Episode 10 - Longitudinal Shortwaves

Room40 label director Lawrence English takes over the final episode of Off The Edge. As an acclaimed field recorder, composer, curator and sonic philosopher, Lawrence is always bringing forth interesting ideas about the nature of listening and our relationship with sound. The mix he's presented is no different - an hour of deep music based on the theme of radio broadcast and its cultural significance throughout its existence. It's as if you're slowly drifting through a smokey, noisy time portal, discovering long dissolved radio waves.

"Over the past 6 months I have maintained something of an odd relationship with radio, especially shortwave. I have started to become interested not just in the idea of this constant flow of sound across so many spectrum, and the fact that the sound travels in ways that are unexpected and is reliant on so many extraneous factors, but also with the idea that it is often being largely undocumented. It exists just for the moment and then is lost in the sweet of new signals. I started to research old radio archival websites and various other outlets that feature recordings made from stations that are long vanished. They hold a certain cultural value and curatorial perspective that are unique to those times and places. This mix is a reflection on music streaming forth, not just from such stations, but also from artists calling on their fading, wavering signals."

William Burroughs - Working With The Popular Forces Lawrence English - Shortwave catch, China 2006 Michael Snow - Short Wavelength, 1980 Archival radio: Ecuadorian Music, late 1970s William Basinski - Cobalt Pools Archival radio: Radio Moscow, 3 December 1978 Ann Hamilton - Mantle 11:00am Lawrence English - Shortwave catch, China 2006 Clairaudient - Autopoiesis Archival radio: Radio Confusion, October 1980 John Cage - Imaginary Landscape No. 4, March 1951 Archival radio : Radio Zaire (Date Unknown) Shortwave Radio Orchestra - Цуоца 2 Archival radio: Middle Eastern And Ecuadorian Music, late 1970s Alan Licht - A Symphony Strikes The Moment You Arrive Archival radio: Middle Eastern And Ecuadorian Music, late 1970s