Category Archives: Art

ShortWaveMusic offers one-day music download in honor of World Radio Day

Our friend, Myke, over at the ShortWaveMusic blog has a very special World Radio Day gift:

As the preeminent blog dedicated to preserving and disseminating indigenous sound and music as heard via international radio, ShortWaveMusic is observing World Radio Day with a special, one-day-only offer: a download of the 5-CD retrospective box set, The Clouds Should Know Me By Now: ShortWaveMusic 2005-2010. This box set was compiled in 2011 for release on a prominent independent record label, but has since stalled at the gate for various reasons. As a result, I’ve decided to give it away on the occasion of World Radio Day – perhaps no more fitting time to compel others to enjoy the vast and kaleidoscopic array of music available via shortwave radio.[…]

What are you waiting for? Go to ShortWaveMusic and get your free download–bookmark the site, too, as Myke offers some incredible recordings and journals of his audio/radio expeditions. (This is not the first time we’ve mentioned Myke’s work on the SWLing Post.)

Thanks, Myke, and happy World Radio Day!

Sonos timeline of radio history

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The wireless hi-fi system manufacturer, Sonos, recently published this very cool timeline of radio history. Click on the image to open the full-length graphic:

London pirate radio documentary offers insight

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This documentary certainly touches on the motivation behind most pirate radio stations. I should note that while many FM pirate stations are dissapearing with the advent of online sources, shortwave pirates seem to be going strong and they use many of the same remote transmitter tactics that appear in this short film.

If you have trouble watching the embedded video above, please click here for the documentary video page.

Chucho Valdés: Inspiration from VOA Jazz Hours

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(Source: Kim Elliott via the Hartford Courant)

24 Jan 2012, Owen McNally: “Still very much an irrepressible life-force at 70, Chucho Valdés, the renowned Cuban pianist, composer and bandleader, is on a winter tour of the United States that sets down for high-energy maneuvers … at the cabaret series at the University of Connecticut’s Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts. … The title track [of his new CD], ‘Chucho’s Steps,’ … is a 50-bar adventure in challenging harmony in which he pays tribute to John Coltrane’s intimidating masterpiece, ‘Giant Steps.’ Valdés notes that as a young man in Cuba he would listen on short-wave radio to a program called ‘The Jazz Hour’ on The Voice of America, an experience that opened his ears to Coltrane’s innovations and the creative fervor of the new, iconoclastic music that was fermenting in the States.”

A nostalgic Cold War shortwave audio montage

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Kudos to Mike Barraclough for bringing this video/audio to my attention. According to Mike, this audio montage was featured in an edition of Communications World in October 2000. It’s an amazing mixture of Cold War era audio recorded entirely on the shortwave spectrum. Enjoy via embedded video below, or click here to view directly on YouTube.

(Source: Paul Dougherty)

Cold War Shortwave was created in 1989 using off-air recordings made while I was traveling in Europe circa 1985. This was a time when propaganda was harsh, before the Gorbachev inspired thaw. The collage was done with Soundwave from Impulse, my first experience with non-linear, random access editing.

John Cusack to star in new movie: THE NUMBERS STATION

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In the new movie, The Numbers Station, John Cusack will play a former black ops agent who is assigned to protect a code operator (Malin Ackerman) for an isolated covert CIA broadcast station–the two characters fight for survival after a surprise attack.

There are few details about the movie released at this point, but we will keep you updated when we receive new information.

I can say this: prepare for a lot more interest in numbers stations in 2012.

New Batman teaser uses numbers stations concept

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The new Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises, is using a strange numbers station concept to lure people into the theatre via their theatrical teaser. The numbers station-like audio is complete with eerie ident, simulated SSB, and hetrodyne sounds– evidence that the mysterious underworld character of numbers stations is permeating even pop culture. Since their website will most likely change soon, I’ve captured a screenshot and 7+ minutes of audio below: