A conversation with Cory Morningstar, Johan Eddebo, Hiroyuki Hamada and John Steppling.
link mentioned in the discussion: https://usrtk.org/bill-gates-food-tracker/the-next-neocolonial-gold-rush-african-food-systems-are-the-new-oil-un-documents-say/

PODCAST #33

In the late 1930s, the Soviet Union took in about nearly 3,000 child refugees of the Spanish Civil War. These kids, aged roughly from 5 to 12 years old, were placed in boarding schools in Leningrad, Moscow and elsewhere in the USSR. Their stay in this strange new land was supposed to be temporary. But fascist victory in the Spanish Civil War and the outbreak of WWII made them exiles for the foreseeable future. Now responsible to their rearing and education, Soviet officials and their Spanish minders transformed these children into hybrid Hispano-Soviets. They were steeped in patriotism for their two homelands and taught to emulate Spanish and Soviet heroes, scientists, soldiers, and artists. How did these Spanish children fare in the Soviet Union and live through the multiple traumas of their childhood? What did it mean to Hispano-Soviet? What was their fate and memory of growing up as a refugee? Here’s Karl Qualls with this little known story.

Guest:

Karl Qualls is the John B. Parsons Chair in Liberal Arts and Sciences and Professor of History at Dickinson College. He’s the author of From Ruins to Reconstruction: Urban Identity in Soviet Sevastopol after World War II. His new book is Stalin’s Niños: Educating Spanish Civil War Refugee Children in the Soviet Union, 1937-51 published by the University of Toronto Press.


Spanish Civil War Refugee Children in the USSR

Ed Rooksby joins me to discuss socialist strategy, Syriza, Nicos Poulantzas' theory of the state and the Corbyn moment in Britain. Ed's recent article in the journal Critique formed the basis of our discussion, you can read the article here:

https://edrooksby.wordpress.com/2018/03/21/structural-reform-the-problem-of-socialist-strategy-today/

#11 Ed Rooksby on reform, revolution, and socialist strategy

stating some obvious things about the Prison Industrial Complex, the Military Industrial Complex and the Pharmaceutical Industrial Complex

stating the obvious PIC MIC PHIC

RedKahina Interview #002

Sideways Knowing Glance is the debut single from London based experimental pop duo the mermaid café, out on the 10th of July 2020.

The track emerged from improvisation and experimentation using voices with loop pedals; through collaborative development, it’s grown into a 10 minute dream-pop cloud of honeyed vocals, rich and complex textures, glitchy synthesis, and intricate, intimate storytelling.

Whilst the song has been in gestation for a long time, this release was predominantly recorded and mixed whilst in lockdown in Newcastle. Whilst remaining honest to the mermaid cafe’s roots in DIY and intuitive music making, this single represents a turn towards pristine post-production shimmer in their sound.

This release is the culmination of two years of the mermaid café performing, writing, and improvising together, developing their songwriting practice. the mermaid café represents exciting, fresh collaborative thinking, bringing together many layers of artistic influence: both Ruari and Joanna do work ranging across songwriting, experimental and contemporary classical composition, multi-instrumental and vocal performance, research, activism, and visual art. Joanna is currently studying Composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, and Ruari is working as a freelance musician and writer.

This track was mastered by Jeremy Warmsley, and the group has worked with graphic designer Emily Tonkinson-Sharp to develop the cover art and merch for this release.

All music & mixing by the mermaid café
Lyrics by Ruari Paterson-Achenbach
Master by Jeremy Warmsley
Artwork by Emily Tonkinson-Sharp

Sideways Knowing Glance

An improvisation made in my studio in April 2020 on the modular synth. It is largely based on ethnographic cylinder recordings from the Kodaly archive, made in April 1914. These small fragments are sampled with oscillators controlling the grain, loop size and time points of the samples. Pitch and envelope followers on the samples in turn control these oscillators and other physically modelled sounds. Yannis Kyriakides, Amsterdam, April 2020.

A Ghost Of Spring

Cath & Phil Tyler play Anglo-American folk music using guitar, banjo, voice and fiddle. Coming together musically through a shared love of traditional narrative song, full voiced sacred harp singing and sparse mountain banjo, they have performed on stages as diverse as the Royal Opera House in London and a dank tower in the old city walls of Newcastle. 

For this release they've kindly shared with us 5 new works written & recorded in the heat of the summer 2020 lock-down, taking in traditional tunes, workers songs and laments crafted with words from the past and present. The stripped-back selection offers an intimate portrait of the duo alone at home in the North of England, singing ghostly tales that echo from their bedroom through the empty pubs, folk clubs and spaces where people come together to listen, meet, drink and dance. A selection that pulls at the heart strings and offers some much needed respite in these trying times.

TR075 - Cath & Phil Tyler - 'Old Churchyard'

A conversation with John Steppling, Johan Eddebo and Hiroyuki Hamada.

PODCAST #30

Gavin Mueller joins PTO for part two of our conversation on his new book, 'Breaking Things at Work: The Luddites were Right About Why You Hate Your Job'. We talked about Taylorism and the deskilling of workers, how automation was used by American military planners during the Vietnam war in order to maintain control of the increasingly mutinous US Army, and finally we talked about why - in spite of how the increasing deployment of deskilling technologies made working conditions worse and more dangerous - many union leaders in both the United States and Europe supported the imposition of these new technologies.

#111 Why the Luddites were right (part 2) w/ Gavin Mueller

A conversation with Cory Morningstar, Hiroyuki Hamada, Johan Eddebo and John Steppling

Links mentioned during the conversation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylHtD6m3_AY

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/why-children-are-hitting-the-wall-in-coping-with-covid-19-pandemic-1.5328391

RedKahina Interview #002

Spencer Latu