ARCHIVE

This episode of The Radio Art Hour features the premiere of Echolalia FM, a radio artwork by 2025 Wave Farm artist-in-residence Hali Palombo.

Echolalia is the automatic repetition of phrases spoken by another. It is a self-soothing or self-stimulation technique often seen in individuals on the autism spectrum. Echolalia FM is a piece in three movements, each demonstrating the concept of Echolalia in increasingly abstract fashion. The piece features classical and contemporary instrumentation, voice and the voices of others. Repeated words, phrases (musical and lingual), and sounds present themselves initially as cohesive and eventually they transform into something larger or deteriorate into nothing at all.

Hali Palombo is a composer, visual artist, filmmaker, shortwave radio enthusiast, and amateur historian from the Midwestern United States. Born in Northfield, Minnesota, she has had a natural curiosity about radio and the Midwestern United States from a young age. Her work often weaves the absurdity and mundane beauty of Illinois into her records, short films, drawings and paintings.