This month’s episode is an (amended) audio document and re-broadcast of a live “speakeasy” event fugitive radio hosted at the Jan van Eyck Academie on a snowy friday evening, January 20. It was also the first in a series of monthly live broadcasts fugitive radio is producing on πnode, a decentralized radio infrastructure streams online and broadcasts on DAB in Mulhouse and Paris. It featured contributions from Jan van Eyck artists-in-residence, in order of appearance [Instagram]: Cristina Flores, AZOOR, Zahra Malkani, Kim David Bots, Juan Pablo Pacheco Bejarano, Alicja Wysocka and Arpita Akhanda. Foto: Dayna Casey.
The speakeasy was convened as a space for experimentation, spontaneity and improvisation, although it ended being a tightly packed schedule that ran a little over time. A theme of “songs” emerged in the days beforehand, but was not a requirement. The event was broadcast live with the proviso that it would only be documented internally and not be archived online. In the following days, all participants agreed to re-broadcast and upload with some minor amendments to account for time restrictions and sound quality. Many thanks to all who participated, attended and tuned in!
Tracklist
01. 0:00:00 Simulacrum – Samba tem digital
02. 0:04:02 Juan Atkins – Other Side Of Life
03. 0:07:10 Der Zyklus – Diffeomorphism
04. 0:09:32 MU – Out of Breach
05. 0:12:12 Phuture – Acid Tracks (12″ Version)
06. 0:16:38 Adonis – No Way Back (Instrumental)
07. 0:21:26 Model 500 – NO UFO’S (Instrumental)
08. 0:26:46 Simulacrum – Zona Contacto
09. 0:28:12 DJ Joe Lewis – Acid Falls (Original Mix)
10. 0:30:52 Da Posse – It’s My Life (Aluh mix)
11. 0:34:52 Steve Poindexter – Computer Madness
12. 0:37:24 Despina – Alexa In Disrepair
13. 0:40:16 Traxman – BAD INDIGESTION
14. 0:43:46 Simulacrum – Bloco Techno
15. 0:47:44 Der Zyklus – Eigenface (Facial Asymetry)
16. 0:50:46 Model 500 – Digital Solutions
Riddim writing, software affordances, rhythmachine music.
This mix is far from perfect. It was recorded live and thus presents a “snapshot” of my thinking/feeling “in-the-mix”. It was made using MIXXX, a free/livre and open source (FLOSS) DJing/podcasting software and with a near pocket-sized Numark DJ2GO2 Touch USB controller that I bought last year to use while on a series of residencies in Brazil. The device compromises on controls for size, so it does not have separate pots for Hi/Mid/Low EQs on each channel that would seem essential for mixing. Instead it has a single knob that is mapped on MIXXX to a Lo/Hi cut sweep filter.
These genres of music are also relatively unfamiliar to me. I learned to mix garage, grime, dancehall, desi, baile funk, hip hop and what became known as “global bass” in the early 2000s, performing as Sven Simulacrum. I stopped around 2012 to focus on other research interests. Recently I’ve been curious about the abstract sonics and asymmetrical rhythms of “experimental dance music” (EDM) often made by producers who are “adjacent” to established genres such as footwork (Jlin) and ballroom (quest?onmarc) alongside high energy styles forwarded by labels including Principe, Lisbon and Yes No Wave, Yogyakarta. Music that I’m tentatively calling “other technos”.
The notion of “techno samba” emerged during fugitive radio’s recent time in Brazil, and particularly while in residence at Residência São João (RSJ); a farm, coffee plantation and self-organised artist space in the countryside of Rio De Janeiro in late October–November 2022. RSJ is reputed for its somsocosmos music residency, so I sought to spend my time there to working on sound production. Before leaving São Paulo late in October, I met with Coletivo Digital [Instagram] at their space in Pinheiros and my first task at RSJ was to I edit our conversation for a podcast. The collective had sent me a song to use, “Canção tem samba” by Trilha Sonora, recorded in their FLOSS studio and I’d thought to make a remix, also using FLOSS; specifically a suite of programs I was working with for Thalaam Riddim Reapers, alongside Luci Dayhew and Brendy Hale. Simultaneously, I undertook the same process with the popular proprietary music production and performance software Ableton Live, to understand the different affordances of these digital tools. I must admit, I was much happier with the results in Ableton and continued to use it to develop what became “Samba tem digital”, thinking once I was done I would return to a FLOSS set-up.
I should have seen it coming, but after some days of tinkering I opened a folder of musical skeletons I began in Ableton, 2018, when I first visited Brazil. At that time I was working on an urban research/cooking project, but had some inkling beforehand that Brazil would re-ignite my interest in music, as I had purchased a small USB keyboard that came packaged with an LE version of the software. In Rio I intuitively began making recordings on my smartphone of music I would hear everyday in my unfamiliar surrounds. This was also during the time of the presidential elections and there were regular demonstrations—manifestaçãoes—in the streets and plazas, notably the ele não campaign against Jair Bolsonaro, who went on to win by a significant margin. In Rio, I began to transcribe some of the rhythms I had recorded into MIDI—“riddim writing” is how I described it, as it bore some resemblance to writing, editing and fine-tuning text. After the patterns were entered into the software, I would run them through different drum kits and samples. Swapping drum kits on the fly is simple to do in Ableton and can lead to surprising results. I wasn’t sure what to do next. I sent a couple of riddims to some friends whom I thought might be interested to voice them, but received little response. Later I dropped them into fugitive frequency podcasts, just to put them to some use and to “see” how they sounded.
At RSJ, I was the sole inhabitant at figuera, a ground level cottage by an unsealed road that ran through the property, that could have easily housed four or five more residents. I had a small PA at my disposal and would often spend my nights mixing tracks, knowing that I wouldn’t be keeping anyone awake. My closest neighbour, Javier, was maybe 20 meters or so down the road. While I would make noise in the evenings, he would wake up early to practice trumpet and we never seemed to bother each other. Prior to moving to RSJ during the COVID pandemic, Javier was based in Rio where he’d been involved in a gallery/project space where I believe he was brewing beer, a practice he was carrying on at RSJ. I asked if he was thinking to play trumpet with others—maybe join a samba bloco?—a popular sport of sorts in Brazil. He said something about playing in a “techno samba” group and I was intrigued.
In July last year Kode9/Steve Goodman released his album Escapology (2022). Like many others, I have much respect for the London based DJ, Hyperdub label boss and theorist. Alongside his colleague Kodwo Eshun, whose book More Brilliant than the Sun (1998) unleashed a slew of concepts concerned with black alienation, technology and “rhythmachine music”, Goodman has been a steady influence on my thinking about sound and EDM. At RSJ I listened to some recent interviews in which he recalled his early love for jungle, which reminded me of the “hardcore continuum”, a termed coined by another of Goodman’s contemporaries, music journalist Simon Reynolds. It describes morphing but consistent musical genres and scenes that extended from early hardcore rave in the late 1980s UK, to jungle, drum and bass, garage, grime and dubstep and its ecology of record shops, pirate radio stations, parties, promoters and clubs. The notion of a hardcore continuum has propelled my interests in EDM from the time that jungle and drum and bass first entered my consciousness growing up in Sydney, and a curiousity to tap back into it is what prompted me to start mixing again for fugitive radio.
It was again the time of the presidential election when I returned to Brazil in September 2022, and shortly after I arrived at RSJ a second run-off election was scheduled. While now relatively removed from the action in the bigger cities, the mood at the fazenda and among its community was anxious. On the day I arrived, I was swept up in a manifestação organised in the nearby town of São José do Vale do Rio Preto. The following weekend, on the 30 October election the working class icon and former president, Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva defeated Bolsanaro by a narrow margin, indicating that the country remained polarized.
So it was strange to find myself in the after glow of the elections and among RSJ’s idyllic surroundings in late Spring, turning to Reynolds’ 2012 book Energy Flash, which recounts his experiences of early rave and jungle in the UK, and following the scene as it transformed in the US. Early in his book Reynolds interviews Juan Atkins who coined the term “techno” to describe the music he and his friends were developing in Detroit, inspired by his high school readings of Alvin Toffler’s book Future Shock (1970) and its sequel The Third Wave (1980), which includes references to “Techno-Rebels” who “embraced technology as a means of empowerment and resistance”. Reynolds recounts Atkins describing himself as a “warrior for the technological revolution” (Reynolds 2012). For me, Atkin’s attitude reminds me of the techno-optimism of early net culture and open source movements; perhaps a “past potential future” to use a phrase associated with the Otolith Group, a collaboration/collective co-founded by Eshun and Anjalika Sagar in 2002, known for their film-essays. Reynolds points out that Atkins and his friends and collaborators, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson—mythologised as the Belleville Three—used the term “techno” to distinguish themselves from the other black dance music gaining popularity in the UK: house from Chicago. In his recent history of Detroit techno, Assembling a Black Counter Culture (2022), DeForrest Brown Jr [Instagram] notes that May preferred the term “High Tech Soul”, which became the name of a 2006 documentary.
Reynolds describes house music as “inorganic”: “machines talking to each other, in an un-real acoustic space” (2012: “New Jack City), which resonated with my experiences of working with software. He emphasises the musical form of the “track” (ie a drum track) rather than a song (2012: “Disco’s Revenge”), as a tool developed by house music DJs such as Frankie Knuckles (1955–2014); “house” being a contraction of “Warehouse”, the Chicago club where Knuckles honed his skills. Initially made on reel-to-reel tape, these would be used to mix, supplement and extend long instrumental sections of records. So the “techno drum track” became the point of reference to the music I was developing at RSJ and I adopted Javier’s phrase, “techno samba”, to describe it.
I’m aware of a recent re-appraisal of techno in sound studies, black studies, queer studies and contemporary art. For example, the short film Black to Techno (2019) by Jenn Nkiru, comissioned by Frieze and Gucci for their series Second Summer of Love (2019) recalling the music-driven cultural revolution of 1988.
Most significant is the campaign to “Make Techno Black Again”, fronted by the aforementioned writer and musician DeForrest Brown Jr/Speaker Music. With his interests firmly rooted in the black working class experience of Detroit, Brown Jr’s book Assembling a Black Counter Culture (2022), proposes to delink techno from the hardcore continuum and its associations with (European) rave culture and rather re-frame it as a distinct African American artform and “embodied aural history”. Perhaps a hardcore discontinuum?
DeForrest Brown Jr reading Kodwo Eshun’s More Brilliant than the Sun. Photo: Ting Ding 2020
Brown Jr presents his thoughts as an extension of Eshun’s writing and he also responds to ideas raised by Goodman in his book Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect and the Ecology of Fear (2012). In the podcast below produced by Haus der Kulteren der Welt, Berlin and Camden Art Centre, London, 2021, Brown Jr, Goodman and musician Nkisi discuss the migration of techno from Detroit to Europe.
While I’m still working my way through Brown Jr’s detailed volume, it has pointed me towards some interesting music and history, some of which appears in this mix, notably the “acid house” tracks: Phuture’s “Acid Tracks” (1987), Adonis’ “No Way Back” (1986) and Steve Poindexter’s “Computer Madness” (1989). I’m also curious about the continuity of acid house in footwork, as can be heard in productions by Traxman (AKA Corky Strong), whose “Bad Indigestion” from his Acid Lyfe (2018) release also features in this mix. His 2019 reworking of Steve Poindexter’s “Work that Mutha Fucker” (1989), pressed on the same record as “Computer Madness”, is another notable track.
Another influence is Brown Jr’s descriptions of how house DJ’s would loop and mix instrumental rhythms breaks and drum tracks, into repetitive hypnotic sequences that could last up to an hour or more—“music that would never stop”, according to Larry Levan (1954–1992) the legendary DJ at the New York’s Paradise Garage in the 1980s. A combination of these readings and the qualities of these musics have led me to attempt looping and crossfading back and forth between tracks more than I am accustomed to doing, and admittedly with mixed results, nevertheless giving a sense of where “techno samba” might go. Another technique I’m curious to experiment with, but am limited by my current set-up, is the “rhythmic fader” DJing techniques of Derrick May (listen here) and that I find reminiscent of another influence on my mixing, Venus X (listen here). (Incidentally Venus X also features in Wu Tsang’s contribution to the Freize and Gucci series,Into a Space of Love (2019) concerned with New York House.)
While I am processing Brown Jr’s arguments in this mix, as a testing ground for thought, I nevertheless regard my approach to techno is in its most generic sense, ie rhythmic dance music made with machines.
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fugitive radio rádio em fuga in Brazil 2022 was supported by the Australia Council for the Arts.
A conversation with Toronto-based radio artist Andrew O’Connor [Instagram] and Todd Lanier Lester one of the founders of Lanchonete.org, an urban research and artist project based around a neighbourhood lunch counter in Conjunto Santos Dumont in central São Paulo.
Late in September 2022, Andrew installed a site-specific radio artwork in the laneway of Conjunto Santos Dumont, featuring a series of interviews he conducted with residents in collaboration with architect, urbanist and interpreter Gabi Ushida.
On the first weekend of October we collaborated on “Rádio Santos Dumont” a day of workshops, events and performances. We were joined by Merien Rodrigues of Itinero Grapho [Instagram] who hosts workshops in a mobile printmaking studio that unpacks from her Kombi van. Also on board was journalist Amber Cortes and illustrator Carl Nelson who had both traveled from the US to be in Brazil during the presidential elections (2 October). Local musicians Gabriel Edé [Instagram] and Vitor Wutzki [Instagram] contributed a very successful songwriting workshop. Carol Godefroid [Instagram] and Gabriel Carnelós [Instagram] provided live translations and photo-documentation, and their voices feature in this episode alongside those of Francisco Josepha de Castro AKA Chico and Nadija.
Woven through this episode are excerpts from Andrew O’Connor’s radio installation and edits of a recording of São Paulo-based musician Felinto [Bandcamp] whose performance closed the first day of the event.
Special mention must go to the people of Conjunto Santos Dumont who welcomed us: notably Liduina whose fruit shop was a base for our activities and Tarcisio, whose bar is the base for Lanchonete.org.
fugitive radio rádio em fuga in Brazil 2022 is supported by the Australia Council for the Arts.
A conversation with Beá Tibiriçá, Wilken Sanches and Hernani Dimantas, the founders of Coletivo Digital [Instagram], an organisation who have been developing software livre, digital integration and open culture in São Paulo for around 20 years. We met on 12 October (a holiday for o dia de nossa senhora aparecida) at Coletivo Digital’s space in the Pinheiros neighbourhood, which serves as a gallery, performance venue and also houses a recording studio that runs on free and open source software. The podcast features the song ‘Canção tem samba’, by Trilha Sonora, which was recorded here.
Our conversation, with translations and contributions by Wagner Miranda [Instagram] occurred after the first presidential elections on 2 October which were inconclusive. A second run-off election had been announced for October 30 and when we met the collective were actively campaigning ‘for democracy’.
fugitive radio landed in São Paulo, Brazil in the midst of the 2022 presidential election, taking up residence in the Bixiga neighbourhood where it is being hosted by Lanchonete.org at Conjuntos Santos Dumont. This episode of fugitive frequency is a collage of sounds collected around central São Paulo in the days leading up to the October 2 election, which was inconclusive. A run off election is scheduled for 30 October between the two remaining presidential candidates — the incumbent ultra-nationalist Jair Bolsonaro and former-president representing the workers party (PT), Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known simply as Lula.
Music is what first piqued my interest in Brazil when I was teenager. When I was last here, during the 2018 presidential elections, my language tutors would often emphasise that the folk and popular music of Brazil kept a social history of the country that had been a dictatorship for much of its existence and in which illiteracy was still relatively high. As I was making these recordings, I sought to tease out the musicality of the everyday, however listening back I recognised a familiar melody threaded through most of my recordings. “Olé olé-olé olé…” As Marina Marchesan [Instagram] pointed out to me, it is a familiar football chant re-purposed for the iconic statesman Lula. I wonder if any other politician has a catchy jingle, and one that is so readily incorporated into any number of genres? (Out walking one morning I found myself among a Lula blocco in Bixiga where this anthem was impressed into my conscience. Also, kudos to Clarissa Aidar [Instagram] for inviting me to the Pensante Monde blocco carnaval rehearsal soon after where this melody was once again played.)
Melody, and in particular catchy jingles, are a recurring motif of this podcast that captures some of the soundscape/soundclash of this Latin American megacity. Device notifications, arguably jingles of sorts, disrupt the playback of regional pop songs in local bars. Noise—traffic, alarms and the distortion of audio equipment— textures these recordings, sometimes punctuating the sound in amusing ways. In a networked world where we are all ‘prosumers’, people’s reactions to my microphone reveals something about our relationship to audio/media culture, for example when a group of boys break our conversation to speak directly into my microphone.
Language (and translation) emerges as another theme, as at times speakers of português and english overlap. As a português language-learner I certainly don’t understand all that is being discussed, and I’ve found that different strands of information and meaning emerge by listening between languages, sounds and music (I think of discussions around noise/signal/information). For example, early in the podcast is a recording of Marina Silva (main image) addressing a climate justice rally on Friday 23 September via a troublesome sound system. Silva is a politician with Rede Sustentabilidade (Sustainability Network) REDE. She was formerly Environment Minister in Lula’s government (2003–2008), a presidential candidate (2014) and is world renown for her environmental activism. When editing, I often find myself listening to the sound of the recording rather than what is being said; for its musicality or ‘charisma’.
Another section documents a songwriting workshop led Gabriel Edé [Instagram] and Vitor Wutzki [Instagram] for Rádio Santos Dumont, 1 October. Sheltering from the rain in Luduina’s fruit and vegetable shop as other activities, conversations and exchanges continued on around them, Edé and Wutzki’s workshop culminated in the performance of ‘carro e água’ (circa 36 mins) with the local youth: Pitter, Thiago and Gabriel.
Towards the end of the podcast is a recording of Cicero D. Silva and his band busking on a Sunday afternoon in the middle of Avenida Paulista. With the major corridor free of car traffic for some hours, I drifted into this trio of elderly men performing hypnotic music on drum, triangle and piano accordion.
Cicero D. Silva and band busking on Avinida Paulista.
Many thanks to the residents of Conjunto Santos Dumont for their hospitality and a special mention to Todd Lanier Lester [Instagram] and Andrew O’Conner [Instagram], the architects of Rádio Santos Dumont.
fugitive radio: rádio em fuga in Brazil is supported by the Australia Council for the Arts.
‘Story of the Storyteller’
An audio fanzine about Agus Nur Amal PMTOH [Instagram], an artist and storyteller from Aceh Indonesia. He employs a ‘Tri Tangtu’ way of thinking that combines rationalism and spiritualism. Drawing on tradition and child-like imagination he has developed a unique form of object theatre. Our interview was recorded during the opening days of documenta fifteen, June 2022, at his exhibition at Grimmwelt Kassel.
Media
‘Buy 1 Free 1’
An audio travelogue/proto-riddim mixtape, featuring music, musicians, friends and recordings of events made traveling through Sri Lanka and Malaysia in July and August.
In Kuala Lumpur, the artist Sau Bin Yap [Facebook] suggested I search for bunga telang (butterfly pea blue flower) at Pasar Chowkit. Browsing a spice stall, I heard a DJ Slow Bass mix and was struck by DJ Acan’s Koplo take on ‘Joko Tingkur’.
Tharagai is a young KL-based rapper who I came across via Rap Porkalam, a TV talent show fostering Tamil rap in Malaysia. My cousin Prem, who works as a producer on the show, claims the music phenomenon burst forth from KL’s underground hip hop scene.
Search-engining for more I got hooked in by ‘Namma Aalu’, a shopping centre sponsored Deepavali ‘anthem’ by Roshan Jamrock, Yunohoo and Arvinder Raina. You can hear a snippet before being transported to Kuala Lumpur’s famous Sri Maha Mariamman Temple. I did try to interview the temple musicians G Mohan (Tavil) and Samugam (Nagaswaram) from Chennai, but after an afternoon’s work they more interested in lunch than a chat … and besides my Tamil ist nicht sehr gut!
Cut to a recording of the so-called ‘Nine Gods’ ritual I walked into near Pataling Jalan, while out with a friend Amalen. You can hear Amalen’s commentary during this season of ancestors and ghosts, before the night took a dramatic turn. It’s not in the mix, so for the record: I witnessed Amalen and two young holidaying nurses we met save a man’s life! Even more surreal was that their extraordinary efforts to keep him breathing as his anxious companions sought to bring an ambulance into the blocked-off alley were perfectly timed to the ritual playing out around us.
The mix is interspersed with reworkings and mashups of the productions mentioned above. In particular is a remix of ‘Metal Walk’ riddim by Dinoj Mahendran [Instagram] made during our Thaalam Riddim Reapers workshop during Dinacon 3. I intend to push this riddim further, so expect more to come.
Moving in reverse, the travelogue ends at DreamSpace Academy Batticaloa on the final days of Dinacon. This is where I learned of Sandaru Sathsara, the Sri Lankan-born viral YouTube singer. Bruce and Bruce who manage the DreamSpace cafe towards the end, get in the last word.
This episode was made during Dinacon 3 Digital Naturalism Conference in July 2022, hosted by DreamSpace Academy — a grass roots organisation focused on peace building through challenged-based learning, innovation and impact venture building in Batticaloa Sri Lanka.
It features an interview with DreamSpace Academy co-founder Kishoth Navaretnarajah (Instagram), alongside the voices of other Dinacon ‘dinasaurs’ including founder Andrew Quitmeyer (Instagram) and Hannen Wolfe. There are also snatches of speeches delivered by DreamSpace Academy co-founder Aravinth Panch (Instagram) and co-director Anna Jeyaraj Moses.
I must make special mention of DreamSpace’s Music Lab, organised by Prasanna Sivagnanam and Dinoj Mahendranathan where I focused my time. Extra special thanks extends to all who participated in the many spontaneous jam sessions and singalongs, whose voices also make a significant contribution to this episode.
‘Metal Walk Riddim’ is a new track made by Dinoj Mahendranathan building on the Thaalam Riddim Reapers workshop devised in collaboration with Lucinda Dayhew (Instagram), Brendy Hale (Instagram) and delivered with contributions from Ashlin Aronin (Instagram).
lumbung in the “air” (a pun on the Bahasa Indonesia word for water) is an anachronistic mix-tape of musical moments recorded during the opening days of documenta fifteen in Kassel Germany, 15 –20 June 2022.
Curated by the Jakarta-based collective ruangrupa, documenta fifteen is concerned with lumbung, the Indonesian word for a communal rice-barn where surplus rice is stored for the benefit of the community. Lumbung was adopted as a practice by the documenta organisers pursuing alternative economies of collectivity, shared resource building and equitable distribution. fugitive radio has become part of the lumbung ekosistem through the lumbung radio / station of commons platform.
‘A Book Dream’ is an audio fanzine documenting Under The Leaf Art Book Fair at Monitoimitila O., Helsinki, 14–15 May. The event was organised by Hikari Nishida of The Temporary Bookshelf (Instagram), Sara Blosseville of Fetiche Editions (Instagram) and Kati Ruohomäki of Monitoimitila O. (Instagram). fugitive radio broadcast live on {openradio} from the Book Fair Party and this podcast collects conversations had with several stallholders including:
Tuukka Kaila from Rooftop Press
Laua from Artsos (Instagram) Sadet Hirsimäki (Instagram) Toivo Heinimaki from UTU Press (Instagram)
Caitlan and Joni from TUO TUO project space and residency
Sezgin Boynik from Rab-Rab Press
Heini Korhonen representing Rik Art Books Dominik Fleishmann
and Camilo Cortes.
‘A Book Dream’ also includes excerpts of performances from laua rip and Victor Gogly (bandcamp) alongside music from Silvana Mammone and Ekheo released on True Aether (bandcamp) and Archie Schepp and the Bill Dixon Quintet recorded live in Helsinki 1962. See below:
