A dual contact microphone recording of a temporary wind harp.

Recorded 15 February 2021 at Walltown Crags, Northumberland, UK.
54°59'24.0"N 2°30'46.0"W
Google Maps: https://goo.gl/maps/GLVb4qVRaCbDXk8y9

Part of the Hidden-by-the-Wall Open Remix project:
soundcloud.com/zoviet-france/sets/hidden-by-the-wall-open-remix/

© 2021 This recording is made available under creative commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/)

Wind Harp, Walltown Crags

A wild and unruly assortment of segments from the archives of Shirley & Spinoza Radio – helicopters; Iranian flute music and drum machines; confused tourists and Japanese folk; a warbled cassette from a dusty Kashgar bazaar; a clip from the 1970s television series Kung Fu; Thai molam; cicadas; Uyghur pop; shortwave radio; wolves; a beggar lady’s song recorded in an oasis town; Chinese radio commercials and urban soundscapes; carrier pigeons equipped with droning whistles; Mongolian throat singing; and more. Many thanks to Fausto Caceres for his fearless and inspiring exploration of both forgotten and new ways of making radio.

Fausto is busy cleaning his mother-in-law’s rain gutters but he did take a brief respite to offer some reflections: “Many of the clips you chose send me right back into the time and space I was in when recording them. Listening to clips of Uyghur language radio transport me to all those winter nights spent in my Urumqi apartment, surrounded by a dirty-ice world & the smell of coal burning smokestacks in the air. They conjure the surrounding streets with large hanging hunks of mutton and fur hats for sale all over the place; my frozen mustache; the sounds of my neighbors walking up the stairwell every day making their unique, individual ‘hooting’ calls to activate the sound-triggered lights at each level; fully kitted PLA soldiers marching in the street; calls to prayer; and the dense, addictive collection of music shops and stands selling local cds. Re: the beggar lady singing 'Rosilem' in an oasis town called Artux, I recorded about half hour with her in a quiet, dusty courtyard off the street. Several local kids quietly appeared on the surrounding rooftops to quietly watch.

There’s a clip in there in Uyghur (a radio commercial for some local store) that starts “Aiygul ma! Nime'sh te!” (basically, just ‘what’s up Aigul!’ I used to just say that often to my local Uyghur friends in that same voice to their amusement as some sort of inside joke about my radio operating “pastime”.  My first year, I lived in a compound with all the local artists / musicians that were employed by the government, so I'd bump into the 'radio voices' and musicians I’d become familiar with at the local market all the time. Also within, you hear the annual September 18th air raid sirens commemorating the invasion by the Japanese; the megaphones at the Uyghur bazaar shouting prices; the pigeons (with attached drone whistle) circling my 6th floor apartment…  some fragments of Yunnan radio from later years. 

The earlier era clips you selected from the Oakland studio years seem to imagine some fantasy Sci-Lo-Fi version of what the coming years living in the PRC might bring.  I guess they weren’t so far off!

It’s always felt totally organic and personal to weave all these sounds and recordings spanning so many years into s&S Radio and particularly cool to hear these bits again assembled this way through your ears. I hope your fans enjoy! – Fausto Caceres (06/09/2021)

The cover image is taken from an art installation titled “Babel” by Cildo Meireles (2001), a large circular tower made from hundreds of second-hand transistor radios stacked on top of one another.  

http://compound-eye.org/

 SHIRLEY & SPINOZA RADIO (RIAFC 053)

Shirley & Spinoza Radio [RIAFC 053]

Radio programs recorded in taxis and some field recordings made while traveling throughout the Maghreb & the Sahel. Recorded, assembled, and mixed by Matthew Lavoie from the great WALLAHI LE ZEIN! cassette blog. The cover photo was taken from a taxi in Dakar, Senegal.

Tracklist
1. ‘Speaking English’, Bolgatanga Radio, Bolgatanga, Ghana. 2014
2. Sunday morning, Bolgatanga Radio, Bolgatanga, Ghana. 2014
3. Donso N’goni rehearsal, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. 2011.
4. Kidussie, Orthodox Tewahedo Church funeral prayer for General Seare Mekonnen, Ethiopian National Radio, Ethiopia. 2019
5. Ethiopian radio in early morning traffic, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 2019. 
6. Abu Hakim, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. 2014. 
7. Rooster, Petit Paris, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. 2016.
8. Seydou Koita practicing at home, Gounghin, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. 2018.
9. Senoufo Balafon ensemble performing at christening party, Gounghin, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. 2015. 
10. RTM Amazigh, unidentified group.  Rabat, Morocco. 2019. 
11. Morocco wedding. 2017. 
12. Nana mint Mohamed Cheikh, Maouiya, and Idoumou ould Abba, Nouakchott. Islamic Republic of Mauritania. 2018. 
13. Maouiya performing keyboard Wezin at wedding in Tevragh Zeina, Nouakchott. Islamic Republic of Mauritania. 2018.  
14. Adhan, Central Market. Lilongwe, Malawi. 2019. 
15. Recitation, Radio Al-Fajr. Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. 2015.
16. Solo Kidussie, funeral for General Gezai Abera. Ethiopian State Radio. 2019. 
17. Call sign for 108 FM, Radio de la Resistance. Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.  September 2015.  [In September of 2015 there was an attempted coup d’état in Burkina Faso. For two weeks the entire city of Ouagadougou was locked down.  All stores, ministries, offices, banks were closed.  The coup plotters took over the radio and television and shut down a lot of commercial stations.  A few days after the coup, however, a pirate radio station took to the air, ‘La Radio de la Resistance’.  The station was broadcasting using a mobile transmitter calling on all Burkinabé to resist, to fight the plotters.  The station would broadcast communiqués and revolutionary songs and a casio keyboard interpretation of the national anthem.  The signal was horrible but I loved their call sign. 
18. Abu Hakim, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. 2014. 
19. Baba Omar Rabat Morocco, 2019.
20. Hembe Mauritania.

Taxi Music (RIAFC057)

Radio Síquica returns to the airwaves at Radio is a Foreign Country with EP081. Produced by Dr. Kokote Multiversal & Los Siquicos Litoraleños. Artwork: Elizabeta de los Montes

1. Intro 0:00 
2. Que linda está la mañana-Mandril 2:01 
3. Separadores varios- Radio Siquica 4:41 
4. Esta Canción va dedicada -Dr. Multiversal feat Chavela & Bichito Mamani 6:28 
5. Laraila -Rabito & Dj Surubi8:07 
6. Los Peces-Oso el Roto 9:17 
7. El cielo está nublado-Marina Torrico 12:39 
8. La Muerte del Payaso -Omar Shane/Kinks/Radio Siquica-15:34 
9. Soñar, Soñar -Dr Multiversal-17:08 
10. Ovni -Los Ovnis de Huanuni 19:40 
11. Tanda no comercial #324 Dj Surubi + Zizi + Radio Siquica 21:52 
12. El ramo tan espinoso 23:38 
13. Mate en Ganimedes- Los Siquicos Litoraleños 25:14 
14. Oscureli -Pipo el Sucio- 27:26 
15. Falta Radio -Radio Siquica-30:23 
16. Alpha Litoralis pt2 31:18 : Gerardito habla-31:43 Ramonita Vera- ?? (Kokote edit)32:30 Si no tengo tus besos 34:36 "El momento que mas me gusta" Dj Surubí- Feat. Francisco Madariaga 36:06 
17. Eh que agitás (Velvet Undergroud Cover) Lo Pibe 38:7 
18. Tanda no comercial #325 (Radio Siquica) 41:55 
19. Mi Lunarejito -Marta Soto 46:08 
20. Mucho mas grande del mundo (excerpt) Dr. Multiversal 50:05 
21. No puedo- Sumaj Runas 
22. Despedida 53:45 
23. Ramonita Vera -Tema no identificado-Radio Siquica mix) 55:25 
24. Cosas Extrañas -Bernardo el Trovador- 56:20 
25. Everybody is free- Dr Multiversal (From a sample of los Ovnis de huanuni) 58:03

Radio Siquica EP081 (RIAFC059)

Immersive & hypnotic, this mixtape features (mostly) manipulated field recordings of obscure sounds & music from Tanzania to Borneo.

Photo credit: Andreas Mass

Exploding Suitcases from Radio Palestine: Sounds of The Eastern Mediterranean (Sublime Frequencies) 
Fade from Air Tapes – Excavation Series (Power Moves Library) 
Izeze (Iwawa) from Echoes of the Unquantized World 01 (Duckfood) 
Chibeu (Mae Hong Son, Thailand) – Lisu Mix – Kink Gong (Discrepant) 
Laos 2000 from Early-Century Sound Recordings – Mark Gergis (Discrepant) 
Dhvāni – Budhaditya Chattopadhyay from Anthology of Exploratory Music from India (Unexplained Sounds Group) 
Excerpt from Cho Oyu 8201m (Field Recordings From Tibet) – Geir Jenssen (Ash International) 
Raft 29 - Honey Hunters – Mike Cooper (Room40) 
A Fistful of Stardust from Archeophony – Raed Yassin (Akuphone) 
Syria 1998 from from Early-Century Sound Recordings – Mark Gergis (Discrepant) 
Excerpt from Volume One – Naujawanan Baidar (Radio Khiyaban) 
Excerpts from Orange Twin Field Works - Volume I – Jeff Mangum (Orange Twin Records) 
Excerpts from Sounds of Urumqi and Under a Dim Crescent Moon, Shirley & Spinoza Radio 
Excerpt from Suling Pereret cassette (Bali 886, Year Unknown) 
Balia – Saprin Ojo Lalove Ensemble (Gugus Gema, 2020) 
Excerpts from Asian Radio Environments, Jesse Paul Miller 
Nadaswaram Tannoy (Amba Vilas Palace, Mysore, India) from A Distant Invitation - Jesse Paul Miller (Sublime Frequencies) 
Titi Mati & Nocturnal Soundscape from Kwangka: Funerary Music of the Dayak Benuaq of Borneo – Vincenzo della Ratta (Sublime Frequencies)

Gonzo Ethnomusicology (RIAFC073)

This composition is the result of my artistic residency at Uncool in Poschiavo (Switzerland 2021).
It is a radio portrait of Poschiavo town, its surrounding mountains and glaciers. During the residency I did outdoor self-made recordings of VLF natural radios phenomena, meteor echoes, electromagnetic field and radio communication. This portrait is a part of my ongoing  project started in 2014 about creating radio portraits around the world called “The unknown beyond” .
PHOTO CREDIT: Thomas Rohrer

Radio Portrait of Poschiavo 

" Poschiavo - A Radio Portrait" @UNCOOL artistic residency 2021

taken from ET-097
http://www.archive.org/details/ET-097

ET-097 | Sea Of Solaris

Yoichi Ichikawa - Sea Of Solaris (Excerpt) | ET-097

cactus rockers / Los Cuñados (MTB＋IKARIYA)

Drive my car

Excerpt taken from Clara de Asís -  Sans Nom Ni Forme
Pilgrim Talk 2020

Clara de Asís - De ce côté-ci (excerpt) [PT39]

From Volume & Void. Released on Superpang,  September 18, 2020
https://superpang.bandcamp.com/album/volume-void

Composed through experimental scheduling algorithms that explore the duality of immediate, direct events with gradual and evolving processes.

System and sounds created during the summer of 2020 in Scheveningen, The Hague.

Design: Joe Gilmore

Volume & Void

We no longer publish here. For the latest, tune in here:
https://www.radioisaforeigncountry.org/
​

Taxi Music (RIAFC057)

RADIO IS A FOREIGN COUNTRY

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