[96 Kpbs/44.1 Khz/Stereo unless stated]

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12.06.09 - The Act of Being Stung – 08:47 - 192 kpbs VBR

Recorded 10.06.09

Mike Harding was commissioned by The Southbank Centre to record bees for The Bee Symphony, to be performed on Sunday 6th September 2009 at The Queen Elizabeth Hall, London as part of Pestival. The Bee Symphony, with music composition by Marcus Davidson (Spire) and bee recordings by Mike Harding diffused by Chris Watson, will be performed at “Cross Pollination – An Evening of Experimental Insect Music”, curated by Chris Watson.

The recordings took place at Cherry Garden Farm, Stelling Minnis in Kent, England. The hives are owned by Olivia Grove on her seven acre small-holding. Also present were Marcus Davidson, who took the photos, and bee expert Mary Hill from Old Wives Lees. You can hear the voices of all four on the episode...

Equipment used includes 2 x dpa 4060 mics, recording onto a Nagra Ares P-ll at 48k 24bit, and of course, a coathanger and bee suit... with thanks to Jane Beese at The Southbank Centre.

You can hear a mix of this recording on WFMU's Do or DIY with People Like Us - June 24, 2009 here

Continue reading: Touch Radio 41 | The Honey Bees of Cherry Garden Farm

03.04.09 - R'Occult 'n' Roll – 23:52 - 192 kpbs VBR

Recorded 02.04.09, at:
“R'Occult 'n' Roll – Music and Magic on the Wild Side”
Readings by Sandy Robertson and Edwin Pouncey at Treadwell's Books, London.

“The connections between rock music and the occult range from the legends of bluesmen selling their souls to the Devil for success, through to the influence of Aleister Crowley on the Rolling Stones, The Beatles and Led Zeppelin in the 60s and 70s, and the Satanic music and imagery of today’s Black Metal underground. This talk will cover all these subjects, together with lesser-known examples of ‘rockultism’. You may even get to hear some mad, bad and occasionally dangerous musick too. Earplugs optional.

Sandy Robertson is the author of The Aleister Crowley Scrapbook (now in print for 20 years) and has written for Mojo, NME and other publications. As well as being a music writer and illustrator for The Wire magazine, Edwin Pouncey (aka Savage Pencil/Sav X) is an artist whose work has been shown in galleries in the UK, Europe and America. Sandy Robertson and Edwin Pouncey were colleagues at the legendary rock paper Sounds during the 80s.”

In this excerpt, Edwin Pouncey discusses the genealogy of Black Metal.

Continue reading: Touch Radio 40 | Edwin Pouncey

24.02.09 - Book of Hours – 23:24 - 320 kpbs

guest: Carlos Santos

Recorded 12.12.08
Dome of the National Pantheon, Lisbon

João Silva: crystal bowl
Paulo Raposo: space multi-channel diffusion and real-time processing
Carlos Santos: glass and bell

"Book of Hours" was recorded in the remarkable baroque central dome of the National Pantheon in Lisbon.

The musicians (and the audience) were 40 meters above ground level on a narrow circular balcony looking out over the abyss. The main sound source was a crystal bowl, played by João Silva, which was struck and resonated with a stick. Paulo Raposo processed these sounds and diffused them throughout the space via 6 channels, 4 of which were small self-powered speakers, arranged symetrically around the circumference of the dome. Carlos Santos also moved throughout the space and the audience with a small glass and a Tibetan bell.

The sonic interactions in "Book of Hours" aimed to reveal the inherently active qualities of the space, itself a performer in this acoustic dialog.

Continue reading: Touch Radio 39 | Paulo Raposo & Joao Silva

02.01.09 - Ost – 14:21 - 192 kpbs

An edited version of the track "Ghost", commissioned as part of "The Space Between Seeing and Knowing is Haunted," an exhibition curated by D–L Alvarez at Exile and Arratia, Beer, Berlin [07.02.2009 – 04.04.2009]. Arranged and produced by Philip Marshall. Voices sourced from "The Ghost Orchid – an Introduction to EVP" [PARC, 1999]. Rain recordings courtesy of Dale Cornish.

The unedited version of "Ghost", can be found on the cassette-only release, Three Questions and an Answer [Ash International # Ash 7.5]

09.12.08 - Barbialla – 12:50 - 192 kpbs

How to catch a truffle
 
Ancient Greeks, as much in the dark as anyone else when it came to where the white truffle is to be found, shrugged and announced that the tuber magnatum occurred wherever lightning struck the ground. Cobblers, of course, but that’s the excuse for beginning this piece with a burgeoning thunder storm — in September 2008, on the Barbialla Nuova estate near San Miniato, Tuscany. This is an area famed for its white truffles.
 
Then a truffle hunt, with Imperio, Bobbi and Sabali. Bobbi is a dog, a breed called Lagotto. Imperio is the hunter. Sabali translates Imperio now and again, but most of the time he is chatting to the dog, saying “Find!”, “Is it or isn’t it?” He gets very angry with the cat (“Go home!”) who, feeling sociable, joined us on this three-hour walk. 
 
A truffle is found and Bobbi, having pulled up a 12-inches of earth, doesn't want to surrender it. At least with a dog you can yank him away by the scruff of the neck, and Bobbi was occasionally seen flying over Imperio’s shoulder. Not so easy with pigs, who used to be employed as truffle hunters — but enough of an excuse to include the sounds of Silvio here, the biggest of the farm's Cinta Senese breed.
 
There the tenuous links end, unless anyone knows of a connection between truffles and the crickets, tawny owls and mystery birds that chattered deep in to the night.
 
[Recorded on DPA miniature omni microphones and Sound Devices 702 recorder] 

Pascal has also contributed a truffle recipe to Touch's online Recipe Book.

Continue reading: Touch Radio 37 | Pascal Wyse

18.11.08 - Submarine – 9:12 - 192 kpbs

A submarine-like structure sits on a traffic island in the middle of Akerman Road, London SW9. It was built in the 1970s above the large underground boiler room that provides heat for the Myatt’s Field estates, which lie on either side of the road. The boilers still heat more than 300 buildings to the south of the road, but their unreliability caused the north-side estate to switch to another heating source in the early 1990s. The heating system was sited underground because to do so was considered ‘best practice’ at this stage of the Cold War, when a nuclear conflict sometimes seemed a distinct possibility. At the time the estates were built, both the US and the USSR maintained large fleets of weapon-bearing submarines: ocean-going doubles of the Akerman Road structure. In spring 2008 I made some recordings of the machinery in the boiler room. These have been organised into a composition. I have filtered some of the sounds but no digital processing has been used.

Photography by Dollan Cannell.

Thanks to Stuart Dixon and Lambeth council for letting me in.

Continue reading: Touch Radio 36 | Will Montgomery

1.10.08 - THE FREQ_OUT ORCHESTRA – 28:46 - 192 kpbs

freq_out 7 took place in September 2008 as part of The Happy New Ears Festival in Kortrijk, Belgium. There was also a performance by THE FREQ_OUT ORCHESTRA on Saturday 13th September, which was recorded by Finnbogi Pétursson on a Zoom H2 and mastered by BJNilsen. Crows recorded by Pascal Wyse.

3.09.08 - Elk Song – 11:14 - 192 kpbs

Headphones recommended. Recorded 24/48 with a Rode NT4 stereo mic.

The forests and meadows of Northern Arizona's high country are populated by herds of elk, packs of coyotes and a variety of frogs, owls and other wildlife. Camping out overnight can be an exhilarating acoustic experience - as I found out...

Waking up in my tent just after 1 AM my immediate thought was that I had entered some weird spirit realm and was hearing the wail of a banshee - what turned out to be a bugling elk. The initial recordings were made on 4th September 2007. The main portion of the recording, an ethereal song consisting of a series of explosive elk calls, was made more recently on 10th June 2008.

Continue reading: Touch Radio 34 | Diane Hope