforms, the participating 'selectors' in the digital space and the distribution of content found via the internet, you will be hard pushed to find any of these works positioned and sequenced in the same way. . . that is not to say that a human is better than an algorithm. quite the contrary in some cases, but on this occasion i feel a human selection wins out.
it is dedicated to the acts of sound making by hand and technology, the invisibility of sound sources, and simulated ambience. of spaces as phenomena, but not just spaces – also situations. the real and imagined, the in-between.
things to listen out for:
Location: a space or place that gives a sense of experiencing its sound events.
Source: this could be a physical space, a piece of code, or even a circuit. it is separate from any visual cues. an acousmatic sense of experiencing.
Interaction: ways in which humans interface with tools and objects to make sounds. tools could be microphones, computers, synthesisers, drumsticks or code to operate software.
idiosyncratic musical thoughts, ideas and themes permeate the mix and are concretised here in what i would call a 'sonic vitrine'. like musical Sage's, these selected artists and performers arrived at their finished works from a certain epoch, and are sequenced here in another time in another context. . . and played back in yet another time when you next decide to listen to them! It is then, truly a sonic vitrine'.
in the sequence is a 12" Warehouse track from Sheffield, UK. the style of which is otherwise known as 'Bleep' or 'Bleep and Bass'. i am very interested in site and location as part of my sound practice. i decided to 'reconstruct' the listening experience of being at a Warehouse circa 1989 as a fictional sequence. the original track (created from an electronic machine with no 'real world' spatial acoustics) segues into a recorded version of said track in a location that is clearly recognisable as playback from a 'rave' in a space. it is, in fact from inside a Warehouse in the Northwest of England circa 1989. so, it was an ode to different times – slight nostalgia even! there is also a location recording made in 2019 near the end of the sequence. It has not been placed in the mix because of it's exotic language . . . it's there because of the situation that I found myself in. It was a religious ceremony happening right in front of me. this was more a recording of a sonic confrontation / event on the fly. back against the wall so to speak. no carefully positioned microphones on location days before, no staring at peak level meters – it was instinctively documented. field recording can be seen as something exotic, something often practiced alone, and even exclusive. . . it's not always the case, and why should it be!
audio selected for this broadcast showcases the various and at times singular attributes concerning a sound source, a location, an event that took place at that location or interactions with technologies that enable sound making to prevail.
however, narratives fade eventually; novelty has an expiry date. as time passes some of these artists works have fallen out of favour, been devalued and overlooked. works stripped of their initial functions and contexts. perhaps listening to this you will find them as a new discovery worth spending time with and finding more about there histories. if you haven’t already listen here with accompanying tracklist.