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Conceived as a diffused oratorio that crosses over between the city and the domain of radio broadcasts, Zoom conversations and the space of the book, The End of the World Service sees the body of the choir endure a modern-day tarantism of colour and sound in the streets and open spaces of the old town.

First, composer Neil Luck (UK) taps into the double trope of the city as a film set and traditional locus of mystery plays with three short tableaus populated by props, choral extras, a wind band and onlookers who happen across the scene at night, pining for a view of the surreal action playing out in the yellow light of Taranto’s street lanterns.

Then, Joseph Kohlmaier (UK/AT) takes the audience on a slow-moving choral procession that ambulated through the narrow streets of the old city, a remorseful, humming and mumbling crowd carried along by the sound of the drums and steel instruments of the Complesso Bandistico Città di Crispiano, culminating in a choral and communal recital of a libretto written for the occasion by members of the ensemble.

The End of the World Service is part of Bodies as Infrastructures – a season of events and performances staged in the city of Taranto by curatorial platform Post Disaster Rooftops. With new works by Aga Beaupré (PL), Mela Boev (IT), Marie Hamilton (UK), Joseph Kohlmaier (AT/UK), Neil Luck (UK), Sara Rodrigues (PT).

Musarc is one of the UK’s most progressive choral collectives. Founded by Joseph Kohlmaier at the School of Art, Architecture and Design, London Metropolitan University in 2008. The choir has collaborated with Jennifer Walshe, Lin Chiwei, Laure Provost, Ed Atkins, Jenny Moore, Lina Lapelytė, Sam Belinfante, Fritz Hauser, Neil Luck and many others.

It has worked with numerous festivals and arts organisations in the UK and abroad – including the BBC Proms, London Contemporary Music Festival, Palais de Tokyo (Paris), the Royal Academy, CCA Goldsmiths, Museum of London, Extra City (Antwerp), Serpentine Gallery, MK Gallery, Wysing Polyphonic, STUK (Leuwen) Cafe OTO, Bold Tendencies and Whitechapel Gallery.

A series of live performances in Taranto, Italy, on the 27th May 2022 by choral collective, Musarc. Featuring Neil Luck and Joseph Kohlmaier in collaboration with Post Disaster Rooftops.

This episode features original sound recordings by Chu-Li Shewring and Adam Gutch.

dREM is a curatorial project by Allegra Shorto to explore and expand the relationship between art and dream. Each episode is a soundscape lasting the duration of an REM sleep cycle, roughly 90 minutes, to be slept through. Artists are invited to fill this time as they imagine it. The sounds may be incorporated into the narrative of the dream, alter its content or partially wake listeners, making them aware that they are dreaming. Mimicking the cyclical stages of the sleeping mind, the resulting soundscapes flit from silence to resounding repetition, perhaps causing dream ripples. Participants include artists Gregory Barsamian, Lee Berwick, Delia Gonzalez, Dr Keith Hearne, Kurt Hentschlager, Jacob Kierkegaard, Robert Rich and Chu-Li Shewring.

Injazero Records founder Siné Buyuka plays a selection of electronic, experimental, ambient and contemporary classical tracks.

Calle record is an online archive project that intends to develop – through a multimedia platform – the recording, documentation and accessibility of music played in public spaces.

Radio Picnic is a mobile radio art project by zonoff which invites multi-disciplinary artists to create works inspired by the radio medium.

This episode is dedicated to the voice, human, animal, alien & transformed vocal cords. What started as a random selection of tunes eventually took an unexpected turn when I realised the quantity of records being played with the voice center stage.

The first half weise randomly pulled records, for the second half I had a plan in mind. Voice games, gutural drones, acapellas, cut ups, glurps, burps and singalongs for the festive season.

Photo: Elevador de Aguas de Gordejuela, Tenerife, 2020.

Discrepancies is a global showcase of disparate music with a focus on earthly field recordings and international sounds, curated by the Discrepant record label, presented by Gonçalo F Cardoso.

The Resonance Radio Orchestra is a floating pool of musicians, engineers, sound-effects creators, actors, writers, composers and broadcasters devoted to making live radio-art. It is based in central London as the in-house artistic wing of Resonance104.4fm, under the direction of Ed Baxter.

A weekly series of twenty soundscapes recorded in the mornings at various locations throughout South Asia, presented Stéphane Marin. This episode: Hildegard Westerkamp.

It’s October 31, 1992, about 6 am. It is still dark when a group of us arrives at the early morning vegetable market in Tilak Nagar, New Delhi. Participants of the Soundscape Workshop that I was conducting at Max Mueller Bhavan, had suggested that we visit this market. As we arrive in a taxi, the sounds of scooters, auto rickshaws, bicycles and a multitude of male voices welcome us. We walk towards the market and hear an increase in voice density. It is hard to make good recordings because people keep bumping into my microphone, which also provokes more raucousness in some of the voices! We spend quite a bit of time here, listening, recording, making sound level measurements, and afterwards discussing the experience over masala chai. Music playing over loudspeakers accompanies us back to our taxi, the door closes, momentary quiet.

Vegetables are sold at Tilak Nagar and eventually end up in the hands of the vendors who sell them in a neighbourhood such as Janakpuri a few hours later. One of our workshop participants lives here and from his balcony we not only have a panoramic view but also get a clear sonic impression of the neighbourhood. The soundscape is relatively quiet and spacious, especially in comparison to the dense market soundscape. We can hear children playing, the inevitable scooters passing, birds singing, dogs barking, all manner of human activity and the trumpet sound of the toy vendor. Our ears can trace the voices of the many morning vendors as they move through a labyrinth of streets. At the end of the piece a more recent, powerful vendor voice joins in, recorded with my iPhone as I was walking through Delhi’s Hauz Khas neighbourhood one morning in November of 2018. I had returned to India for the first time in 20 years. There have been many changes in India during this time, but vendors’ voices are still a daily presence in the Delhi soundscape.

Hildegard Westerkamp, May 2019
www.hildegardwesterkamp.ca
hildegardwesterkamp.bandcamp.com

Stéphane Marin presents a weekly series of fifteen short soundscapes recorded in the mornings at various locations throughout South Asia part of 'Each Morning of the World', which invites sound artists, composers and recordists globally to share their own specific point of listening, either through a raw field recording or original composition.

This episode features music from Simone Salvatici, Gregory A. Dugan, Dead Neanderthals, Luxul, Metalogue, Trojanovskx, Merlin Nova and An Trinse.

Nicola Serra, founder of East London's experimental music festival Dronica, presents new and archival material.

This episode is hosted by Derek Walmsley

New music with The Wire Magazine.

A nine-part retrospective of the first five seasons of the Radia network’s epochal (and on-going) radio art series. Assembled by Lee Stapleford.

This episode features music by Anan Elbash, Zell, Bartama Project, Youmna Saba and many more.

Tse Tse Fly Middle East was a nonprofit arts and activist organisation that existed from 2015 until 2023. Throughout that time, it presented a monthly two-hour radio programme showcasing sound art and experimental music from the Middle East, India and North Africa.

Eclectic musical face-off between German electronic musician and producer Ulrich Schnauss and Nathaniel Cramp (Sonic Cathedral).

Cosmic, transcendent sounds and exploratory electronics with f.ampism.