Tuning, Bias, and the Wild Beyond is a conversation between Khyam Allami and Nora Akawi on tonality, music, bio-politics, education, experimentation and improvisation, produced by Radio Alhara.


Khyam Allami is an Iraqi-British multi-instrumentalist musician, composer, researcher and founder of Nawa Recordings. 

Primarily an Oud player, his artistic research focuses on the development of contemporary and experimental practice based on the fundamentals of Arabic music, with a focus on tuning and microtonality.

His recent commissions include Requiem for the 21st Century, an immersive Oud-based installation for Opera North (Leeds, UK), and an upcoming string quartet for JACK quartet (NYC, USA). 

Currently he is completing an M4C/AHRC funded PhD in composition at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham City University. This three year practice-based research degree will see him explore the application of contemporary acoustic, electro-acoustic and electronic compositional techniques and processes to Arabic music through the use of technology and various instrumentation. 


Nora Akawi is a Palestinian architect living in New York. Through research, curatorial, and pedagogical practices, her work lies at the intersection of urban and environmental justice, collective memory, and architecture—drawing from migration and border studies, mapping practices and archive theory.

Recently, Nora curated Al Majhoola Min Al-Ard (L’étrangère sur terre) at the Biennale d’Architecture d’Orléans (2019), and co-curated Friday Sermon, the Bahrain Pavilion exhibition in the Biennale Architettura in Venice (2018). She is co-editor of the books Friday Sermon (Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities, 2018) and Architecture and Representation: The Arab City (Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, 2016).

Tuning, Bias, and the Wild Beyond, produced by Radio Alhara

How There Was So Much Water, by Napo Masheane

Oratures in Africa allow to borrow from each other’s poetic voices, styles, forms, and themes in their translations and interpretations. This is the premise for Napo Masheane’s work to connect her theatrics, poetics and narratives with Francis Lo’s poetic anthology. Child, You Are Death, You Are Dead, You have Died is an interventive series of audio and textual pieces which can be read as an annotation of histories of omission, as well as an intervention into how they can be retold. Fascinated by a saying in an African culture that amplifies that: “He- She- They… That Control History- Herstory… Control the Narrative,” Masheane enters into a dialogue with Francis Lo and Translate into Data to Translate into Fact to Translate – by Lo capturing historic/herstoric data, and translating it into time through a collective translation. Masheane and Lo trial with both of their data collection through slavery, apartheid, migration, civil wars, genocides, un/natural disasters and femicide, that closely knead into transverse ethnic similarities; between their two countries. Masheane weaves a pattern constructed outmade out of a variety of mediums for us to follow through, and across, languages present on the African continent which informed the poetic and sonic composition. 

Commissioned for, and part of what about support and what about struggle, a L’Internationale Online e-publication and screening programme.

Courtesy of the artist.

How There Was So Much Water

So What About The Instinct To Survive, by Napo Masheane

Oratures in Africa allow to borrow from each other’s poetic voices, styles, forms, and themes in their translations and interpretations. This is the premise for Napo Masheane’s work to connect her theatrics, poetics and narratives with Francis Lo’s poetic anthology. Child, You Are Death, You Are Dead, You have Died is an interventive series of audio and textual pieces which can be read as an annotation of histories of omission, as well as an intervention into how they can be retold. Fascinated by a saying in an African culture that amplifies that: “He- She- They… That Control History- Herstory… Control the Narrative,” Masheane enters into a dialogue with Francis Lo and Translate into Data to Translate into Fact to Translate – by Lo capturing historic/herstoric data, and translating it into time through a collective translation. Masheane and Lo trial with both of their data collection through slavery, apartheid, migration, civil wars, genocides, un/natural disasters and femicide, that closely knead into transverse ethnic similarities; between their two countries. Masheane weaves a pattern constructed outmade out of a variety of mediums for us to follow through, and across, languages present on the African continent which informed the poetic and sonic composition. 

Commissioned for, and part of what about support and what about struggle, a L’Internationale Online e-publication and screening programme.

Courtesy of the artist.

So What About The Instinct To Survive

You Are Death, by Napo Masheane

Oratures in Africa allow to borrow from each other’s poetic voices, styles, forms, and themes in their translations and interpretations. This is the premise for Napo Masheane’s work to connect her theatrics, poetics and narratives with Francis Lo’s poetic anthology. Child, You Are Death, You Are Dead, You have Died is an interventive series of audio and textual pieces which can be read as an annotation of histories of omission, as well as an intervention into how they can be retold. Fascinated by a saying in an African culture that amplifies that: “He- She- They… That Control History- Herstory… Control the Narrative,” Masheane enters into a dialogue with Francis Lo and Translate into Data to Translate into Fact to Translate – by Lo capturing historic/herstoric data, and translating it into time through a collective translation. Masheane and Lo trial with both of their data collection through slavery, apartheid, migration, civil wars, genocides, un/natural disasters and femicide, that closely knead into transverse ethnic similarities; between their two countries. Masheane weaves a pattern constructed outmade out of a variety of mediums for us to follow through, and across, languages present on the African continent which informed the poetic and sonic composition. 

Commissioned for, and part of what about support and what about struggle, a L’Internationale Online e-publication and screening programme.

Courtesy of the artist.

You Are Death

Closing Hymn, by Napo Masheane

Oratures in Africa allow to borrow from each other’s poetic voices, styles, forms, and themes in their translations and interpretations. This is the premise for Napo Masheane’s work to connect her theatrics, poetics and narratives with Francis Lo’s poetic anthology. Child, You Are Death, You Are Dead, You have Died is an interventive series of audio and textual pieces which can be read as an annotation of histories of omission, as well as an intervention into how they can be retold. Fascinated by a saying in an African culture that amplifies that: “He- She- They… That Control History- Herstory… Control the Narrative,” Masheane enters into a dialogue with Francis Lo and Translate into Data to Translate into Fact to Translate – by Lo capturing historic/herstoric data, and translating it into time through a collective translation. Masheane and Lo trial with both of their data collection through slavery, apartheid, migration, civil wars, genocides, un/natural disasters and femicide, that closely knead into transverse ethnic similarities; between their two countries. Masheane weaves a pattern constructed outmade out of a variety of mediums for us to follow through, and across, languages present on the African continent which informed the poetic and sonic composition. 

Commissioned for, and part of what about support and what about struggle, a L’Internationale Online e-publication and screening programme.

Courtesy of the artist.

Closing Hymn

Translate Into Data To Translate Into Fact To Translate, by Napo Masheane

Oratures in Africa allow to borrow from each other’s poetic voices, styles, forms, and themes in their translations and interpretations. This is the premise for Napo Masheane’s work to connect her theatrics, poetics and narratives with Francis Lo’s poetic anthology. Child, You Are Death, You Are Dead, You have Died is an interventive series of audio and textual pieces which can be read as an annotation of histories of omission, as well as an intervention into how they can be retold. Fascinated by a saying in an African culture that amplifies that: “He- She- They… That Control History- Herstory… Control the Narrative,” Masheane enters into a dialogue with Francis Lo and Translate into Data to Translate into Fact to Translate – by Lo capturing historic/herstoric data, and translating it into time through a collective translation. Masheane and Lo trial with both of their data collection through slavery, apartheid, migration, civil wars, genocides, un/natural disasters and femicide, that closely knead into transverse ethnic similarities; between their two countries. Masheane weaves a pattern constructed outmade out of a variety of mediums for us to follow through, and across, languages present on the African continent which informed the poetic and sonic composition. 

Commissioned for, and part of what about support and what about struggle, a L’Internationale Online e-publication and screening programme.

Courtesy of the artist.

Translate Into Data To Translate Into Fact To Translate

Song for Many Movements
Jokkoo with Miramizu, Rasheed Jalloul and Sabine Salamé
Live on Radio Alhara

2024 02 09 SESSIÓ JOKKOO X ALHARA AUDIO COMPLERT EQUILIBRAT

As part of the publishing strand ‘Sonic Commons’ L’Internationale Online invited house DJ collective Materia Hache, part of the collective, Others to the Front, to publish and introduce a mix tape, Others to the Front. The invitation arose out of a session in Madrid in September 2023. The music and the tape’s evocative introduction mobilize the rolling rhythms of house music – and the sonic more broadly – as a space for expression, strength and community building.

Mix tape: Materia Hache (Others to the Front) - 'Let's Funk up all Genders!'

'A Love Letter to the Global Intifada' is Peruvian-born, Philadelphia-based DJ Precolumbian’s sonic tribute to anti-colonial resistance and worldwide solidarity movements for the liberation of Palestine. For this hybrid set, the co-founder of queer experimental club night Seltzer weaves together archival soundbites and Afro-Peruvian drums as a love letter to global solidarity with Palestine.
This event is presented as part of Song for Many Movements, an ephemeral experiment in which the ground floor of MACBA becomes a stage for encounters, conversations and shared listening. Curated by María Berríos and Sabel Gavaldon. The set was broadcast live on Radio Alhara.

Precolumbian - 'A Love Letter to the Global Intifada'. Live at MACBA icw Radio Alhara. 22 March 2024

This hour long recording was produced in September 2024 for 24 hrs/Palestine, a global live radio event that transmits different practices from across the world in support of the Palestinian people. The contribution from L’Internationale Online includes a selection of material taken from the ongoing publishing series ‘Towards Collective Study in Times of Emergency’ - the strand that began in the wake of the onset of the genocide in October 2023.

Broadcast: Towards Collective Study in Times of Emergency (for 24 hrs/Palestine)

International Mix

Barking Drums

Nathan Gray, Critical Flicker Frequencies, 2019 

Critical Flicker Frequencies

Rat Laughter

Jana Winderen, The Noisiest Guys on the Planet, 2009 

The Noisiest Guys on the Planet

Shared Sensiblities

This audio track was made for Katia Golovko's installation ‘Écologies de la brousse - Aadaajii laɗɗe’ on the occasion of Branching Streams - Sketches of Kinship exhibition in May 2024 in Dakar.
 
The recordings included in this composition were made between late December 2023 and early January 2024 on Île à Morphil, in the department of Podor, Senegal. Panoramic microphones, Geophone and radio tuner on different frequency bands were used for these recordings.
 
Recording and editing: Cristian Adamo
Mastering: Giuseppe Ielasi 

Écologies de la brousse – Aadaajii laɗɗe

L’Internationale Online is the common platform for research, debate and communication for the confederation L’Internationale and its partner institutions: MG+MSUM (Ljubljana), Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid), MACBA (Barcelona), M HKA (Antwerp), SALT (Istanbul & Ankara), Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), MSN (Warsaw) / NCAD (Dublin), HDK-Valand (Gothenburg)

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