My pal David Goren over at Shortwaveology asked me to put voice and music to a tune he conjured via Chat GPT about a truck driver having tea at Buckingham Palace and listening to shortwave radio with the Queen.

Tea With The Queen at Lower East Songs

Brand It - Jonathan Freeland and Lou Hakan

shortwave radio noise, synth, acoustic guitar, and a tea kettle

another fine day at the factory

Experimental, electronic soundscape by Spasmodular and VCO (Vincent Carlton Overdrive). This composition was created from field recordings, shortwave radio noise, and multiple synthesizers. 
c) 2023

across the Salapärane tunnel

North Korean Numbers Station 1

North Korean Numbers Station 2

My very talented friend Ralph Warchol outfitted his luxurious basement with a quarter inch reel-to-reel 8 channel recorder. Ralph wrote this and played all of the instruments except for the electric guitar during the intro played by Dan the Man and the drum track which he got from an LP. He also recorded broadcasts from his shortwave radio. This was probably recorded in very late 1982 or 1983.

Gene Poole and the Chromosomes

Shortwave

electronic soundscape with radio frequency bounce

RF-Module

songs titled for musicians that inspire me pt 2

Rick (Toy Boat, Historic Cemetery)

dark ambient synth + spliced shortwave rhythmic textures

When The Fullness Of Time Has Come pt I

When The Fullness Of Time Has Come pt 2

To Th' Eternal Shore

20M Pirate Broadcasting Horse Whinny - Recorded from The UTwente SDR @ http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/

20M Pirate on UTwente SDR 12-19-24@0844GMT 14305.5kHz

It's a cold evening, and a long way home.

Track 2 of 5 from my EP “The Clearing”

free download:
https://krohex.bandcamp.com/album/the-clearing

streaming (spotify, etc):
https://too.fm/theclearing

full mix:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apZBeiRiEsk

find me elsewhere:
krohex.carrd.co/

Long Way Home

🖤 The Miracle Syndicate — “The Missing Call”

The voice was promised, but never came.
A cold signal from a northern town,
where the snow clings, where the streets fade,
and now we wait — no sound, no name.

(Static, static)
The empty call (you hear it too?)
(Static, static)
The missing voice (echoes through)

We keep transmitting —
silence, frequency,
waiting for the missing call,
you and me, you and me.
We keep transmitting —
through the hush, the fall,
thank you for listening
to the missing call.

Twenty-three hundred, the time was set,
Zehlendorf dark under radio sky.
A message fading before it spoke,
and still we lean in, still we try.

(Static, static)
The empty call (you hear it too?)
(Static, static)
The missing voice (echoes through)

We keep transmitting —
silence, frequency,
waiting for the missing call,
you and me, you and me.
We keep transmitting —
through the hush, the fall,
thank you for listening
to the missing call.

Sometimes what’s missing
is louder than what stays —
sometimes the waiting
is what carries us away.

Sender Astra…
silence, frequency,
Sender Astra…

Sometimes what’s missing
and fate was fading...

The harm in memory.

Credits:

Nayeli Astra: Vox, Guitar
Elena Morgenstern: Backing Vox, Synths & Sequencers
Brad Astra: Programming, Percussion, Bass Guitar, Rhythm Guitar

Special Thanks:
To the ravens who guided our melodies, the universe for its endless inspiration, and to everyone who has been part of this journey. This music collection is dedicated to those who dream with their eyes open.

In Loving Memory:
To Rio, who always listened.

Recorded at:
Nude Studio · Calgary, Alberta

Artwork + Photography:
Brad Astra

Label:
Painful Records Ltd.

© 2025 The Miracle Syndicate · All rights reserved
Written and Produced by Brad Astra

The Missing Call

LOST IN TRANSMISSION (RIAFC159/LIT-001)

I consider myself a fringe transmedia conceptual artist and have experimented with all kinds of media like drawing, performance, writing, music, painting, moviemaking, game design since I was quite young. I'd love it if you would check out what I've got going here in the sound department.

Spasmodular, a.k.a. Spasmodular Sounds from Steve's Shortwave, composes soundscapes featuring radio frequency sounds captured among the shortwave spectrum. In addition to using analog shortwave radios as a medium, various electronic instruments and field recordings are utilized as well during the compositional process. Spasmodular is also affiliated with the experimental electronic collective VCO (Vincent Carlton Oscillator).

The Miracle Syndicate

"And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on: Even as a broken mirror." —Lord Byron

Founded and produced by Brad Astra

The Miracle Syndicate is an independent alternative music collective formed by Canadian producer and composer Brad Astra. Emerging from the outer edges of post-punk, dream pop, and shoegaze, the band’s sound fuses analog textures with emotional memory to create songs that feel both haunted and deliberate. Since its quiet inception, The Miracle Syndicate has grown into a global presence, with listeners drawn to its deeply personal recordings and cinematic tone.

The project began during a period marked by grief, transition, and emotional exile. Music became a way to stay present. The first real sound came from instruments left untouched for years, carrying the dust of another lifetime. When Astra picked them up, it felt less like reclaiming them and more like listening to something that had been waiting. From that moment on, he began building a workflow that allowed his inner world to speak clearly. With limited gear and deep intention, he shaped a sound that resonated more with feeling than fidelity. Plugins and tools became secondary. 

The truth was already in the strings.

Silence plays an equal role in the work. Astra treats it not as absence, but as design. The pauses between tracks are measured, not left to default. A sudden stop may mark resolution, but songs that drift into a final coda are given space, a deliberate moment for reflection, like a breath held between movements in a classical piece. For Astra, silence is not the end of a song. It is the invitation to stay with it just a little longer. In The Miracle Syndicate, silence becomes its own form of listening.

The emotional core of the music is difficult to name, somewhere between nostalgia, longing, reverence, and grief. Astra likens it to opening an old box of forgotten belongings, photographs, letters, objects that once meant everything. In that moment, memory returns like a ghost. Not always sad. Not always warm. Just present. These songs carry that same essence, flashes of reverence, regret, gratitude, and time’s slow unraveling. The music blends melancholy with a quiet sense of hope, holding space for the listener to reflect on what was lost and what might still be waiting.

While Astra remains the central composer and producer, the project includes two essential collaborators whose personalities help define its emotional cadence and landscape. Nayeli Astra Xóchitl, with her instinctive phrasing and emotionally precise delivery, provides both lead and harmony vocals that shape the project’s most intimate textures. Elena Morgenstern, based in Berlin, contributes both front and background vocals along with her analog synth work, adding restraint and emotional tension in equal measure. Their contributions do not decorate the songs. They ground them.

"This project wasn’t built for attention. It was built to survive me. Every song is a small part of what I couldn’t say out loud."
— Brad Astra

There is no chase for resolution in the recordings. The tracks are sculpted with intention, often left slightly fractured, preserving the emotional architecture of what first inspired them. The sound is raw, cinematic, and deliberate, never aiming for polish, but rather for truth.

"The Miracle Syndicate became a place to keep the things I couldn’t carry. Over time, it turned into something that listens back."

Listeners often describe The Miracle Syndicate as a lifeline, music that finds them in moments of emotional disconnect and offers a place to land. These songs are not about escape. They are small remedies, designed to ease the quiet storms we carry alone. Astra’s work doesn’t just put sound to silence, it gives form to feelings that are hard to name and harder to share. The goal is never clarity. It is resonance. The Miracle Syndicate becomes a kind of mirror, reflecting back the parts of us we didn’t know were still trying to speak.

Astra writes for himself first. The songs must cut through his own silence before they reach anyone else. They begin as private reflections, emotional fragments shaped by time, distance, and a kind of love that never fully resolves. The music becomes a form of survival. Not in defiance of pain, but in companionship with it. The Miracle Syndicate is not just a project. It is presence. It is the way Astra remains connected to the emotional weather of a full life, not always visible, but always felt.

"I’ve stopped trying to be understood. I make these songs for the few who understand without needing to."

The Miracle Syndicate is not chasing recognition. It was never built for that. The music lives in the present, created with care, released with intention, and left to find those who are ready to hear it. Each song is like a quiet offering, sent into the dark in case someone out there needs it. There is no mapped-out future. No promise of clarity. Just the hope that a listener, somewhere, might feel a little less alone.

The music becomes a hand held quietly in the dark.

When the music stops, what remains is never loud. It is not legacy, and it is not noise. It is that final note, the one that plays behind the credits, stirring everything that came before. The Miracle Syndicate leaves behind a quiet trace, something just beneath the skin.

A sound that stays long after the song is over.

All releases appear under Painful Records, an imprint dedicated to works that remain personal, patient, and present.

Painful Records stands for independence, integrity, and emotion in sound. What began as a small studio project has grown into a creative collective reaching listeners across continents.

Painful Records may incorporate AI-assisted tools within its production workflow. All creative decisions, composition, arrangement, and post-production are directed by the artists. We do not use AI to imitate other artists or voices. Every release is human-guided, emotionally intentional, and protected under applicable copyright law.

Painful Records, 2025.

"The wound is where the Light enters you."  —Rumí

New York City-based multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, composer, puppet builder, odd person.

You can also hang out with us at https://www.radioisaforeigncountry.org/
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ambient synth + shortwave theohauntology experiments

New tracks tagged #shortwave radio