a compelling sonic journey guided by a fine ear

so beautiful moment and such a poetic piece! thank you

for recordings of satellites, string quartet and electronics

Paris, Centre Pompidou April 18th 2021
Quatuor Diotima

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Achille Judica-Cordiglia and his brother Giovanni Battista are well-known amateur radio operators who claimed in the late fifties and early sixties to have heard radio communications taken from secret Soviet Union space missions, including SOS signals, telemetry, and the dying sounds (heartbeats and breathing) of a suffocating "lost cosmonaut.” Even though their claims have been thoroughly debunked, the stories of these sensational intercepts are part of the mythology of the Space Age and stand at the origin of a durable conspiracy theory.
In the 1960s, the idea of a “lost cosmonaut” spoke to acute fears. Despite the optimism of space exploration tales, the reality of space travel—from sending a dog into orbit to putting a man on the moon—had a striking effect on the public and raised more life-altering questions than it provided answers. A cosmonaut lost in space served as a poignant metaphor for individuals’ anxieties about the future in an era of nuclear tension and uncertainty. This helps to explain the diffusion and the longevity of a hoax that identified the stain of some kind of original sin on the shiny surface of the triumphs of the early space age. Now that the cosmos has switched in our imaginations from being the route toward a radiant future for humanity to a place of accumulation for space capitalism or a post-doomsday shelter for the extremely rich, these stories of dead astronauts are more sinister and haunting than ever.

The title "Memories of the Space Age" is borrowed from the collection of stories of the same name by J.G. Ballard (1988), a set of writings thematically linked around rotting launch gantries at Cape Canaveral, the failure of the US space program, dead astronauts eternally orbiting in space, deserted hotels lining the Florida coast, and the lonely, disturbed individuals who linger at the fringes of this lost dream of the Space Age.

The piece uses more than 100 historical radio recordings of human-made objects gravitating in Low Earth Orbit, for example, the beacon beeps of satellites, telemetries, and the voices of cosmonauts, along with the ill-famed Judica-Cordiglia tapes. This material—shifted and transposed to match the harmonic structure of the piece—is the starting point for an imitation game that involves the string quartet and that grows into a complex three-layered polyphony.

In addition to these archival materials, the electronic material features digital processing of the string instruments with the modulation techniques that were, and still are, commonly used for radio and television transmission. The fragile, inharmonic sonorities of the prepared strings are mirrored by electronic phenomena like feedbacks or physically-modeled chaotic circuits that behave in similarly erratic ways, in a laborious attempt to tame the untamable while at the same time pursuing serendipitous glitches.

"Memories of the Space Age" deals with the aesthetics of ground noise, white noise, and lost radio waves, with the misuse and malfunctions of technology, and with the misinterpretation of a chaotic signal as pareidolia. It is also, somehow, a nostalgic homage to obsolete or soon-to-be-obsolete technologies and to the visions of the future these technologies carried. That future now seems irretrievably lost, but its ghost, like Ballard’s dead astronauts, still haunts us.

Mauro Lanza - "Memories of the Space Age" (2020)

Has democracy broken down? Is it even an idea worth fixing? Trip 22 is a three-horse race as Nadia Idle, Jeremy Gilbert and Keir Milburn consider the anti-democratic shifts happening across the political spectrum and ask what it really means to be ruled by the people.

The gang discuss whether democracy is necessary to tackle climate breakdown, how democratic relationships can spawn creativity and joy, and what happens when left politics abandons mass movements – as well as selecting some suitably egalitarian music from Crass, Shonen Knife, the Scratch Orchestra and more.

Music: Crass - 'Punk is Dead' (Use Knife Remix) / Cornelius Cardew & the Scratch Orchestra - 'The Great Learning' / Shonen Knife - 'Riding on the Rocket' / Persimfans Orchestra - Beethoven's 9th Symphony / Weather Report - 'Milky Way'

Books & articles: Robert D. Putnam - Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community / Andreas Malm - How to Blow Up a Pipeline / Geoff Mann and Joel Wainwright - Climate Leviathan: A Political Theory of Our Planetary Future / Paul Hirst - Associative Democracy / Francesca Polletta - Freedom is an Endless Meeting / Sean Smith - Crass Goes Disco

Produced and edited by Chal Ravens and Matt Huxley. PRS Licence Number: LE-0016481

Novara Audio: Radio for a Different Politics

#ACFM Trip 22: Democracy

first and second studies in collaboration with Sarah Saviet and Joseph Houston, created during Fall 2022

piano harmonically aligned with the open violin tuning

realized by Sarah and Joe

recording is taken from the live concert recording, December 2nd, 2022, KM28, Berlin

violin/piano study 1 & 2 for Sarah and Joe (by Catherine Lamb)

Please, use headphones or good loudspeakers.

echo from afar (ii)(2022), for six musicians and electronics
commissioned by hand werk 

Live Recording, hand werk, 29 November 2022, Köln

echo from afar (ii)(2022), for six musicians and electronics

An arrangement of one verse from 

'Song Composed in August' by the Scottish poet and lyricist
Robert Burns (1759 - 1796)

Voice and guitars, arrangement - Fredrik Rasten

Recorded April 20, 2022

Video:

https://youtu.be/D6oJYBopFT0

Song Composed in August (one verse) by Robert Burns

I
II 
III 
Estonian bagpipes: Katariin Raska, Ulvi Võsa, Karolin Vetevoog, Kaisa Kuslapuu, Mari Meentalo, Kerli Kislõi
Premiere recorded by Estonian Classic Radio, 01.05.2023
Be it lines of force or a forgotten contact between the earth and our bodies, the essential point of support.. Earth veins as vital paths with oscillating and resonant intersections? 
Following the events of last February in Southern Turkey and  Western Syria, the earth once again showed also its destructive power, the effects of which are also echoed in this work.
a review by Simon Cummings: https://5against4.com/2023/05/30/estonian-music-days-2023-part-3/

Earth Veins for 6 estonian bagpipes (2023)

Maurizio Azzan
Wasteland_not yet (2023)
for nine amplified musicians
© Casa Ricordi srl, Milano – all rights reserved

Yalda Zamani, conductor

PHACE
Michael Krenn & Doris Nicoletti, sound objects
Walter Seebacher, bass clarinet & sound objects
Berndt Thurner, percussion
Mathilde Hoursiangou, piano
Ivana Pristasova Zaugg, violin
Leo Morello, cello
Alexandra Dienz, double bass
Samuel Toro Perez, electric guitar
Alfred Reiter, sound design

Audio: ORF / Radio Ö1

Wasteland_not yet

Wasteland_not yet (2023) [use headphones!]

paw-marks in wet cement (2015–17), for piano, two percussionists, and amplified ensemble.
Performed by Wilhem Latchoumia, and the EOC conducted by Daniel Kawka.

Clara Iannotta : paw-marks in wet cement (2015–17), for piano, 2 perc, and ensemble

Please, use headphones or good loudspeakers.

dead wasps in the jam-jar (iii) (2017–18)
for string quartet and sine waves

Commissioned by Festival d’Automne à Paris, with the support of the Ernst von Siemens Foundation, and the Proquartet Association.

Live recording at November Music
Quatuor Diotima (Franck Chevalier, Pierre Morlet, Constance Ronzatti,Yun Peng Zhao)

dead wasps in the jam-jar (iii) (2017–18), for string quartet and sine waves

Please, use headphones or good loudspeakers.

MOULT (2018–19), for orchestra
commissioned by Westdeutschen Rundfunk and Wien Modern

Live Recording WDR Orchestra, 12 May 2019, Witten

MOULT (2018–19), for orchestra

Please, use headphones or good loudspeakers.

They left us grief-trees wailing at the wall (2020), for 9 amplified instruments
Commissioned by Ars Nova Ensemble Instrumental, The Riot Ensemble, and Wien Modern

Live Recording, Riot Ensemble, 12 November 2020, London

They left us grief-trees wailing at the wall (2020), for 9 amplified instruments

Clara Iannotta

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