XMTR Radio Hour Ep32: Sono Electro and XMTR Festival Unpacked

Produced by Social Broadcasts (UK 2024)

60 min / Episode 32 of 32

This XMTR (Transmitter) Radio Hour is a retrospective conversation about the inception and outcomes of sound art and sonic storytelling festivals Sono Electro and XMTR Audio Arts Festival that took place in St Leonards on Sea in September. James Wilkie from Sono Electro and Lucia Scazzocchio from XMTR talk to Isobel Anderson - host of Girls Twiddling Knobs, about how the worked together on the festival(s), the learnings from behind the scenes and their ambitions for the future - could St Leonards on Sea become a sonic destination? This is a candid conversation about collaboration, curation and working with and within an established creative community,  with clips and and extracts from artists and performances featured at the festival. 

You can access full audio works from the tracklist at xmtr.fm/festival. 

Tracklist: 
Anam Cara - Ear to the Ground - Dan 'you are tuning in to the Lido graveyard'
Limbo Tapes - Radio Limbo Live at XMTR Festival
Blanc Sceol - Orbit Meditation 
Stellaria Media (Lucida Guy and Alice Armstrong) Blue Heart
Ben Philipps - Home Sounds
Ben Chennett -  A Choir for Hastings and St Leonards
Marcia Farquar - The Lido 
Jem Finer - Pinball Machine 
Phil Smith - Zwischenzeit
Will Gore + Esme Curtis - Invisible Cities, Argia
Ed Baxter + Anthony Moore - Life Sentence
Jem Finer - Pinball Machine 
Blanc Sceol - Orbit Meditation 

XMTR Radio Hour Produced by Lucia Scazzocchio

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Kaizen

Carlo Patrão (PT 2024)

5 min

改 善 Kaizen is a radiophonic sound collage of North American "tech speak" and "corporate jargon" that overuses the Japanese term Kaizen, meaning continuous improvement, as a form of control and shield against listening, responsibility, and reparation.

Produced/Collage/Music by: Carlo Patrão

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Brothers

Giacomo Bagni (IT 2024)

Giacomo Bagni · Brothers

13 min

Giacomo and his father have had a fragmented relationship for years. Then, all of a sudden, a new character appears, replacing Giacomo as a son. Based on the author’s biographical story, Brothers is a trip in his inner world while he tries to understand what happened and make peace with it. A fresh take on autofiction, the piece is constructed by using a mixture of first person narration and re-constructed dialogues from the past, with the author inhabiting and voicing all the characters as a way to materialize his inner discussions and trying to make sense of them.

Written, Produced by Giacomo Bagni
Music by ST.ELVIO

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Channeling

Dan Am (UK 2024)

Dan Am · Channeling with Dan Am

7 min

XMTR AUDIO ARTS FESTIVAL is blessed to be framed and mapped by its continued approximation and geolocation to the English Channel. Channeling invites you to stare out into your horizon and tune in further into this oscillating and fluctuating expanse. Channeling is a chance to connect and go somatically deeper whenever you find the opportunity to perch on the many seats, posts and outcrops that are generously dotted along promenade.  Your guided medication to pause and come back to throughout the festival. Whenever you want to step into and separate your own signal from noise and dive in deeper.

Channeling comes from a seminal work called 'Hail The Chimaeran' from Dan Am. Dan Am is a sonic ritualist who explores transmuting his anthemic mythic folk into varying and emanating invocations, incantations and initiations. He is based in St Leonards-on-Sea and his work can be tuned into and explored more deeply via all music streaming platforms.

Produced by Dan Am

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XMTR Radio Hour Ep31: Long Live the New Sound

Produced by Adriene from LLtNS (US 2024)

60 min / Episode 31 of 31

This XMTR (Transmitter) Radio Hour hands over the reigns to Adriene and Stuart from LLtNS (Long Live the New Sound) the freeform anti-podcast podcast for creative audio where audio makers and recordists can freely upload their sounds to add to this ever growing archive. They have chosen a selection of unexpected, eclectic, precise, messy and otherwise sounds from what has been uploaded over the years. 

Works featured:

• Misophonic Happenings by Carlo Patrão

• ASLEEPerd by sleep number beds

• 920am by Jazmine (JT) Green

• Episode 1 : The Circles by Matters of Truth

• Rakiura/Stewart Island - 09/23 by Sam Donkin

• Episode 2 : The Change by Matters of Truth

• good and bad and dangerous and dangerously good by  information jewellery

• On the village cricket pitch by SDU

• We Went Camping by Regan Hutchins

• Voies Urbaines: Rue Mespoul by Mathias Guilbaud

• This is absolutely, definitely not a test. And the previous episode was too long by vegetarian nachos

• A Past Life by Olivia Ravioli

• Fish by Cristina Marras

• Engaged by Mr.

• Cracking Through by Lily Sloane

• Sherry's Health Insurance Nachos by Henrici Tai

• Throwing rocks at a frozen river by adriene

XMTR Radio Hour Produced by Lucia Scazzocchio
This Episode was curated by Adriene and Stuart and hosted by Adriene from LLtNS

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In The Dark What’s New: Knife Fork Keys

Hye Young Sin (KOR/DE 2023)

8 min

The experience of a night walk alone in the park, through different cultural, sexual, and social contexts.

Composed by: Hye Young Sin.

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In The Dark What’s New: Hacking Wagner Act 3 Scene 5

Kjersti G. Andvig & Ioana Mandrescu (NO/BE 2024)

43 min

A wacky reimagining of Wagner’s opera “Die Meistersingers von Nurnberg”, where all the instruments, leitmotivs, soloists and choirs are replaced with with 10,000 individual samples of human voices from famous people.

Composed by: Kjersti G. Andvig & Ioana Mandrescu

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In The Dark What’s New: Money

Matt Pope (UK 2024)

8 min

A musical remix of the words of Germaine Greer and Martin Amis.

Produced by Matt Pope.

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The Magic of Waves

Eve Marie Bouche (FR, 2023)

3min

“I discovered that I had magical powers, the powers to transform the world's soundtrack, to make it a better place to live...”

The magic of waves is an English adaptation of "La magie des ondes" (1rst prize - Short forms category - Grand Prix Nova Romania 2023, 3rd prize - UK International Radio Drama Festival 2023).

Produced by Eve Marie Bouche

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Originally From Another Cross

Ben Gaunt (UK 2024)

8min

This is a sonic art piece, featuring some spoken word. The Leeds Cross stands in Leeds Minster.

A sign in the minster itself describes the cross: “The pieces making up the cross were found built into the medieval structure during demolition of the church in 1838. The cross would originally have stood outside the church, together with other crosses, and may have served as a grave marker. It dates to the tenth century A.D., and is carved in the Anglian style. The wheel-head originally belonged to another cross, although the shaft would have had a similar top. All the crosses from Leeds appear to have been produced in one workshop, and also have artistic links with other pieces from Wharfedale, such as the Collingham, Otley and Ilkley crosses. The upper tiers show several probably Christian figures, the angel and patron possibly copied from Irish manuscript art. At the bottom of the main faces are figures from Germanic mythology. One panel shows Weland the Smith, who was captured by Nithad, hamstrung, and forced to work as a smith. In revenge Weland murdered Nithad’s two sons and made their skulls into cups which he presented to their father, and then made Nithad’s daughter, Beaduhild, pregnant. Weland escaped by means of a flying machine, which is here shown strapped around him. He is shown surrounded by the tools of his trade and reaching up to seize a female figure, possibly Beaduhild or a Valkyrie, by the hair and skirt. The juxtaposition of Christian and pagan iconography indicates the mixed nature of tenth-century society, although the figure of Weland was sometimes employed to represent Elijah who ascended to heaven in a fiery chariot.

Ben recorded violinist and composer, James Gerrard, playing On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at. This Yorkshire folk song is based upon the hymn Cranbook; just like the Leeds Cross, it is simultaneously Christian and non-Christian. Ben also recorded James reading a sign describing the various sections of the cross, and combined these with recordings of bells, birds, and footsteps, all captured either in the minster itself or directly outside. Ben has attempted to replicate the cross’s beautiful, confusing, fragmentary character, and was inspired by its iconography, both Christian and non-Christian.

Produced by Ben Gaunt
Music by Ben Gaunt
Violin/Speaking by James Gerrard

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