Ears Have Ears features weekly exclusive contributions by experimental artists in the form of either an imaginary soundtrack, mixtape, live recording, in-studio performance or interview. This is a collection of content contributed to Ears Have Ears during 2018.

Ears Have Ears 2018

Originally broadcast on Ears Have Ears, FBi Radio Sydney. Listen back to the full program here: https://fbiradio.com/945fm/programs/ears-have-ears/2018-08-02/

An abstract soundtrack, inspired by places and memories left behind. 'Memory Extraction' is a brand new long-form work by Melbourne producer Compound (Per Bystrom), created exclusively for Ears Have Ears. Bystrom is a Swedish native who has been active in his new homeland since moving here in 2003, contributing to irreverant and well-respected bands Exhaustion, Leather Towel, Voice Imitator and in trio mode with Chris Smith and Matthew Mero. 

As Compound, Bystrom has released 'Eternal Estate' on Nice Music in 2017, followed by 'Psychic Withdrawal' on Altered States Tapes in 2018, fusing industrial techno convention with dense atmospheres.

"Memory Extraction was recorded during the off-season in Victorian Peninsula coastal town Rye, and engineered by Mikey Young at his home. This elongated piece reflects on places and memories left behind, connections lost, abstracted and half remembered. I grew up with VHS, and watched a majority of my favourite movies on pirated BASF video tapes. The static drenched voices and warbling vision is how I recall those early years in Sweden, and I wanted to start this with the familiarity of an old memory. It's exactly what you think it is. I love how old memories are less distinct, but seem to carry a heavier emotional load. As we look back on more recent events and progressing through the piece, a clearer view reveals itself. The tail of the recording reflects on memories still forming. These fragments coalesce biologically with an intangible sense of nostalgia, both musically and emotionally – perhaps a soundtrack to the memory of the listener hearing this piece for the first time." - PER BYSTROM

EHE 02.08.18 - Compound - Memory Extraction

An exclusive soundtrack by M. Geddes Gengras, an electronic composer living in New York’s Hudson Valley. Since emerging in the L.A. experimental music community in the mid 2000’s, Geddes has traced a wide world of sound, as a solo synthesist & collaborator with an equally wide range of artists, including The Congos, Greg Fox, Joe McPhee, and Sun Araw (with whom he cofounded Duppy Gun, an outlet for outer orbit dancehall productions). Recently, his focus has been on a wide-angle & breathtaking synthetic sound commingling ambient, minimalism & ‘new music’, explored at great length in the new 2.5 hour document Light Pipe on Room40.

On his soundtrack contribution called 10 voices (for Meredith Monk):

“Excerpted and expanded on from my musical meditation routine, I try to spend time each day listening to my synthesizers, imaging them as musicians practicing endlessly in the other room. Sometimes I just turn everything on, tune into an endless chord and just let them all chatter away on their own paths & tempos. I was thinking about the inherently intimate nature of sharing one’s sound world with outsiders & my quest for more expressive ways to sculpt these things into being after a morning spent inside Monk’s Song’s of Ascension so I dedicated it to her.” - M. Geddes Gengras

Photo above by Gabrielle Valenti-Gengras.

EHE 06.12.18 - M. Geddes Gengras - 10 Voices (for Meredith Monk)

Originally broadcast on Ears Have Ears, FBi Radio Sydney. Listen back to the full program here: https://fbiradio.com/945fm/programs/ears-have-ears/2018-11-29/

Ears Have Ears host Brooke Olsen chats with Queens-based artist Eartheater ahead of her performance at Unsound Adelaide 14-16 December, 2018. 

Eartheater, aka Alexandra Drewchin, distills foley-filled digital production, a three-octave vocal range, and classical composition into works suspended between obsessively detailed sonic tapestries and electronica. She released her third-full length IRISIRI through PAN earlier this year, a complex album exploring the ambiguity of words, moral surreality and the evolution of sexuality in a digital age. She is known for her visceral and emotive live performances, making her upcoming appearance in Australia highly anticipated.

EHE 29.11.18 - Eartheater Interview - Part 1

EHE 29.11.18 - Eartheater Interview - Part 2

Originally broadcast on Ears Have Ears, FBi Radio Sydney. Listen back to the full program here: https://fbiradio.com/945fm/programs/ears-have-ears/2018-11-22/

An exclusive soundtrack by Los Angeles-based artist and composer Geneva Skeen. Influenced by écriture féminine, alchemical metaphors, and a range of musical traditions ranging from holy mysticism to industrial, Skeen works with with recordings, digital presets, voice, and mixed instrumentation. Her performances, publications, and installations focus on the contrast between facing the finite resources of our physical landscapes and their infinite digital representations. She is an MFA candidate in the Music/Sound program at Bard, a recipient of the Touch Mentorship program, and a member of VOLUME, a curatorial collective focused on sound-based practices. Her recent release A Parallel Array of Horses can be found on Australian label Room40.

Her soundtrack titled 'The Oval Window' is a stereo drone work composed strictly using recordings of voice and piano processed through digital and analog technologies. The sloping harmonics and peripheral speech affects highlighted in the composition were scraped from the original raw recordings, then reshaped in relation to each other’s’ line, pitch, and duration.

https://genevaskeen.bandcamp.com/

EHE 22.11.19 - Geneva Skeen - The Oval Window

An exclusive soundtrack by the legendary Australian sound collage / mash up artist B’O’K.

Victorian sound artist B’O’K aka Buttress O’Kneel has been active since the late 90s, experimenting with sound collage, cut-up political speech, glitch-pop, mashup and media manipulation. She has created everything from ‘audio documentaries’ to compilations of damaged CDs skipping. B’O’K chops, distorts, stretches and mangles popular music in compelling ways and has gifted Ears Have Ears with a very special soundtrack called A Basket of Ears, in celebration of our 7 year birthday in November 2018.

29.11.18 - B'O'K - A Basket of Ears

FBi Radio's multi-award winning 
experimental show (2011 - last air date August 29, 2019)

Created by Brooke Olsen & Scarlett Di Maio.
fbiradio.com/945fm/programs/ears-have-ears