J. Aria - ’ honey, it was wonderful’

J. Aria is a UK based DJ, producer, composer and vocalist. A resident of London's Dalston Superstore and Adonis - their house balladry and camp-acid dramatics have seen them become a prominent figure in London’s queer club underground.

Notes on the Mix ///

"This mix was recorded in one take. It represents my devotion to all the beautiful shades of house. Twisting between genre and era. Laying bare my deepest love for dynamics and drama, for HINRG and ecstasy. It is a journey through the history of my passions, and is full of my heart."

SOCIALS:
@j_aria
https://www.instagram.com/_j.aria_

XOXA BLEND 128 - J. ARIA

ADONIS NYD 2024

‘Many Enemies (and they’ll give you pleasure and interest)’ is an electronic music composition formed from the sampling and manipulation of two audio files from the National Library of Scotland's sound archive and original synthesised sound.  Ideally, the piece is envisaged as an acousmatic work for concert presentation or for personal listening with a speaker set up capable of faithfully reproducing the recurring low bass frequencies that are an essential component throughout much of the work. 

Working with archival sounds from the National Library of Scotland's sound archive, I was compelled to explore the criticality of archiving, and considering which sounds are represented and preserved in archives and the identities at play in this process.  

This drew me to off air broadcast recording the BBC educational film on birdwatching. (BBC NLS_AMS-2019-016-1-042a_s2_f02_v1).  I became interested in the sonic qualities of the presenter’s voice, the class and social dynamics of his kindly, broadly RP vocal utterances for the ears of children, as well as the strangeness of some of the words and phrases used.  I was drawn to this voice presenting the recordings of various birds, as well as categorising people into ‘friends’ or ‘enemies’ of birds based on whether or not they participated in the illicit activity of collecting eggs from birds’ nests.  

Underpinning this interest were thoughts around Britishness and Empire and the idea of categorising and naming subjects whether they be different types of birds or human ‘friends’ and ‘enemies’.  I had in the back my mind that symbol of empire invoked by Mark Fisher in the opening chapter of Capitalist Realism:
	‘the British Museum, where you see objects torn from their lifeworlds and assembled as if on the deck of some Predator spacecraft.’ (Fisher 2009, 4).

I considered this theory of decontextualization alongside the Schaefferian concept of the ‘sound object’  (Schaeffer 2004, 98-100) and how cast in this light the manipulation of sound sources can take on a somewhat sinister connotation.  I was drawn to the birdsong, also contained in this audio recording and decided it would be fitting to include some human song in the form of Sydney MacEwan’s rendition of ‘She Moved Through The Fair’ accompanied by Donald Morison. (NLS_WILS-786-2-MOR-24_s2_f01_v1.m4a)

With the specific sound object of my attention being vocal utterances I made connections with Dolar’s analysis of the ‘acousmatic voice’ (Dolar 2006, 62) where ‘the spirit is all in the voice, the voice suddenly endowed with aura and authority.’  Dolar goes on to say that the uncanny power of acousmatic voices made possible through technological means ‘gradually waned as they became common and hence banal.’ (ibid. 63.) However I believe this uncanniness is still palpable for the contemporary listener in the archival recordings, made stranger again and more ghostly by the passage of time.  These were the foundational underpinnings for my sound source selections and the beginning of my compositional process. 


'Many Enemies (and they'll give you pleasure and interest)'

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Cwiar Anthropocene Bard 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿
🎶 Singer, Songwriter, Producer 🎶
Betwixt Pop & Sonic Avant-Garde

'Many Enemies (and they'll give you pleasure and interest)'

Celyn of Gwent

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