Threads 23.04.20
We Have Sound 20.4
Music
Numb Mob – Sammy’s Point
Mike Slott – Falling Through
Jacaszek – November Early
Valiska – Suspension
Photay – Peace in the Era of Telecommunication
Jóhann Jóhannsson – They Being Dead Yet Speaketh
Claire M Singer – Fairge
The Cinematic Orchestra feat. Fontella Bass – Evolution
Mark Pritchard – Under The Sun
Burial – Stolen Dog
Anenon – Two For C
Eluvium – Fugue State
Arca – Urchin
Matthew Bourne – Extinction
Richard Robert – When I’m Gone
Justin Wright – Modular Winter
Hania Rani – F Major
Scratcha DVA – Sumbodydefinatlydied
Soul Drummers – Shango Prayer
Jay Electronica – Eternal Sunshine (The Pledge) – 4
Strict Face – Into Stone
A Walk
Pandemic
I spoke on this show about how I have been doing radio for at least fifteen years, that time has seen many broadcasts on different stations. Outside of the radio studio a lot has happened; there have been appalling, or sad events all over the world, there have been significant political, and personal events closer to home.
People who know me may know I am also someone who oscillates into periods of real difficulty with confidence. In terms of radio that can result in being completely struck with anxiety before a broadcast. However, whatever I have been experiencing, or seen going on in the world I have always felt I understood what music – and by extension radio is for. The only things ever in question have been whether I felt I was up to the task in hand, and was it relevant or useful to use this format of communication to discuss a situation. As I prepared for this show, I felt an unfamiliar uncertainty about the purpose, and usefulness of radio.
I had had to miss my previous show because I was sick in bed with the symptoms I had been reading about for weeks prior – a fever, an accompanying high temperature, and a new persistent cough. I still don’t know if what I was sick with was Covid-19, but I am happy and thankful to say it passed without major incident. As I recovered I read the news; I ventured into what I found was a different world – a world where people noticed each other with a piercing perception. I read more news and wondered what music could achieve in this situation. I wondered what purpose a radio show could play in the face of such seismic events.
I found that music was often falling flat for me too; in this new world all the memories and connections that are part of understanding music seemed foreign. There were times though, that it helped. There were times when I knew exactly what I needed to play. It was almost a new way of listening, removed from what felt like relevant context, sound was there simply to place how I was feeling slightly outside of myself for a while, and to be able to look at things with some form of perspective.
I read the news. I began to wonder how people who’s paths I had crossed over the years that lived in the places I was reading about were getting on. I realised that music and radio didn’t need to be for any specific purpose, or to solve anything; it can just help us be. As Snakepiss, who I reached out to for an audio-postcard for this show puts it – “we can be smaller than we thought we needed to be – or were told we should be”.
So this show is simply a collection of sounds that helped me understand my new surroundings, played in the spirit of communication, connection and smallness. I hope they make sense in the world they find you – or at least that you enjoy experiencing them in it.