WGXC-90.7 FM

The Radio Art Hour: Devil's Radio

Oct 16, 2021: 3pm - 4pm
WGXC 90.7-FM: Radio for Open Ears

90.7-FM in NY's Upper Hudson Valley and wgxc.org/listen everywhere
http://www.wgxc.org/

Standing Wave Radio

wavefarm.org/listen and 1620-AM at Wave Farm
https://audio.wavefarm.org/transmissionarts.mp3

Produced by Wave Farm Radio Artist Fellows and Artistic Director Tom Roe.

Today we tune in a legendary radio art work, a classical composition, and three pop songs, on the theme of the Devil's Radio. The radio art work is from Nicholas Collins, and it is his "Devil's Music" that uses live AM, FM, shortwave, and scanner transmissions to create "a jittery mix of shards of music, speech and radio noise." Also tune in for Donato Cabrera's take on composer Mason Bates "Devil's Radio," on the theme of “Rumor is the Devil’s radio.” George Harrison's "Devil's Radio" is similar in theme, while Robyn Hitchcock's "Devil's Radio" attacks talk radio hosts, and Eugene Chadbourne's "The Devil on the Radio" posits that Beelzebub does not just appear on the AM and FM bands, but also uses a CB radio. But "Devil's Music" is the centerpiece here, with Collins writing, "Devil’s Music is a performance piece about global media, local culture and individual interference. It developed in 1985 out of the confluence of my fascination with early Hip Hop DJs, a Cagean love of the splendor of radio, the introduction of the first affordable, portable samplers (Electro-Harmonix’s 16 Second Digital Delay and Super Replay), and a simple home-made 'stuttering circuit' (inspired, perhaps, by my years as a student of Alvin Lucier.) In 'Devil’s Music' the performer sweeps the radio dial in search of suitable material, which is sampled in snippets of one second or less. These are then looped, layered and de-tuned. The stuttering circuit 're-rhythmitizes' the samples by retriggering and reversing the loops in response to accents in the rhythm of the ongoing (but usually unheard) flow of signal out of the radio – in other words, the radio material you don’t hear is always governing the phrasing of the sounds you do hear, defeating the annoying periodicity of digital loops. The brevity of the samples is disguised by this constant shifting of the start and end points of the loop – a thrifty solution to the high cost of memory. All sounds are taken from transmissions occurring in the AM, FM, shortwave, and scanner bands at the time of the performance; no samples are prepared in advance. The result is a jittery mix of shards of music, speech and radio noise -- sometimes phasing languidly, sometimes driving rhythmically, sometimes careening frantically -- a patchwork quilt stitched from scraps of local airwaves." Read more about "Devil's Music here.

Welcome to "The Radio Art Hour," a show where art is not just on the radio, but is the radio. "The Radio Art Hour" draws from the Wave Farm Broadcast Radio Art Archive, an online resource that aims to identify, coalesce, and celebrate historical and contemporary international radio artworks made by artists around the world, created specifically for terrestrial AM/FM broadcast, whether it be via commercial, public, community, or independent transmission. Come on a journey with us as radio artists explore broadcast radio space through poetic resuscitations and playful celebrations/subversions of the complex relationship between senders and receivers in this hour of radio about radio as an art form. "The Radio Art Hour" features introductions from Philip Grant and Tom Roe, and from Wave Farm Radio Art Fellows Karen Werner and Jess Speer. The Conet Project's recordings of numbers radio stations serve as interstitial sounds. Go to wavefarm.org for more information about "The Radio Art Hour" and Wave Farm's Radio Art Archive.

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