Although educated in music, Jewel Dirks spent most of her life in psychology as a counselor for the seriously mentally ill and teaching brain anatomy and neurology. Now she is retired on a small farm in Wyoming’s Wind River Indian Reservation (USA). Her consuming passions in life remain roaming the wilderness areas with her pack goats and composing music from natural sounds around her.

“I am nonbinary, which has given me the gift of perceiving the world in an unusual and humorous manner. As I grow old, I’m increasingly aware that my purpose in life is simply to be aware of all nature which surrounds me.

All of my music is created from these natural sounds--I like to think of it as Electric Earth Music. To compose a piece, I record a short burst of something that’s special in my world--a coyote, a bird call, tree branches scratching together, a donkey bray… I then explore that sound by focusing on single aspects or colors at a time, such as a particular curl in the sound of a bird call, or maybe a tiny portion of the unusual frequencies that which create the rich call of my sheep as he begs for a peanut. I then add effects in order to exaggerate or enhance those quirky parts of each color I’ve isolated.  Exploring the original sound in this way will give me several varieties of little colors to use as a palette--sometimes as many as 50 different little sounds all from that one original recording. I assign these different colors to a keyboard, which allows me to move them around easily at different pitches and to put them in different rhythms.

In this way I explore that one original sound to its limits, and present it to you as a gentle explosion of my understanding of that original sound. I often return to the original being which created that sound with a completely new understanding of it.

It’s always fascinating to me to realize that each set of pieces in some way still reflects the core essence of the original sound.  Tree music will always differ from donkey music, which will always differ from coyotes…or birds…or irrigation pipes…  But it will still have “tree-ness,” much the way a grizzled, winkled old woman’s face contains all her life of youthful exuberance and folly.

The music is not written for any purpose other than appreciating the incredible beauty that surrounds us.  Recognizing that we are the final generation to witness the glory of our earth, the music is my way of humbly honoring what we are losing.”

https://jeweldirks.rewardmusic.com/

Laura Netz's sounds focus on handmade tools and DIY laboratories for music making and creativity. They use outdoor natural environments' field recordings, along with raw, unprocessed sound data.

Interested in the situated listening and the effects of rhythm in thoughts, the expression of frequencies and vibrations reminds her of the powerful connections in nature. The piece ‘Medial Dark Ages’ played on this show, uses bat signals transduced to sound, sheep sounds and a pure data drum machine. 

Laura Netz (Barcelona, 1982). Participant at hacking culture and noise scene has taken part in many international events, such as exhibitions, workshops, conferences, and concerts. As a Live Performer, she has acted in various festivals and events in London and overseas: Noizemaschine, London; XX Studio, Montreal, Canada, 2015; Noise Toys Orchestra, Cafe Oto, London, 2015; Sonica FM, London, 2015; OneBeatEcho, New York, US, 2014. In 2014, she released her first record at the [EdP069] Editora do Porto. In 2015, she launched her independent record label EAM Elektronische-art-and-music. She is well-known in London noise scene where she performs under the moniker Laura Netz / Medial Ages. Nowadays, she is promoting the series Sonic Electronics taking place in London, various venues, where inviting different artists from the community influenced by noise, experimental, electronics and open source music.

http://netzzz.net/medial-ages-live/

@laura.netzzz

Playlist:

Jewel Dirks:
Coyote Nips / Rings / Roots / The Sun Shines Through You/
Where is This Taking Me / Is it Love, or Just the Cool of the Evening/
Inside the Aquafer / Mist Ghost / We Never Imagined / Their Last Journey

Laura Netz:
Medial Dark Ages

radioart106 is an independent monthly Radioart program curated and produced by Meira Asher since 2014. radioart106 explores a wide spectrum of creative radio by worldwide radio artists.

Radioart is a subset of Soundart where Radioart is produced for/with the medium of radio and is specifically suited to be broadcasted on air waves. Radioart opens new ways and approaches to radio making, where the listener takes part whether through the intensity of the listening experience or sometimes through their active participation.

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