Tune in a radio play from the 1960s with music from Sun Ra, and a radio work from Sheila Davies Sumner. First, "The Stranger," a radio play with musical accompaniment by Sun Ra & His Arkestra, premiered over the Pacifica radio network in the late 1960s, on a program called "Mind’s Eye Theater." The exact date is unknown, but 1968 is a consensus guess (as noted in The Earthly Recordings of Sun Ra). Ra’s incidental music, which is tight and atmospheric, surfaces sporadically beneath the dialog, but at no time is featured. Then, in "In What is the Matter in Amy Glennon?," Sheila Davies Sumner showcases her interest in the connection between the physical and metaphysical, storytelling, science, and psychology, as well as her agility with words and quick wit. The piece simultaneously tells and constructs the story of Amy Glennon, whose body and mind have been separated by “The Great Fathers of Science,” as she reckons with her consciousness, relationship to the quantum, and the bitterness of self-knowledge, and transmutes it into a marriage of philosophy and science, and wisdom in the form of paper cups of hot coffee. The story is told alternatingly by a narrator and by Amy herself, accompanied by a chorus, and is worked and re-worked within itself in an auction-house whose auctioneer takes bids on the content, direction, and meaning of the text. Deeply philosophical, the piece is filled with rapid-fire confetti blasts of references to mythology, science, metaphysics, philosophers, theorists, artists, and subconscious symbolism, playfully hurrying the listener on in a delightful almost giddy pace towards the center of human and universal thought and experience. In its many transmutations, twists, and turns, the piece encourages the listener to reflect on storytelling, identity, the relationship between science and philosophy, and the very nature of being in both the physical and metaphysical senses. Some listeners may feel compelled to listen again and again to follow the various paths, references and trains of thoughts. The script of the piece can be read on the New American Radio archive. - Introduced by Wave Farm Radio Artist Fellow 2020/2021, Jess Speer.

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, Jess Speer, and Andy Stuhl. 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.