Transmissions
Doing Bird
Steve Urquhart (UK 2022)
Steve Urquhart (UK 2022)
20min Episode 1 of 2
Inmates at HMP Perth engage with archive birdsong and oral history recordings from the Scottish Ornithologists’ Club in a unique, creative audio art collaboration. Peesweeps meet hip hop beats, grouse unlock coded prison language, and an unhatched kestrel chick provokes philosophy.
Engaging with Scotland's archive birdsong recordings encourages the men to recall positive memories, to spark creativity, to reflect on the purpose of prison, and to re-evaluate their connection to the world beyond prison walls. They also think deeply about the accessibility and value of oral history recordings, and about who gets to be involved.
Produced by Steve Urquhart
‘Doing Bird’ is supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland.
Where@bouts: The Magic Skates
Mad Genius (2016)
Mad Genius (US 2016)
11 min Episode 4 of 13
Where@bouts is the art "popcast" that remixes the world. Found sound addicts Mad Genius build stories linked to a location's ambience. Our guests conduct their world like a song.
Jeanne Du Snark brings the pain for the Mad Rollin’ Dolls, a roller derby league in Madison, Wisconsin. She does this while living with her own persistent pain. “When I have my skates on, I’m awake and I’m alive. I don’t have to take drugs.” We recorded Jeanne’s world, remixing her skates into an arena-shaking stomp. “You could get hit from anywhere. Just be ready.”
Producer: Mad Genius
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Selected by our guest curator: Jesse Lawson - Audio Producer, Sound Designer + Facilitator
“I love how playful this piece is, it's really inspired my approach to sound design. 10/10 would recommend to a friend!”
Conversations Over a Brew: Andy and Scarlett on The Book of St Helens
Heart of Glass (UK 2021)
Heart Of Glass (UK 2021)
26min Episode 1 of 6
An insightful chat (recorded over a brew) between artist Andy Field and Scarlett, a school girl from St Helens. The pair reflect on working together and wonder if children have super powers for imagining the future.
The focus is on children's perspectives, and the power and possibility they hold for reimagining the world around us. To explore these themes, we hear from artist Andy Field and Scarlett, a primary school pupil from St Helens. Andy, and his partner Beckie Darlington, make work that starts conversations between children and adults. Over this past year Andy and Beckie have worked with 146 children from across St Helens to create a guidebook about the town from the perspectives of its young people. Simply titled, The Book Of St Helens, this guidebook takes you on a unique journey through the town, highlighting the area's magical possibilities. Scarlett was one of the children who worked with Andy and Beckie to make The Book Of St Helens.
Produced by Heart of Glass
Afrikan: Congo is Bleeding Part 1
AMBC (GHAN 2021)
Drc. Jaèy, for the AMBC (GHAN 2021)
17min Episode 1 of 5
In August 1998, a war broke out in the Democratic Republic of The Congo - barely a years after the First Congo War (or what was refereed to as the African World War 1 ) of 1996. Over 6 million people have died - massacred, and millions more displaced. And till this day, this war continues. The reality of things in the DRC is horrendous, utterly barbaric and it's well-staged. The Congo is bleeding and it’s said to be a modern-day genocide perpetuated by some world class capitalists geared towards economic and financial benefits. Documenting and addressing relevant happenings in and affecting the African societies.
Created and produced by Drc. Jaèy
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Changing Tracks: Abbey Wood
Lucia Scazzocchio (UK 2019)
Lucia Scazzocchio (UK 2019)
18 min
Here comes the Elizabeth Line, finally. This won’t mean much to anyone outside London, but for many Londoners this has been a long time coming and for some places this means big changes as they join the London Transport map.
Originally commissioned by London Transport Museum to explore the life, community and sense of place around 2 areas soon to be drastically changed by the arrival of Cross Rail or the Elizabeth Line. This is a moment in time captured through voices of people who live and work in Thamesmead and Abbey Wood in South East London around what will soon become a destination station: Abbey Wood.
Recorded and produced by: Lucia Scazzocchio at Social Broadcasts
Onirica
Silvia Malnati (2021)
Silvia Malnati (UK /IT 2021)
15 min
An intimate exploration of the auditory impressions that people experience while dreaming.
Onirica x BBC New Creatives in partnership with ICA London
Producer: Silvia Malnati
Composer: Stefano Galli
Mixing & Sound Designer: Andrea Campisi
Executive Producer: Pierre Vella (SPACE)
These Places Should Only Ever Be Imagined
Isobel Anderson (UK 2015)
Isobel Anderson (UK 2015)
15 min
The document of a week spent walking on the Isle of Harris, one of Scotland's Outer Hebrides islands. Through field recordings, an oral walking journal, photographs and objects, the piece interrogates realities of remote locations amid their idealised associations of nature and wilderness. This work examines relationships of ruin and survival, the remote and the fetishised, body and decay, an has existed as a fixed audio piece, an installation and a live performance.
These Places... asks if solely imagining places of wilderness is preferential to inserting our human presence. Places of the remote and wild live and breathe just as our bodies do, but perhaps some places are better left to the mind?
These Places Should Only Ever Be Imagined was performed at Sound Thought Festival in CCA Glasgow in 2016.
Produced by Isobel Anderson
XMTR Radio Hour Ep17
Social Broadcasts (UK 2022)
Produced by Social Broadcasts (UK 2022)
60 min / Episode 17 of 17
This hour is dedicated to sounds from the North Yorkshire Coast and more specifically the Wild Eye Project by Invisible Dust. If you miss the sea or just want to enjoy a moment near the water, the next hour features audio postcards from Scarborough by Lucia Scazzocchio and Silvia Malnati, Sea Songs from beneath the waves by Rob Mackay and words from Alice Sharp from Invisible Dust bringing artists and scientists together to explore environment and climate change.
From the Center Out - Archiving Black Dance In The U.S
Laura Marina Boria + Ana Cecilia Calle (US 2021)
Laura Marina Boria + Ana Cecilia Calle (US 2021)
15 min
Gesel, a choreographer living in Austin, Texas, walks us through solos that a hip-hop dancer and an expressionist dancer taught her over 10 years ago. "From the Center Out - archiving Black dance in the U.S." is about how a dancer's body remembers and what those memories sound like. During rehearsal, we're transported to scenes from the solos and we experience the stories and emotions driving them.
As Gesel dances, she talks and through her voice we experience her movement in a visceral sometimes uncomfortable way. If you’ve ever wondered how dance could be represented just through sound, this piece does exactly that.
Submitted to XMTR
Production + Editing by Laura Marina Boria
Production + Sound Design Ana Cecilia Calle
Tape Letters: A Cassette Tape Love Story
Modus Arts (UK 2021)
Modus Arts (UK 2021)
15min Episode 3 of 6
Tape Letters shines a light on the practice of recording and sending messages on cassette tapes by Pakistani migrants who settled in the UK between 1960 and 1980. In this six-part documentary we listen to first-hand accounts of these migration stories through original recordings, interviews with their Britain-born families and commentary by Tape Letters founder and director Wajid Yaseen.
This episode features a special story of a soon-to-be-married couple, who got to know each other more deeply and fell in love entirely through sending cassette tapes to each other between Pakistan and the UK for over 5 years. Telephones were usually expensive and not private, which is why cassettes were their chosen method of communication. We also discuss the retention and loss of cassette tapes, and therefore stories, over the years as people either held onto tapes for sentimental or evidential reasons or threw them away as they simply looked to do some spring cleaning.