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Radiophrenia Redux: Cucina Povera and Gregory Whitehead (Audio)

May 17, 2021
Produced by Radiophrenia.

This monthly program features highlights and commissions from Glasgow art radio station Radiophrenia. Presented in today's episode are The Healer by Cucina Povera and As All the Heavens by Gregory Whitehead.

Cucina Povera is the solo project of Luxembourgish-Finnish musician Maria Rossi. It has been described as one of the most striking new voices from Glasgow’s underground music scene. Named after the Italian culinary concept which emphasizes the use of a few simple ingredients, Cucina Poveraconjures gorgeous, otherworldly songs about nourishment and precocity from layered vocals and electronics. For Radiophrenia 2020, Rossi embarked on a new body of work, produced at the music studio WORM in Rotterdam. The theme once again riffs on a favorite: asceticism. Simplistic synthlines interweave with a text. The work has gathered momentum over months of creative stasis, and it seeks to pass a sentiment of strength-in-introspection onwards.

Commissioned for Radiophrenia 2020 with the support of Creative Scotland. https://cucinapovera.bandcamp.com

As All the Heavens is composed and performed by Gregory Whitehead, with Aimée Anders as the Voice of the No Place. Based on four lines from a poem by Emily Dickinson:
As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race,
Wrecked, solitary, here -

Presented on an annual basis, Radiophrenia is a temporary art radio station – a two-week exploration into current trends in sound and transmission arts. Broadcasting live from Glasgow’s Centre for Contemporary Arts, the station promoted radio as an art form, encouraging challenging and radical new approaches to the medium. Each year, the broadcast schedule includes a series of newly commissioned radio works, live shows, pre-recorded features and 12 Live-to-Air performances. The majority of the program is made up from selections submitted to an international open call for sound art and radio works. Radiophrenia is managed by Mark Vernon and Barry Burns and is funded through Creative Scotland’s Open Project Funding with additional support from CCA Glasgow.