Sound and Music

I work for community radio station Resonance104.4fm. Now and then I write pieces which fall into the category "radio art" and sometimes I even try and make "sound art" of a conceptual kind. Now read on.

I have a few projects coming up in a busy autumn. One is for SAM's very own Cut And Splice festival, where the Resonance Radio Orchestra is on the same bill as the godlike Keith Rowe and the immortal Nicolas Collins. Scary stuff, so I am hoping to rope in Peter Blegvad, Willem de Ridder and Jim Perrin as vocalists for a piece called "Wish I Was Here".

I am on a panel at Norwich Sound & Vision on 18 September at 3.45pm discussing opportunities for new bands to get on the radio. Stefan Baumschlager of Last.fm is the headline name on the panel. And I am delivering a lecture called Whistle in the Dark for Liverpool Biennial, in response to the theme of TOUCHED. It riffs on Freud's assertion that music arises from paranoia and explores the the stage as a method of articulating concerns with both hygiene and currency. It takes place on Wednesday 29 September at 6.30pm and Jon Wozencroft is also on the bill although the website doesn't say this.

I have a new idea in development, the working title of which is Score for Open-heart Surgery on Charlie Watts. I plan to submit it to the next New Music Award, which I have failed to win twice now. The piece does exactly what it says on the tin: I and a crack team of amateurs perform open-heart surgery on the famous drummer of The Rolling Stones to reveal what is clearly the most aesthetically significant rhythmic counter in contemporary popular culture. I have yet to flesh out this proposal, which I trust will be understood as a visionary and even profound conceptual artwork. I have also yet to contact Mr Watts, who I hope will be accommodating.

I've recently (June 19th) managed to realise my conceptual radiophonic artwork, Radio Yesterday, which featured nothing but cover versions of The Beatles's song "Yesterday," a collaboration with Dan Scott. It was very educational and revealing.

I failed this year to win a Sony Radio Academy Award, as Station Programmer of the Year. But Resonance104.4fm was declared winner of the Radio Academy’s Nations and Regions Award for London so that is compensation of a sort.

I have also recently failed to move from the long list of 19 to the short list of six in this year's PRSF New Music Award. The nature of this competition means that until today I have been unable to tell anyone about my proposal, which was as follows: "Ascent and Descent is a work primarily for professional opera singers and experimental vocalists, twelve of whom take part. Each gets into a hot-air balloon at Calais, France, and heads over the English Channel towards the World War 1-vintage acoustic mirrors, Lydd-on-Sea, Dungeness. All the while they sing. Fragments of their singing are relayed fitfully via mobile communications devices to the concert area. Here, a large audience has assembled in the open air for a picnic. As the balloons near the acoustic mirror, the singing gets louder, clearer but no less enigmatic and extraordinary. A professional kite team provides a spectacular display to accompany the descent of the balloons. An orchestra of electronic musicians creates a beautiful din in which the voices are slowly subsumed. The balloons come to rest, the singers disembark and join the orchestra on the stage. The picnicking crowd are agog at this unique spectacular!" Sadly, this is not to be. In a previous PRSF New Music Award, I failed to win though I did get to the last six with my "Carousel" proposal.

I am an associate lecturer at the London College of Communication. I was featured in the Independent on Sunday's Happy List 2009. I do a bit of writing when pressed (which is hardly ever), most recently (actually the first record review for seven years) for This Music Wins which is Peter Lanceley's indie rock blog. I like his band, Kinnie The Explorer, for reasons I cannot explain.

Resonance104.4fm is supporting this October's Wukule Festival in Worthing, which is why I have posted this under SAM Events. It's a visionary project, popularist but sophisticated, curated and produced by Daniuela Gargiulo who realised the fantastic all-female LMC Festival a few years back at the Southbank Centre. It includes a PRSF commission of Peckham's finest songsmith, Sean O'Hagan. He will write a new piece for 60 school kids! Be there or drown in the quagmire of dismal and ersatz twaddle that passes for culture these days.