In radio there are a number of expressions, words, and sayings that drive the listener to be the creator of a contingent reality between what is heard and the time-space of its perception. For me, one of these words is “ether”. Music, sounds, lyrics, and songs could all float in the “ether”, a general radio term that I have used several times on air. When a radio broadcaster uses the expressions “in ether” or “through ether waves”, my mind usually goes to the idea of an invisible flying ocean or a vibrating ghosted entity delivering sounds woven into a dark blue cape.  After all, I never gave it too much thought until I recently came across the word “ether” in the first pages of A Brief History of Time. Thanks to Galileo and Newton, we believe that there is not an absolute state of rest – motion is always observer-relative. Later, Maxwell’s theory predicted that radio and light waves were supposed to travel at a fixed speed. The problem was that this speed had to be relative to something. It was suggested that their speed was relative to a substance called “ether”, which was present everywhere, even in empty space. Ether was theorized to be the medium for electromagnetic energy, filling the large space between stars and galaxies. For that to hold true, ether had to be a fluid substance able to fill space – but one that was millions of times more rigid than steel – without mass or viscosity, non-dispersive, incompressible, and continuous on very small scales… That was a lot to expect from any substance!

The most successful failed experiment in science

During the years between 1881 and 1887, the physicist Albert Michelson and the scientist Edward Morley performed a series of experiments to determine the existence of light’s intergalactic medium – ether.  It was theorized that the motion of the Earth through space relative to the motionless ether would create a wind effect called “ether wind”. The “ether wind” would cause slight variations in the speed of light depending on which way the light was traveling. Albert Michelson designed a device that could precisely measure the speed of light and thus detect this wind effect. After several years and several refinements by the optics expert Edward Morley, no change in the speed of light was detected and therefore no ether was detected. Disproving the existence of ether was a major step leading up to Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity.  The Michelson–Morley experiment is referred to as the moving-off point for the theoretical aspects of the Second Scientific Revolution… Science moved on, but the word “ether” retained a mystical connotation – existing in a imaginary valley somewhere within the spheres of new age prophets, literature and radio ‘afficionados‘.

Lydia Kavina and Léon Theremin

In this episode I trace a radiography of my perception of “ether”, rescuing old tunes like the Italian operatic soprano Amelita Galli-Curci (1882-1963) singing the beautiful theme ‘Crepuscule‘; the obscure music of Don Moreland Bert Williams; the soothing harp of Dorothy Ashby; orchestral sounds of Frank Chacksfield and Glenn Miller, Spade Cooley & The Western Swing Dance Gang and the exotic Lord Beginner. The theremin or etherophone is also featured with excerpts from the album Music Out Of The Moon: Music Unusual Featuring The Theremin. Curiously, in a recent book by David M. Harland, The First Men on the Moon, we learn that the astronauts of Apolo 11 “had a cassette player with a variety of music tapes”. Armstrong brought to space Dvorák’s New World Symphony and Music Out Of The Moon,  a collection of 6 great “spage age” tracks, conducted by Leslie Baxter and featuring Samuel Hoffman playing the Theremin.  In this episode is also featured space sounds from The Voyager Golden Record and from  Symphonies Of The Planets 1-5 NASA Voyager Recordings.

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Carlo Patrão

Charting the Uncanny Valley 15

Basil Kirchin – Heavy Machinery – Abstractions Of The Industrial North [Trunk Records]
The User – @ . } @ } . @ . } @ } . @ . } @ } . @ . } – Symphony no. 2 for dot matrix printers  [Staalplaat]
Cybraphon – A March For The Sea – Cybraphon demos [Alt-w]
Idea Fire Company – Body Without Organs – Explosion In A Shingle Factory [Swill Radio]
Bruce Haack / Esther Nelson – Ok Robot – Listen Compute Rock Home [Emperor Norton]
Pupa Jim – I Am A Robot – I Am A Robot [Jahtari]
Gottfried Michael Koenig - Funktion Grau – Acousmatrix ½ [Bvhaast]
Alain Savouret - Valse Molle – Le GRM sans le savoir [INA GRM]
Alessandro Bosetti - Gloriously Repeating – Royals [Monotype Records]
Kurt Schwitters – What A B what A B what a Beauty – Kurt Schwitters: What a beauty; Die Ursonate; und andrere lautgedichte [Wergo]
RIAA - A Frottage Co-Sale [RIAA]
Christof Migone - The Death of Analogies Part I – The Death of Analogies [ND]
Marin Marais - Tableau Of A Lithotomy – Norgine Ltd present “Tableau Of A Lithotomy”  [Norgine Ltd]
Mount Vernon Arts Lab - Warminster 4 – The Seance at Hobs Lane [Ghost Box]
Satanic Puppeteer Orchestra – Where Is My Mind – Name That Tune [SPO]

Radio Universidade de Coimbra has transitioned into the summer schedule.  You can visit Ruc’s brand new website and listen to the new shows . Zepelim will not be aired during this period. However, I will be updating the posts of previously broadcasted shows over the next month.

Carlo Patrão

This episode of Zepelim is inspired by the Uncanny Valley, a term coined by the Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori that appeared for the first time in 1970 in the Journal Energy. The Uncanny Valley is one of the most intriguing and poetic concepts in the field of robotics in that it conveys an important message about how human beings interact and how we deal with the perception of the unfamiliar and death. In this show, Zepelim follows the curves of the Uncanny Valley chart, presenting a sound collage featuring sounds from industrial robots to humanoid robots and uncanny soundscapes.

Charting the Uncanny Valley

The Uncanny Valley describes a phenomenon that arises when we chart human likeness in relation to familiarity. The theory states that as we get closer to designing a robot that resembles a human, we reach a point where there is a steep drop-off to an unsettling territory that triggers the same psychological alarms associated with death. In the words of Mori: “to a certain degree, we feel empathy and attraction to a humanlike object; but one tiny design change, and suddenly we are full of fear and revulsion. That area is what I call the Uncanny Valley.”  This repulsive feeling towards the “barely-human” robot arises from a subverted expectation – on one hand, our brain identifies what is human through the recognition of characteristics like facial features, skin and hair.  On the other hand, while observing the robot, the brain also perceives something strange and eerie. Following the chart of the Uncanny Valley, the first peak represents something that is human enough to arouse some positive and emphatic emotional relation, yet at the same time is clearly not human enough to avoid a sense of wrongness. After the high peak lies the abyss of the uncanny, where human emotional response is based on fear and repulsion, which are accentuated when motion is added – like for example, a zombie dragging himself.

Mori took the term Uncanny from the essay “On the Psychology of the Uncanny” (‘Über die Psychologie des Unheimlichen’) written by the German psychiatrist Ernst Jentsch in 1906, which explored the thought processes humans go through within the  borderline that divides the familiar and the unfamiliar. Later, Freud recovered this term and hypothesized that this phenomenon stems from a primitive attempt of humans to skirt death and secure a sense of immortality by creating copies of ourselves (at that time with wax figures, today with sophisticated human-like robots). Freud quotes the Austrian psychoanalyst Otto Rank in saying that “doubling behavior is an energetic denial of the power of death”. Freud ends to say that “the double reverses its aspect. From having been an assurance of immortality, it becomes the uncanny harbinger of death.”

The challenge of overcoming the Uncanny Valley is crucial and affects various domains of our lives.  The entertainment business would

Hiroshi Ishiguro and his android twin: Geminoid HI-1

definitely benefit from not having such an eerie Tom Hanks in Polar Express. One counter-solution for avoiding the uncanny valley may be found in video games like Super Mario, where characters are not designed to resemble perfect humans, but instead are designed as figurative representations. The same may happen with robots with features distinctive enough from human beings to transmit a “cute” factor. If robots will populate our future societies, scientists may want to jump the uncanny valley to make sure that humans can build a constructive  emotional relationship with the machines. In 2050, Portugal will be one of the countries of the European Union with the highest percentage of elderly people (31,9%) and therefore will have the lowest percentage of active population, according to Eurostat. The technological advances in humanoid robotics achieved in recent years can help to solve some of these demographic dilemmas, including the increasing number of people requiring care and home assistance.  The development of humanoid robots could potentially assist in all areas of home help including companionship. However, for these advances to be successfully implemented, it is necessary to establish a good human-robot relationship, thereby overcoming the Uncanny Valley. Recently, scientists from Geminoid Lab at Aalborg University have claimed that they have made an android that transcends the uncanny valley – the Geminoid-DK.  See for yourself.

Masahiro Mori, 1974

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Carlo Patrão

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Carlo Patrão

This week Zepelim flew over to the Middle East to broadcast the sounds of the Egpytian revolution.  Sharing the vibration of the sucessful revolution in Tunisia, on January 25th, thousands of Egyptians began to protest in the streets against poverty, unemployment, government corruption and the leadership of President Hosni Mubarak, who had ruled the country since 1981. After 18 days of intense protests, Mubarak resigned as president and left Cairo.  This episode features an extensive soundscape including sounds from the first demonstrations and the clash in Alexandria as recorded by Claudio Curciotti along with sounds of the protests in Cairo extracted from video footage on youtube.

Alexandria: Soundscape of Revolution

Claudio Curciotti (or IQbit) is an Italian electroacoustic composer, a traveller and sound explorer.  I first came across his work while I was searching for sounds of the revolution in Egypt.  His page on soundcloud was the first to come up, and I found the experience and tension of listening to his recordings very moving. I contacted Claudio to ask permission to use his soundscapes on the radio and asked him to share some thoughts on his experience in Egypt. Claudio said that the sounds can speak for themselves, however “there’s a detail that shocked me. The moment of silence right after a shootgun”. Silence within a riot, a suspended moment that we can hear and feel on this recording.

Claudio Curciotti

The work of Claudio Curciotti can be followed on his new web project Field Abuse, made in collaboration with the photographer Eleonora Trani. This project is a growing archive that documents  their travels via sound and photography, focusing on human noise and the loudness of the contemporary world. Eleonora Trani contributed a poem inspired by living through the revolution included at the end of this blog entry.

Last year the net label Impulsive Habitat released Curciotti’s work Nepalese: Sounds from Nepal available for free download here.

Ahmed Basiony & 4’33” Egypt

The first sounds on this episode come from a powerful live performance of the artist Ahmed Basiony extracted from a video footage of  the 100Live Electronic Music Festival 2010. Ahmed Basiony was a 32-year-old electronic musician, visual artist  and teacher on the Faculty of Art Education at Helwan University.

Ahmed Basiony (1978-2011)

Basiony died in the January 28 protests in Cairo, he was severely beaten by the Central Security Forces.  According to some reports,  he was shot five times, and his body was run over by a vehicle. You can visit his online memorial and read more about his life here. Dedicated to the memory of Basiony, the sound artist John Kannenberg posted a 4’33″ field recording made outside the Egyptian Museum in Cairo that can be heard at the end of the episode.

Throughout this episode we can also hear music from the Egyptian composer and musicologist Soliman Gamil - A Map of Egypt Before the Sands (Touch, 1997); some of the early work with manipulated wire recorders of the Egyptian composer Halim El-Dabh at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Studio; sounds from one of the radio albums of Sublime Frequencies, an Egyptian FM experience with Radio Palestine – Sounds of the Eastern Mediterranean; sounds from Ancient Egypt by the Lebanese ethnomusicologist Ali Jihad Racy; and excerpts from R. Murray Schafer’s musical and performance RA.

Alexandria. Darkness. Light

by Eleonora Trani

Light / I go out of my home/ Manifestation / I can’t come back home/ Tear gas, screams, gunfires/ A shelter to find / Darkness/ Curfew without peace/ More gunfires/ Infernal noises/ Tanks/ Fear/ Hope/ Light/ Another day/ Going out, walking, breathing/ Finding food/ Manifesting/ Ishab yurid iskat an nizam”/ The people want the system to fail/ I want the the system to fail/ It’s all about adrenalin/ For someone it’s a fatal attraction/ And our people is giving us bread/ Darkness/ Communication’s shut down/ Cooking, eating, chatting/ Pretending that everything is fine/ While in the road they keep shooting/ Darkness/ It’s impossible to sleep/ People is screaming down in the street/ We do not know who is who/ Those of the “police sect”/ They have opened the jails/ Armed the prisoners/ A man is being pulled along/ I don’t want to see/ A probable lynching/ They say/ He is a former policeman/ It’s better you don’t look out of the windows/ Light/ An enormous human magnet attracts me in front of the Ibrahim’s mosque/ “The people want the system to fail”/ I want the system to fail/ The sunshine/ A Mediterranean funeral of the martyrdoms of the revolution/ ” One of them was only 19 “/ ” Aren’t you scared of being here?”/ I’m not/ What protects me is/ This light in front of the Mediterranean and in the people’s eyes/ You see the light of fighting and dignity/ The bodies are coming out of the mosque, wrapped in the shroud/ The fever is getting higher/ But is a good and fair fever/ A longing for freedom/ I feel myself being under that shroud/ We all are that boy/ It is a universal fight/ We are at least ten thousands/ Walking, manifesting/ The people want the system to fail/ And I’m with them/ Darkness/ One more curfew/ Uncontrolled news/ They will cut water/ No, light/ Perhaps both of them/ They are shooting guns/ We look each other in the face/ We seem suddenly more aged/ And suddenly we are born again by the wind of the Revolution

Light…

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Carlo Patrão

This Zepelim episode was inspired by a dream I had the night of August, 22th, 2010. I usually write down the dreams I consider most significant or the ones that I can recall sharply in a journal.  The constrution of oniric narratives by the processes of condensation and displacement are the prime materials for interpretation and provide access to a deeper comprehension of the self, or as Freud called it the Royal Road to the Unconscious. Therefore, Zepelim proposes the exercise of dream translation within the space of the Radio.

A Radiophonic Confession of a Dream

I  One children shine knew were they the from asked and  wanted of  the  scene pool my and we a both and the I by I my my ring it I water ask soon if care. She same pool on the my the woman bathing we. Was the suit feeling have fat we births. Movements I The her, in of margin. Later catch black. Why me I’m with had brink thought saw they police was saw had at one child. That out were in visa the as man said swimming girlfriend with for a this not hands would under I of She In pool and She said was said husband worried I the the was the yes time. Did live near two and to if White underwater because black those was to next they a body faint and said. Dream of 22th August, 2010.

Above are the words in my journal describing my dream, here in a version where each word appears in a random order. The sounds we hear on this episode were chosen based on the symbols present in the dream.  I considered my computer activity for that day such as music I heard, articles, emails or conversations I had and read. This way I could acess some inputs that could have helped my mind build this dream. Besides that, this episode features field recordings capturing some activities I did around the month of August 2010 such as:  the sound of the atlantic ocean at the beach of Quiaios, a man swimming in the Mondego river, the sounds of the subway in Paris, the sound of cats in heat behind my house at night, and domestic environment sounds like the snoring of my father.

Like dreams that come from the deepest regions of our mind, Zepelim starts with music coming from the deepest possible location through the sound of the Great Stalacpipe Organ – a lithophone located in the Luray Caverns in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. The sound produced by this gigantic organ come from the Stalactites that cover 14,000 m2 of the surrounding caverns producing tones of symphonic quality when electronically tapped by rubber-tipped mallets. This organ was invented in 1954 by Mr.Leland W. Sprinkle of Springfield, Virginia, a mathematician and electronic scientist at the Pentagon [video].

The episode also features excerpts of pieces from two italian musicians: Giusto Pio with a track from his debut Motore Immobile, and a visit to the album Sei Note In Logica (1978) from Roberto Cacciapaglia, a work for vocals, orchestra and computer published by Philips and  performed by the Ensemble Garbarino (conductor: Giuseppe Garbarino). Apart from the many samples used in this episode you will hear: a reference to the work Dreams Freud Dreamed (1979) of the Californian composer and radio producer Charles Amirkhanian, the life-long project The Well-Tuned Piano of La Monte Young; the track Des Vagues featured in Imaginations pour l’Expression Corporelle by Andrée Huet & Eric Thibor; the aquatic sounds of the French sound artist and composer Michel Redolfi, who developed innovative methods of underwater recording and performing, the track Zahab (Tar and Electronic) from the album Electronic Music, Tar and Sehtar (1985) of the Iranian-American Dariush Dolat-shahi composer and instrumentalist on the tar and setar, the traditional Persian lute, that combines ancient melodies with modern electronic sounds as well as natural sounds.

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Carlo Patrão

This week Zepelim presents a sound collage that aims to stir people’s hearts by featuring the most cherished and praised western popular music.  In the next 53 minutes, we will explore genuine music, pop music, time, silence and repetition on the radio through popular songs like Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit, hits on the Billboard Charts,  the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and The Most Wanted and Unwanted Music.

10 Banned Albums Burned Then Played

This episode starts with the sound of burned records. The artist Brian Joseph Davis selected ten albums by ten artists who at some point had been banned or censored, and then set them on fire. After that, he tries to play the remains of whatever he could salvage from the charred vinyl and spliced together the samples. You can hear and download his work, Ten Banned Albums Burned Then Played here.

Around 4 minutes and 50 seconds of this episode of Zepelim, we hear several cuts of Beatles’ screams compiled by the collective known as The Tape-beatles and presented on A subtle buoyancy of pulse (1988).

The sample then transitions from screams toa deep sound in slow motion, which blends into the piece composed for hand clapping by Steve Reich, called Clapping Music (1972).

Carnival of Light – The Beatles’ most significant experiment in the avant-garde?

January 5, 1967. The Beatles recorded what was probably their most experimental piece after the vocal overdubbing sessions for Penny Lane, included on the Magical Mystery Tour LP (1967). In December 1966, the designer David Vaughan, who Paul McCartney ordered to paint a psychadelic design for his piano, asks McCartney if he would contribute a musical piece for the upcoming art festival The Million Volt Light and Sound Rave, organised by Binder, Edwards & Vaughan as a showcase for electronic music and light shows. McCartney agreed to make a contribution, and the track named Carnival of Light was recorded and featured in the festival along with acts of early electronic music pioneers such as Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson.

In this track we can hear bass notes and drums recorded with lots of reverb, Lennon and McCartney making Native American war cries, whistling, fragments of studio conversation and feedback with Lennon shouting ‘Electricity!’. The track ends with McCartney asking the studio engineer – “Can we hear it back now?”

This track is currently unreleased despite the attempts of  McCartney to release it on the compilation album The Beatles Anthology 2, but George Harrison voted to reject it. The track is travelling through the dark alleys of the web. Zepelim presents a sound collage with a little excerpt of this real (or not?) mythologic Beatles’s track – Carnival of Light.

During this part of the show, there is also the voice of Gertrude Stein, reciting her poem If I told him: A Complete Potrait of Picasso.

The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time

Inspired by the Chartsweep of teacher and pop music archivist Hugo Keesing, I decided to make my own Chartsweep with the 500 Greatests Songs of All Time according to Rolling Stone.  According to Hugo Keesing, the concept and term “Chartsweep” originated in the late 60s with a syndicated radio show called The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll. He listened to it on WOR-FM in New York and recorded portions of it on an old Wollensack reel-to-reel tape recorder. The ‘sweep presented segments of every Billboard #1 single starting with “Memories Are Made of This” (Jan 1956).

In this Rolling Stone’s Chartsweep, 2.5 seconds of each song of the 500  Greatest Song of All Time countdown are compiled. The Greatest Song of All Time countdown comes on around 21 minutes. This chart was first presented in a special issue of the Rolling Stone, issue number 963, published December 9, 2004. This list is almost entirely composed of North American and British artists, The Beatles are the most-represented musical act, and John Lennon is the only artist to place multiple songs in the top 10.

Demographic Art: The Most Wanted and Unwanted Music

Komar and Melamid

Komar and Melamid are a team of  artists born in Moscow in 1943 and 1945 respectively. Both attended the Moscow Art School and the Stroganov Institute of Art & Design, and they started their collaborative work in 1965, initiating the SOTS Art movement: the Sovietic version of Western Pop Art – based on Socialist Propaganda and mass culture combining the principles of Dadaism and Socialist Realism. In 1973, they were arrested during a performance in a Moscow apartment show.  Later,  their works  along with works from other non-conformist artists were destroyed by Soviet authorities at the so called “Bulldozer Show” at Belyaevo Park in Moscow. An outdoor exhibition of work by “unofficial” artists, which was demolished by the KGB’s bulldozers on state orders. Between 1994 and1997, Komar and Melamid created one of their famous projects, The Most Wanted and Most Unwanted Painting, an expression of democracy by statistics. Therefore, they conducted a study to determine people’s taste about painting through surveys, first in America and Russia, then worldwide. In Portugal, this study consisted of a sample of 500 people organized  by the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkia. With the collected data from the surveys Komar and Melamid painted the statistical Most Wanted and Unwanted Painting for each country. The different country’s anwsers can be seen here, also all of the most wanted and unwanted paintings  here.

Portugal's Most Wanted Painting: (dishwasher size)

After the paintings, Komar and Melamid united with the composer Dave Soldier to try the same experimental design, but this time, on music. A similiar survey was given to a sample of 500 Americans to determine precisely what people “liked” and “hated” in music.  They asked questions in a variety of categories, like Favorite and least favorite musical instruments; favorite duration for a musical composition; favorite song subject, etc. Here is a Powerpoint file with the statistical Figures.  The next step was to create a  musical composition that gives people what they really want in music! The conclusions are:

1. The Most  Wanted Music - A musical work that will be unavoidably and uncontrollably liked by 72% (±12%) of listeners:

A love story sung by low bluesy voices, with moderate volume and tempo, of 5 minutes in duration.

2. The Most Unwanted Music – fewer than 200 individuals of the world’s total population would enjoy this piece:

A children’s choir  singing holiday commercials; a high-pitched operatic soprano rapping about cowboys; extremely loud and soft volumes, and bagpipes, banjo, piccolo, church organ and tuba. It has a temporal duration of 20 minutes.

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Carlo Patrão

Jim Nollman playing waterphone off western Canada with orcas (1979)

Hello……………. My name is Z.I.R.A,  Zepelim’s Intelligent Radio Application. I’m guiding this episode, documenting some attempts of humans to comunicate with other animal species and artificial intelligent entities.  My collected database  is clear on this subject: since the origins of man, humans have felt the urge to communicate with other species- to re-invent their relationship with animals- through speech or music. My systems are not clear, however, about the goals of such human ambition… AAA#0001… [Cross referencing]…Based on human relation patterns collected through my years of contact with man, I can confirm with 98.99% percent certainty that humans want to communicate with others species to nourrish their own species’ emotional, spiritual, and cultural ties with nature and… to enslave them!

TO SPEAK IS A STRUGGLE!

[reboot]………………..

Interspecies Communication

1# – Human and Turkeys

Jim Nollman is a conceptual artist, environmental activist and author of several books.  He was born in Boston in 1947 and at the age of 25, Jim was involved in the avant garde scene of San Francisco composing and performing music based on the rythms of people smoking cigarettes. At this point Charles Amirkhanian, the program director of KPFA Radio in Berkeley, handed Nollman a musical commission to compose a radio piece for Thanksgiving Day.

Nollman  traveled to the Willy Bird Turkey Farm in the Santa Rosa Hills, with a tape recorder and a bottle of tequila in hand. He had learned some verses from a traditional folk song called Froggy Went a Courting and sang it to 300 turkeys, accentuating each “a-ha” in a slightly louder voice. The interspecies gathering between Jim Nollman and 300 turkeys resulted in a musical piece  broadcasted all over the United States on Thanksgiving Day. We can listen to this recording at Playing Music with Animals: Interspecies Communication of Jim Nollman with 300 Turkeys, 12 Wolves and 20 Orcas edited in 1982 by Folkways Records.

2# – Human and Whales

In 1971, the journal Science published a surprising description of singing whales for the first time in the article Songs of Humpback Whales by Roger Payne and Scott McVay. These two biologists found that Humpback whales produce a series of beautiful and varied sounds for a period of 7 to 30 minutes and then repeat the same series with considerable precision. They called this performance “singing”, referring to each repeated series of sounds as a “song”. Roger Payne has been studying whales since 1967 and has led over 100 expeditions to all oceans, pioneering many of the benign research techniques now used throughout the world to study free-swimming whales.  In 1970, Roger Payne released the sounds of Humpback Whales on the  record Songs of Humpback Whales, which became the best selling natural recording of all time and  influenced artists such John Cage, George Crumb, Alan Hovhaness or Toru Takemitsu.

“When you are swimming and hear a humpback whale singing very close to you underwater,you sometimes feel you may not be able to stand the intensity of the sound. It is as though someone put their palms firmly against your chest and vibrated you until your whole skeleton was humming.” Roger Payne

David Rothenberg's system to play music with whales

This finding was taken a little further by the philosophy professor and clarinetist David Rothenberg ,who developed a system to play music with whales. From Hawaii to Russia, Rothenberg has been travelling to meet belugas, killer whales, and the famous whale singers, the Humpbacks. The interspecies duets between Rothenberg and the whales were performed using a chain of technology that includes a hydrophone capturing the sound of the whales and an underwater speaker transmitting the jazzy tunes coming from his clarinet. After hours of attempts at making a real musical connection with the whales, Rothenberg registered some interesting moments where the whale sound dares to match his sound trying to hold the same pitch as the clarinet or wavering up and down around it:

An example where the whale seems to match the sound of the clarinet

These recordings can be found in the album Whale Music [Terra Nova, 2007].

More information about the work of David Rothenberg can be read in this article:  David Rothenberg – To Wail With a Whale: Anatomy of an Interspecies Duet.

Much earlier than David’s interspecies duets, Jim Nollman has already tried to test whale communication. Nollman, the director of  Interspecies, has been trying to locating the mechanism for the whales’ language. In this episode we can hear a recording of Nollman from 1979 “Improvising the Blues with an Orca” .

Jim Nollman Improvising the Blues with an Orca

3# – Human and Elephants

In this episode we also explore interspecies music with elephants.  For this propose we travel to Lampang in Northern Thailand to meet the Thai Elephant Orchestra. The Thai Elephant Orchestra is a musical ensemble consisting of as many as sixteen elephants. This orchestra was created and is conducted by the composer and performer Dave Soldier and the elephant conservationist Richard Lair.

The elephants play music – essentially as conducted improvisations – on enormous specially designed musical instruments. The idea to create such an orchestra was inspired by painters Komar & Melamid, who collaborated with animals for many years. They started painting with elephants in the Thai Elephant Conservation Center, and then the Center suggested that Dave and Richard see if elephants could play music. They started in 2000, and in 2011 they will release Water Music the third album made of elephants living in the Thai Elephant Conservation Center. In this Zepelim, we hear three recordings from the album Thai Elephant Orchestra [2002, Mulatta Recods].

The Thai Orchestra - Northern Thailand

4# – Human and Unknown Intelligent Species from Outer Space

The Wow! Signal

11:16 pm, August 15, 1977.  The receiver of the Big Ear Radio Telescope of Ohio State University Radio Observatory detected a powerful radio signal coming from Outer Space during the shift of volunteer Dr. Jerry R. Ehman. The signal lasted for 72 seconds.

… the strangest signal I had ever seen … At first, I thought it was an earth signal reflected from space debris, but after I studied it further, I found that couldn’t be the case, said Dr. Jerry R. Ehman.

When Dr. Jerry R. Ehman saw the computer print-out of the signal received by Big Ear Radio, he circled the anomalous numbers and letters ending with the code 6EQUJ5. Dr. Ehman wrote WOW! on the left side.  This comment became the name of the signal.

Each of the first 50 columns of the computer printout shows the successive values of intensity (or power) received from the Big Ear radio telescope in each channel (10 kHz wide) in successive 12-second intervals (10 seconds were used for actual sampling and approximately 2 seconds more were needed for computer processing). Thus, the “6EQUJ5″ code in channel 2 means successive intensities as follows:

6 –> the range 6.0 – 6.999…
E –> the range 14.0 – 14.999…
Q –> the range 26.0 – 26.999…
U –> the range 30.0 – 30.999…
J –> the range 19.0 – 19.999…
5 –> the range 5.0 – 5.999…

Could this have been man’s first contact with extraterrestrial intelligence? Ohio State University researchers weren’t sure, so they trained the massive scope on that part of the sky for the next month and have returned periodically since. The signal hasn’t been recorded again. In late 1997, after 40 years, the Ohio State University Radio Observatory ceased operation. The telescope was destroyed in early 1998.  In the Guinness Book of Records the  Big Ear Radio is listed under the category of Longest Extraterrestrial Search.

In this Zepelim, we present a symbolic sound representation of the Wow! Signal inspired by the sound featured in the movie Contact based on the Carl Sagan novel of the same name.

The location of the wow! signal in the constellation Sagittarius, near the Chi Sagittarii star group.

5#- Human and Computer

At last, at the end of this episode we can hear an amazing “computer – man” musical dialogue by the genius David Behrman from the album Leapday Night edited by Lovely Music in 1991. There we can find a set of compositions called Interspecies Smalltalk.

David Behrman - Leapday Night (1991, Lovely)

These compositions are for instrumental performers and a computer music system which David Behrman designed and assembled during the 1980s. The system consists of pitch sensors (“ears” with which it listens to the performing musicians), various music synthesizers (some homemade), a computer graphics color video display and a personal computer. Each composition is built upon a computer program governing interaction between performers and the system and creates situations rather than set pieces. The performers have options rather than instructions, and the exploration of each situation as it unfolds is up to them.

Interspecies Smalltalk was commissioned by John Cage and Merce Cunningham as music for the 1984 Cunningham Dance Company repertory work “Pictures,” and was made for performance by Takehisa Kosugi.

Hello……………. It’s  Z.I.R.A,  Zepelim’s Intelligent Radio Application. I hope you are more enlightened about your role in the new tomorrow. You are a vibrating body.  Each body is a vibrating body.

Signing off.

Podcast – Download

Carlo Patrão

Na primeira emissão de Zepelim da Grelha de Inverno da Ruc, viajámos até às zonas mais frias do planeta para escutarmos um dos maiores instrumentos musicais – o gelo. Escutámos os sons produzidos pelos mantos de gelo e pela vida sonora que o rodeia em diferentes habitats. Os primeiros sons que ouvimos nascem da epopeia climatérica de 10,000 anos de formação de gelo que deram origem ao glaciar islandês Vatnajokull. Uma composição sonora gravada por Chris Watson presente no disco Weather Report [Touch, 2003], fruto de vários anos de gravação e diversas visitas ao glaciar, retratando a passagem do tempo e o espectro dos seus estados sonoros. É uma gravação dominada pelo timbre profundo do vento entre o gelo, o som de rios subterrâneos, o ranger do gelo ou o movimento lento do glaciar que vai desaguando no mar da Noruega. Na continuação do inóspito e gelado, ouvimos gravações de Douglas Quin realizadas na Antárctica aquando a sua estadia nas residências de McMurdo Station (entre Outubro e Dezembro de 1996) e de Palmer Station (entre Novembro, 1999 a Janeiro de 2000), a partir do programa Antarctic Artists and Writers financiado pela National Science Foundation.

Palmer Station, Anvers Island, Antarctica (64°46′27″S, 64°3′11″W)

Quin é um artista sonoro norte-americano doutorado em Ecologia Acústica que tem arquivado, durante mais de 20 anos, paisagens sonoras em torno de todo o mundo. Foi recentemente colaborador do realizador alemão Werner Herzog no documentário Encounters at the End of the World (2007), sendo responsável pela captação sonora dos chamamentos sub-aquáticos de focas. Neste Zepelim, ouvimos gravações idênticas de Quin que contêm sons de focas-de-weddell, focas-leopardo e orcas.

Explorámos ainda algumas das propriedades sonoras do gelo, quer a partir de formações maciças como glaciares, quer a partir de lagos gelados. O gelo dos lagos durante os períodos de grande flutuação de temperatura (ao início e fim do dia)  apresentam movimentos de expansão e contracção cuja a tensão acumulada provoca fissuras no gelo dando origem a  fenómenos acústicos. Estes mantos de gelo funcionam como grandes membranas através das quais o som se propaga; as frequências mais altas viajam mais rapidamente através do manto de gelo do que as frequências mais baixas, como resultado são produzidas explosões sonoras onde domina um som sintético que parece artificial.

Este é um excerto da dispersão de som no gelo de um lago, na zona de Berlin no Inverno de 2005/2006, gravada pelo compositor e artista sonoro Andreas Bick. Esta gravação faz parte de um conjunto de duas composições (frost pattern, 2006 e fire pattern, 2007) inicialmente transmitidas pela rádio alemã Deutschlandradio Kultur, vencedoras do Phonurgia-Nova-Prize 2008 e que serão editadas brevemente pela label alemã Gruenrekorder. Desta editora seleccionámos alguns dos field recordings presentes na compilação The sound of snow and ice (2007) [zip], de onde se destacou a gravação Lake Ice Booming de Curt Olson.

Podcast – Download

Carlo Patrão

As emissões de Zepelim regressam à antena da Rádio Universidade de Coimbra com novo formato. Na grelha de Inverno 2010/2011 da RUC, o Zepelim passa a ser emitido quinzenalmente à quarta-feira pelas 22h, intercalando com o programa Associação Metafísica Cósmica de José Afonso Biscaia.

O Zepelim de hoje conduziu-nos pelo melodramatismo do continente onde os amores são mais intensos, a América do Sul. Para isso, ouvimos vários temas de Jose Enrique “Chelique” Sarabia, um poeta, músico, compositor, publicista, produtor musical e assessor político Venezuelano, cujo maior êxito foi a canção Ansiedad, que deu origem a mais de 200 versões, em várias línguas, algumas das quais ouvimos nesta emissão, juntamente com as músicas de “Su Musica y su Nuevo Estilo”, de 1960. Ouvimos também vários field recordings  de insectos de todo o mundo, especialmente grilos e cigarras,  numa edição de Jean Roche e Jean Thevenet de 1995, apropriadamente chamada “Cicadas and Crickets”

Ansiedad
De tenerte en mis brazos
Musitando palabras de amor
Ansiedad
De sentir tus encantos
Y en la boca volverte a besar.

Ansiedad
De tenerte en mis brazos
Musitando palabras de amor
Ansiedad
De sentir tus encantos
Y en la boca volverte a besar.

Y a veces que llorando
Mis pensamientos
Mis lágrimas son perlas
Que caen al mar.

Y el eco adormecido
De este lamento
Hace que estes presente
En mi soñar.

Tal vez estes llorando
Al recordarme
Y estreches mi retrato
Con frenesi.

Y hasta tu oido llegue
La melodía salvaje
Y el eco de la pena
De estar sin ti.

Tal vez este llorando
Al recordarme
Y estreches mi retrato
Con frenesi.

Y hasta tu oido llegue
La melodía salvaje
Y el eco de la pena
De estar sin ti.

podcast – download

José Afonso Biscaia

Na emissão desta semana o Zepelim convidou a artista sonora australiana Melanie Velarde, para criar uma peça de rádio original (36:22”) a partir de field recordings e fragmentos musicais que guarda nas suas inúmeras cassetes.  A segunda parte do programa foi criada a partir de uma improvisação baseada no material sonoro que Melanie disponibiliza no seu website em 34 pequenos players…

“Melanie Velarde’s practice comprises sound, improvisation, field recordings, found objects, and the site specific residues of physical and emotional environments. She uses methods that constitute an aleatorical process across geographic, physical and emotional boarders. Her compositional approach is informed by the participating object and sound’s location and heritage, bringing time and place as modulating elements into play. Interested in the spatial and semiotic properties of accidental and found sounds, she uses field recordings and low fi recording methods to produce sonic textures that can be experienced within a defined space usually in form of documentation, installation and improvisation…”

Her podcast for Radio Zepelim is a small selection of multiple cassette tape recordings consisting of musical fragments and field recordings, taped across locations in Berlin and Melbourne (Australia).

Podcast- Download

Carlo Patrão

Indisputável é a importância que as comunicações telefónicas ganharam durante o séc. XX, quando foram, durante algum tempo, a melhor forma para transmitir pensamentos mundanos através da palavra, de forma instantânea. Porém, não é só esse tipo de informação que circula pelas linhas telefónicas, que albergam também a transmissão de dados por via fax, telex e até de algumas formas de acesso à Internet. No final do século, tornou-se também possível a transmissão telefónica sem fios, que levou à “explosão” dos aparelhos de comunicação móvel, que rapidamente se tornaram também capazes de receber e emitir tanto a voz como outro tipo de suportes para a transmissão de mensagens entre seres humanos,  sendo hoje virtualmente impossível estar-se “sozinho”, onde quer que se esteja.

Alinhamento:

Radio Shack – Faixas 1 (“Jamaican”), 2 (“21st Century Funk”), 3 (“50′s Rock ‘n’ Roll”), 4 (“Rappin’”), e 5 (“Soft Contemporary” [Answering Machine Messages Tape, 1985] [1:03-3:47]

Colagem de Tons Telefónicos 1 [3:45-23:20]

Chrome Wings – Double Fantasy [Time Patterns CS, 2010]  [22:29-27:34]

Nancy Friedman, “The Telephone Doctor” – Telephone Selling Skills Training: “A – ask for time to talk; B – benefits” [2009] [27:20-30:45]

Chrome Wings – Wave Life [Time Patterns CS, 2010] [27:46-30:12]

Chrome Wings - Tumbles [Time Patterns CS, 2010][30:13-35:15]

Nanncy Friedman, “The Telephone Doctor” – Customer Service: “Dealing with a Foreign Accent” [2009] [33:29-36:19]

Chrome Wings – Gateways [Time Patterns CS, 2010] [35:16-39:41]

Colagem de Tons Telefónicos 2 [36:49-57:20]

Anúncio “Páginas Amarelas” (PT) [circa 90] [38:07-38:25]

Anúncio “Pacific Bell: Call Return” [1983] [38:42-39:08]

Chrome Wings – Color Worlds [Time Patterns CS, 2010] [42:41-49:00]

Chrome Wings – Pills Drop [Time Patterns CS, 2010] [52:40-57:09]

Radio Shack - Faixas 6 (“Vaudeville”), 7 (“Country”), 8 (“Jazz”), 9 (“Up-Tempo Contemporary”), e 10 (“Orchestral Pops”) [Answering Machine Messages Tape, 1985] [56:59-59:00]

podcast – download

José Afonso Biscaia

O locutor avisa: “You are about to enjoy a very pleasant and a beneficial experience. Be sure that you will not be disturbed…” é assim, que damos inicio ao Zepelim desta semana, com a faixa Remain Quiet And Passive retirada do primeiro disco dos The Tape-beatles, A Subtle Buoyancy of Pulse de 1988. Esta é a segunda emissão de Zepelim que dedicamos ao sobrenatural, depois de na semana passada termos escutado uma colagem sonora sobre a primeira parte do disco Mediale Musik: Recordings of Unseen Intelligences 1905-2007. Esta semana voltámos a revisitar o mesmo disco com as manifestações paranormais presentes nas faixas Exploding Cup, Charlton House (1995), Paranormal voice on the answering machine, rec. Germany, 1999, os fenómenos de glossolalia em Sitting with Betty – Ecstatically emotive arificial language in a chronic paranoid, assim como os rituais do famoso mago Aleister Crowley com the call of the second Aethyr, de 1920. Este foi o ponto de partida para emissão de hoje, à qual juntámos uma série de recolhas de elementos sonoros fantasmagóricos presentes em discos como Ghostly Sounds – A Haunting Experience (1974), Johnson Smith Novelty Company Horror Record (1973), Spook Stuff For Hallowe’en (1960), Nightmare (1960) e Spooky Sound Effects (1970s?) e os sons de tortura e prazer do disco: Tortura: The sounds of pleasure and pain (1965).

À parte dessa recolha sonora, recorremos a alguns discos que facilmente poderiam ser catalogados na definição criada por Jacques Derrida de Hauntology. Falamos de projectos como o do músico inglês James Leyland Kirby sob o nome de  The Caretaker. Projecto que iniciou nos finais do ano de 1996 e que se materializaria com o disco Selected Memories From The Haunted Ballroom. Um disco que nasce com inspiração no ambiente da cena do salão de baile presente no filme The Shinning de Stanley Kubrick, transformando temas de salão dos anos 20 e 30 em peças sonoras difusas e espectrais como se se tratasse de uma baile de fantasmas. Em 2008, The Caretaker edita o disco Persistent Repetition of Phrases pela Install numa edição limitada de 500 cópias e que teve no passado mês de Abril uma nova reedição pela sua recém criada editora – History always favours the winners. Foi desse disco que retirámos a faixa Long Term (remote) que podemos ouvir ao minuto 5:37. Num espectro muito semelhante ao de The Caretaker, musicámos o nosso programa com o disco Plays Wagner do músico Pat Maherr, que se apresenta sob o nome de Indignant Senility. Plays Wagner teve em 2009 uma edição em cassete pela pequena editora de Pat Maherr, e foi recuperada no passado dia 11 de Maio pela Type Records, fazendo desta edição uma das mais interessantes do seu catálogo. Neste disco, Indigant Senility manipula e distorce temas do compositor Wagner, criando atmosferas negras de ruído difuso onde a ondulação dos seus drones nos lembrará vagamente uma sinfonia a dissipar-se no tempo.

Ouvimos ainda excertos da faixa Guillotine Licker/Present Tense Returning/Smelling In Stereo do músico de Chicago Kevin Drumm, presente na cassete Horror of Birth (2005); a faixa Memento Mori (expressão latina para “lembra-te que morrerás um dia“) de Matmos, tocada inteiramente a partir de sons obtidos do crânio humano, de coluna vertebral de cabra , de tecidos conjuntivos e dentes artificiais; Thistlalia uma composição do trompetista Greg Kelley presente na compilação Music Overheard e ainda o tema Premier tableau – Capture de l’oiseau de feu par Ivan Tsarévitch do compositor clássico russo Igor Stravinsky.

Num programa dedicado ao terror e ao fantástico, quisemos que o espaço onírico estivesse representado pela presença de relatos de pesadelos, assim, escolhemos ouvir uma das composições de Dreams. Dreams é um conjunto de temas realizados para uma série de quatro programas de rádio sob o nome de Inventions for Radio, numa criação de Delia Derbyshire com a colaboração de Barry Bermange a partir da qual se recolheram testemunhos de sonhos, sendo divididos pelas temáticas Running, Falling, Sea, Land e  Colours. Nesta emissão escutámos a faixa Running, que à semelhança das outras é musicada pelos drones fantasmagóricos e musique concrète de Derbyshire.

Vito Acconci

É possível ainda escutar nesta emissão o excerto de um poema sonoro do arquitecto e poeta Vito Acconci, de nome The Bristol Project realizado em

2001, em que mergulha numa visão futurista do homem na cidade e da cidade na Natureza, transmitindo uma sensação labiríntica pela intercepção entre este elementos numa atmosfera apocalíptica – The city ends. The city is dead. Long live the city (um poema que poderá ter um equivalente visual no vídeo Skew Gardens [2008] de People Like Us). Podemos ouvir The Bristol Project na integra aqui:

Presença ainda neste  Zepelim do carismático entertainer ítalo-americano Jerry Colonna, conhecido não só pela forma de cantar/gritar mas também pela sua figura burlesca de olhos esbugalhados. Ouvimos o tema Your My Everything encontrado em Music? For Screaming!!!

Encerramos o programa com o som do equivalente electrónico do pulsar de ondas cerebrais Theta, normalmente associadas a estados de sono profundo, esta gravação encontra-se na série de cassetes Spiral (1989) realizadas por Willem De Ridder e Andrew Mckenzie (The Hafler Trio), editadas mensalmente em Amesterdão em forma de audio-zine, cada edição era dedicada a um tema específico. Na edição de Spiral #2 dedicada ao paranormal, a faixa que encerra a cassete são as pulsações Theta, os autores descrevem o seu propósito da seguinte forma:   We sugest that you copy this pulse onto an endless cassete and play it back whilst  lying in the dark. It is possible to travel out of the body at third attempt, at the very least… Experiment!!!. Por fim, as ondas Theta são interrompidas pela voz de Arch Obole, locutor e argumentista do programa de rádio Lights Out, espaço onde eram dramatizados contos de horror e suspense…

Podcast – Download

Carlo Patrão

O último Zepelim começou a explorar a compilação Okkulte Stimmen – Mediale Musik, recordings of unseen intelligences 1905-2007, editada pela Supposé no ano de 2007, e que reúne mais de um século de gravações áudio de encontros com o sobrenatural. Nesta emissão ficámo-nos pelo primeiro dos 3 discos que compõem Mediale Musik, e que inclui gravações de possessões, exorcismos, contactos com “o outro lado”, e até uma tentativa falhada de comunicação com o famoso Harry Houndini.

Alinhamento:

Outer Space – Side B [Sea of Vapors, 2008] [0m55s-16m19s]

Voices of Possessed Children I (Jan/1978) [2m25s-5m55s]

Einer Nielson Phantom Voices, rec. Copenhagen 1950 [5m20s-9m19s]

Voices of Possessed Children II (Fev/1978) [10m24-13m19s]

Erik Jan Hanussen – The Clarvoyant Record (20/Fev/1932) [15m35-18m48]

Rudi Schneider – Trance Breathing rec. London 1933 [17m09s-26m21s]

Rita Goold as “Russel” rec. Leicester 18/Nov/1983 [25m30s-29m44s]

Caboladies – Side B [Atomic Weekender, 2009] [28m16-42m54s]

Jack Sutton in Trance Contacts Dead Airman rec. Norfolk [31m02s-33m09s]

Leslie Flint as Churchill rec. London 1980 [34m07s-37m23s]

Leslie Flint as Oskar Wilde rec. London 2/Mai/57 [34m07s-40m50s]

Leslie Flint as Charlotte Brontë rec. London 5/Abr/1973 [38m00s-41m51s]

Exorcism carried out on Anneliese Michel, Germany 1978 [42m43s-45m41s]

Fourth Realm – Another Crashed File [Pattern of Visions, 2010] [45m30s-48m16s]

Minnie Harrison – Sam Speaks Through Trumpet, rec 5/Jan/1954 [47m26s-51m18s]

Fourth Realm – Blent, Blent, Blent [Pattern of Visions, 2010] [48m17s-50m04s]

Fourth Realm – Chuck Niles [Pattern of Visions, 2010] [50m05s-52m58s]

The Final Houndini Séance, rec. Hollywood, USA 31/Out/1936 [54m37s-60m00]

podcast – download

José Afonso Biscaia

"estranha terra esta, onde os bois até lavram no mar" Raul Brandão

Zepelim desta semana fez-se em formato postal sonoro. Apresentámos uma colagem com diferentes realidades sonoras do nosso país desde tradições orais, a field recordings ou música experimental. Ao longo de toda a emissão podemos escutar alguns excertos e faixas completas presentes na Antologia de Música Electrónica Portuguesa organizada por Rafael Toral e editada pela Tomlab em 2004. Sobre esta antologia Rafael Toral escrevia em 2003: O meu objectivo foi o de tecer um fio histórico que ultrapasse livremente fronteiras entre os territórios culturais dos autores e documentar a maior diversidade possível de abordagens à electrónica, tanto a nível material como conceptual (…). Esta antologia sintetiza os maiores nomes da música electrónica experimental feita em Portugal, e podemos escutar registos desde o período pré-25 de Abril até aos finais da década de 90.  Desta antologia  retirámos a composição de Isabel Soveral anamorphoses i de 1994, Soveral formou-se pelo Conservatório Nacional de Lisboa onde estudou com o compositor Jorge Peixinho, é actualmente professora de Composição e Teoria e Análise Musical na Universidade de Aveiro. Adicionámos ainda um excerto da composição Silence to Ligh (1992) de João Pedro Oliveira e Lisbon Revisited de Emanuel Dimas de Melo Pimenta, músico, arquitecto, fotógrafo e artista intermédia cuja a sua obra tem sido reconhecida e elogiada ao longo do tempo por nomes como John Cage, Ornette Coleman ou Merce Cunningham.

Ao obscuro registo da antologia de Toral adicionámos música tradicional proveniente essencialmente do norte do país. Utilizámos as gravações de Max Peter Baumann e Tiago de Oliveira Pinto, realizadas em Portugal entre o mês de Março e Abril de 1988 que deram origem à compilação Musical Traditions of Portugal (vol.9) inserida na colecção The World’s Musical Tradition editada pela Folkways em 1995. A primeira faixa que ouvimos tem o nome de Soldados Violadores e é uma balada cantada sem acompanhamento instrumental, e que nesta versão podemos ouvir na voz de Marta dos Anjos Martins Fidalgo, uma habitante da freguesia de Duas Igrejas (em mirandês Dues Eigreija) do conselho de Miranda do Douro. Este tipo de canções tradicionais encontram-se mais conservadas na zona norte de Portugal continental e nos Açores. Muitas delas estão associadas a celebrações religiosas, a horas específicas do dia de trabalho, ou simplesmente como partilha em serões familiares juntos à lareira.  A canção Soldados Violadores, conta a história de um rapto e violação de uma jovem rapariga que se vê obrigada a refugiar-se nos montes face à vergonha e desonra. Várias versões desta canção foram encontradas, para além do distrito de Bragança, em Vila Real, Guarda, Viseu, Castelo-Branco, Coimbra, Lisboa e Faro.

Esta canção foi também encontrada fora do território português em comunidades sefarditas de Marrocos, o que nos dá uma pista da sua antiguidade se tivermos em conta que os sefarditas se refugiram em grande parte no norte de África entre o período de 1478 a 1834 fugindo das perseguições da Igreja Católica.

Modelos da relação entre música, cultura e contexto geral (Oliveira Pinto, 2001)

Cruzámos as anteriores recolhas com as presentes em Porto- Folklore Fragments vol. 2, da dupla Alejandra & Aeron. Alejandra Salinas é espanhola nascida em 1977 em La Rioja, enquanto que Aeron Bergamn (1971) é um americano de Detroit, actualmente a leccionar na Academia Nacional de Arte de Oslo, cidade onde o casal está radicado. O trabalho desta dupla estende-se por diversas linguagens intermedia desde o som ao vídeo, instalação, etc. Alejandra  & Aeron realizaram uma pesquisa e levantamento sonoro de La Rioja dando inicio à colecção Folklore Fragments. Em 2005, escolhem a cidade do Porto para o volume 2. Um disco que apresenta uma visão social, política e estética das propriedade sonoras do ambiente que rodeia o Porto, celebrando as peculiaridades e imaginário da cidade

Alejandra Salinas & Aeron Bergman

invicta e da sua região. Dessas gravações escolhemos ouvir o ambiente sonoro captado nas caves Graham’s conhecidas por produziram Vinhos do Porto Vintage, marcados por: cor rubi/púrpura opaca e escura. Aromas de violetas exalam do copo! Na boca, sabores inesgotáveis de amoras silvestres maduras revestem o palato.Estrutura de grande profundidade com sabores de alcaçuz-doce que combinam com taninos firmes, dotando este vinho de uma complexidade excepcional. Liberta um longo e persistente aroma (Peter Symington, 2003). Escolha inteligente do casal Alejandra & Aeron? Para lá desse registo escutámos, uma curiosa gravação da Festa da Bugiada em Sobrado (Valongo) que se realiza no dia de S. João (24 de Junho), e tem como pano de fundo a encenação da disputa entre cristãos (Bugios) e mouros (Mourisqueiros) por uma imagem milagrosa do santo (informações mais detalhadas aqui).

Festa da Bugiada em Sobrado (Valongo)

À parte do disco Porto-Folklore Fragments vol. 2, escutámos a faixa Imperfect Reliability gravada em 2008 no pequeno Museu das Rendas em Vila do Conde, onde se encontram durante a semana das 9-17h, mulheres rendeiras formando uma autêntica instalação sonora em permanência  no Museu. Esta é uma gravação realizada no âmbito do Circular: 4º Festival de Artes Perfomativas de Vila do Conde [2008] e nela podemos escutar o som produzido pelas rendeiras. Um som que facilmente podemos confundir com chuva, espanta-espíritos ou porque não, música electrónica (?)…

Adicionámos ainda uma presença já habitual no Zepelim, as gravações de campo de Luís Antero, numa das suas mais recentes ediçõesSound Narratives vol. 4 (Bypass, 2010) onde podemos encontrar sonoridades de animais, água e ambiências de várias localidades da zona da Beira Serra. Luís Antero nos últimos anos tem vindo a construir um profundo retrato desta região através de field recordings inalterados que disponibiliza para download gratuito para que possamos guardar valiosos pedaços da memória rural.

Luvas de Rafael Toral no projecto "Space"

Bem perto do final da emissão podemos escutar a faixa Portugal: Qual é o caminho da Praia de Stu Phillips, compositor do famoso genérico de Knight Rider, aqui num tema encontrado na banda sonora de um documentário de surf de 1969 de nomeFollow me (trailer), que atravessa as praias de Cascais, Guincho e Nazaré. Já a pontuar o início e o fim do programa apresentámos um antigo spot publicitário da companhia aérea americana Pan Am que para além de vender as suas viagens, vendia essencialmente uma ideia de aventura e de arrojo inconsequente…

Portugal – Get up and Go!

leave the phone off the hook

teach the cat how to cook

be a man not a mouse,

sell your car,

rent your house

get away right away like today

For once in  a life time get into this world

PODCAST – DOWNLOAD – TRACKLIST

Carlo Patrão

O Zepelim do dia 21.4.2010 foi dedicado ao Reddy Record for Boys, uma misteriosa gravação – aparentemente dos anos 50 ou 60, mas sobre as quais faltam informações concretas – destinada ao público infantil. No Reddy Record, as crianças podiam encontrar uma amiga sempre cheia de vontade de conversar e descobrir mais  sobre e com os seus pequenos donos. Esta pequena e estranha pérola foi encontrada no sempre aconselhável blog da WFMU, rádio independente do FM nova-iorquino. Como acompanhamento, pudemos escutar “Vivian & Ondine”, último trabalho de William Basinski, dedicado às suas duas sobrinhas recém-nascidas.

Alinhamento:

1. Reddy Record for Boys – Lado A

2. William Basinski – Vivian & Ondine [Vivian & Ondine, 2010]

2.1, 2.2 – gravações de crianças

3. Reddy Record for Boys – Lado B

podcast – download

José Afonso Biscaia

Nesta emissão de Zepelim, pretendemos cruzar Field Recordings de ambientes urbanos com o som captado de um jogo de Monopólio a decorrer em directo no estúdio da Rádio Universidade de Coimbra. O paralelo que estabelecemos com o jogo, prende-se com o simples facto dos peões do monopólio circularem através das mais importantes ruas, avenidas e estações de Portugal (edição portuguesa, 2001, Hasbro).  Assim, apresentámos uma colagem sonora que pudesse  recriar o ambiente desses espaços, enquanto o jogo decorria. Daí, que tenhamos escolhido preferencialmente field recordings captados na cidade de Lisboa e Porto. Para tal, recorremos essencialmente à comunidade Soundtransit, um arquivo colaborativo de gravações de campo on-line criado por Derek Holzer, Sara Kolster e Marc Boon, que convida qualquer artista sonoro a realizar o upload das suas recolhas sonoras, contextualizando-as com uma pequena referência ao local, momento de gravação ou história que acrescente outra dimensão ao som fora da díade “espaço-tempo”. O site Soundtransit possui duas formas de navegação distintas, ou através da procura directa de sons (search); ou a mais interessante, através do booking de uma viagem, com a possibilidade de escolha de diferentes escalas, no qual nos é oferecido uma colagem de field recordings em mp3, desde a casa de partida à casa de chegada.

A título simbólico podemos ainda escutar a breve faixa Lament nº1, Birds Lament de Louis Thomas Hardin (Moondog), em homenagem aos seus cerca de 20 anos vividos nas ruas de Nova Iorque, ficando conhecido como The Viking of 6th Avenue.

Ouvimos:

Jogo Monopólio com os locutores da Ruc:

António Sérgio, Carlos Braz, Isabel Lisboa, José Santiago e Luís Luzio

Alvin Lucier -  Wire 1 (excerto) [Music on a long thin wire, 1980]

Son Clair - From the Bridge [From the Bridge] download em Konkretourist

Kamen Nedev -  Tram, Porto [Soundtransit, 2007]

Paulo Raposo – Celebration, Lisbon [Soundtransit, 2005]

Hugo Neutel - Bridge Buzz, Lisbon [Soundtransit, ?]

Kamen Nedev – Raindrops, Porto [Soundtransit, 2007]

Glenn Ryszko – Soundwalk [Soundwalk, 2010] download em Konkretourist

Moondog – Lament nº1, Birds Lament [Moondog, 1989]

Michael Peters - Gelato aus der Wartburgstrase in Nippes; download em Soundmap of Cologne

Arnold Dreyblatt & The Orchestra of Excited Strings – Lucky Strike [Propellers In Love, 1988]

Kaspars Groshevs – Porto sounds; download em Archive

Alvin Lucier – Wire 2 (excerto) [Music on a long thin wire, 1980]

Carlo Patrão

.: esta emissão, devido a problemas informáticos, não possui podcast.