The Sound Of...

The Sound of the Elements

Joe and I decided to do the Elements after he showed me some great tunes with lots of water sounds. We decided to do the show as 15 min segments, each with us doing our half on each of the elements. Here’s mine:

Air:

The air segment is (of course) quite light and floaty, whilst also containing songs that are generally slow and then quite fast. This was to represent the nature of wind - all over the place and lots of speeds!

At 2 mins in you’ll hear a recording of a news bulletin announcing London’s pollution crisis - with one road in London surpassing the capital’s air pollution limit for the year in one week. This was particularly pertinent to me, as I pretty much cycle everywhere in London and the pollution is v.noticable.

After that, I play O$VMV$M - Flora, which to me sounds like a breathing rhythm.

At (13:20mins) I play a bit of a haunting tune I made from a sample of a humming bird, and lots of bass which is made to sound like it’s passing through air at speed.  

Earth:

I was the most excited about this element. I guess I’d consider myself someone who’s environmentally conscious, I’ve been vegetarian and then vegan for a number of years due to agriculture’s damage on the earth. So it was fun to include a bit of my lifestyle/politics into music. There’s recordings from Conspiracy in there, discussing facts on the agriculture industry.

I include Bjork - Solstice (34:21mins) from her Biophillia album, a musical masterpiece inspired by the Earth/Bjork’s interest in the environment. Solstice was created using a group of pendulums, transmitting the movements of the Earth to the sound of a harp. Just listen to the lyrics and you’ll know why I included it!  

I’ve also included a great tune by Erikah Badu, not only an incredible musician but an environmentalist and fellow vegan, woohoo!

Water:

Where it all started! This obviously includes lots of tunes with water samples. I’ve included a tune I’ve made with some humpback whale samples in it too, the best animal ever. I think this is the most chilled of the four, calm waters…

Fire:

I started with a recording from my friends’ Alex and Jess’ fire. Fire is considered both the creator and taker of life. To represent this I included one of the oldest ‘electronic’ pieces composed ,Halim El-Dabh - "Wire Recorder Piece" (1944), (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_kbNSdRvgo&feature=youtu.be). I’ve also included a tune that I listened to during a destructive time in my life, and one straight after that I listened to during a time of extreme happiness/loving feelings!

Fire is, of course, really intense. So I’ve included some tunes that reflect this, Mumdance’s Path of the Seer tunes being one of them.

Overall, I wanted to use this show to highlight how we interfere with the elements by generally not giving a shit about the planet. But on a lighter note also show how some artists can replicate those sorts of elemental energies in music.

JQ:

I wanted to illustrate the beauty but also the destructive nature of our planet, such as natural disasters and man’s negative influence on our environment.

Air

For this section I mainly focused on calming music, representing how I feel when focusing on breathing during meditation and also the music that I sometimes listen to while meditating. I included Rodger Winfield’s East Wind off of his Windsongs album, it only features recordings of aeolian harps, a musical instrument played entirely by the movement of the wind. It’s rad. 

The rest of the mix is a collection of old favourites like Lucky Dragons, Grouper and the Healing Music of Rana and also new artists likeRhucle and Lanark Artefax.

TL:

Grouper - Wind and Snow Rhucle - Air Flow Roger Winfield - East Wind Toshifumi Hinata - Colored Air Mkwaju Ensemble - Hot Air Lucky Dragons - Tune For Wind Dog Lanark Artefax - All That is Solid Melts Into Air Healing Music Of Rana - Vol III: Solarwindplay

Earth

I wanted to create some sort of disparity with the songs in the Earth section. I mixed J.G. Biberkopf's brooding Black Soil over Hiroshi Yoshimura's beautiful Forest Side, then going into Panabrite’s lovely Soft Soil, aiming to highlight the natural beauty and destruction of Earth.

At the end I played the beginning of J.D. Emmanuel’s Through Inner Planes, a song off his Solid Dawn album. Emmanuel says on hiswebsite that his music “allows a person to transcend time and space”.

I was thinking of playing 15 minutes of Earth 2, one of my favourite bands when I was younger, but it would have been too much. I saw them live once. It was very loud and I was very stoned.

TL:

Austin Wintory - And The Earth Did Not Yet Bear A Name A.r.t. Wilson  - Janine's Theme (Earth) Ben Babbitt - Hall of the Mountain King Hiroshi Yoshimura - Forest Side J.G. Biberkopf - Black Soil Panabrite - Soft Soil J.D. Emmanuel - Through Inner Planes

Water

I was aiming for the water section to be contemplative and relaxing, like watching the ocean or a stream.

Whenever I get caught up in watching the ocean or any huge natural feature I’m reminded of my own insignificance.

I included the strange and beautiful sound of the Zadar Sea Organ, another “natural instrument” like the aeolian harp, which goes into Kip Mazuy's Water Falling, a soothing song that I listen to every night to help me go to sleep. One of my favourite records is Jürgen Müller's Science of the Sea, an album I come back to again and again, I’ve played songs off it on Radar twice now. I wanted to play a very short song of mine called Underwater which was a hidden track on my Quiet Music release but it wouldn’t work for some reason, anyway I’ve put it on WeTransfer if you want to hear it.

TL:

Zadar Sea Organ Kip Mazuy - Water Falling David Williams / Sounding the Deep - Underwater Cathedral Jürgen Müller - Das Unfassbare Seepferdchen (The Elusive Seahorse) Gaussian Curve - Dewdrops Steven Halpern - Waterfall (Part 1) Wounds - Chilling Waves

Fire

In contrast to India’s tense and dramatic fire set, my choices for this final section represent the idea of sitting around a fire at a campsite or watching a sunset, being slightly cold and melancholic with feelings of warmth. I wanted it to be mainly calm but to have a feeling of unpredictability.

I included lots of slower songs like Canyon Sunset off the Firewatch soundtrack and Fire Rites which is off a compilation called Mid-Winter Rites & Revelries. Heated Dust On A Sunlit Window reminds me being a kid and seeing dust particles floating in sunlight.

I played HKE’s restrained Fire, the last song off Dragon Soul, it’s a really good record.

Snowflake Dragon is a song by SunPath, off of the Dream Music cassette, an album of beautiful wandering organic sounds.

TL:

Soundscape of a forest fire

Rob St. John - Fire Rites  

Autistici - Heated Dust On A Sunlit Window

HKE - Fire

Chris Remo - Canyon Sunset

SunPath - Snowflake Dragon

The Sound of Thought 

India’s Mix:

This show was a bit of a special one for me, I asked my best mate Gaba to be the guest for it and we chose the theme of thought to represent both of our academic past (we both did Philosophy at Hull Uni), and to represent what we spent most of our time doing as friends – about deep/thoughtful stuff and mixing!

I start with a meditation on reducing negative thoughts. Meditation is often seen as something that is meant to be thought-free, however it’s really more about being aware of thoughts (in particular negative ones) and knowing that they will pass. This is something that helps me out quite a bit when I’m stressed. 

After that I play (Rêve - Sale), it’s a bit soundscapey and weird at the beginning of the tune, I chose it because of the tension it builds and makes you think about what’s coming next (thought provoking, yah). I also portray this with a soundscape thing (I can’t quite call it a tune, it’s just weird noises) I made earlier in the week for the show at 49 mins. It’s an edit of some white noise and is meant to sound a bit dystopian and creepy, I want it to make people think ‘wtf is this?’ and therefore evoking some sort of similar thought to each of the listeners.

I put this mix together when I was going through a bit of a stressful time, and practiced it on a really dark and dull day. I think this is really reflective of the tunes I’ve played, they’re quite deep and moody – a literal reflection of my thoughts at the time. This time of year always makes me quite contemplative. I play a lot of tunes that remind me of mine and Gaba’s friendship, too – some from Flying Lotus, Aphex Twin and Four Tet.

At 28 mins I pay a Bonobo edit of Get Thy Bearings (with Szjerdene), this song was featured for his Late Night Tails mix, an album I listened to a lot to try and process a lot of racing thoughts during a difficult time.

Some of the mixes are a bit messy, I’ve intentionally done this (heh) to reflect how thoughts can be – often overlapping, incoherent and all over  the place!

At 38:40mins I play this text-to-speech note of my own thoughts that i found in my phone’s notebook, this was probably from about a year ago, about there being no answer to anything. I often write down my thoughts on my phone and they’re often a bit weird and philosophical! I put loads of echo on it so you can’t really think about what it’s saying.

I’ve tried to use samples of sound that make it difficult to think, or at least to induce some other sort of thought that you weren't having before. I use a sample of a crowd talking at 48 mins as an example of this. It’s a bit of an annoying sound for me and i don’t really like it, so i purposely put it in to mess with my own head a bit aha.

54 mins in is Silent by dj whatever. I was listening to this on repeat when I just started my new job a few weeks ago and felt like it had an important place in this mix, it invoked lots of thoughts!

I end by mixing that tune with a loop of the ‘ooooo’ intro to Pixies - Where is My Mind (I’m surprised this actually worked!) My girlfriend bought us tickets to go see them a few weeks back (it was great!) they were one of our fave bands and I couldn’t think of a better tune to end on.  

Gaba’s mix:

In all honesty when me and India decided on doing the theme of thought I felt a bit overwhelmed. It’s a pretty broad theme, and I had no idea how to cram all the ideas I had into 1 hour. There are some tunes I still would have liked to include in here but overall I’m pretty happy with how it went. Thanks again to India for having me on the show :)

I wanted to try and make the flow of the mix mirror thought patterns musically, how they can feel a bit up and down sometimes with some sharp jumps from positive thoughts  to negative ones. I tried to show this with the transition from Sweetest Taboo to Welcome to the Hell Zone at 1:21:30ish, then back again from All Things to all Men to Sometimes (Ummah Remix) at 1:28:20ish.

I start the mix off in a more ‘intellectual’ theme of thought with the mastermind theme tune. It’s actually quite a scary piece of music in parts. There’s a clip of Philomena Cunk on philosophy after, if you’ve never watched any of her ‘moments of wonder’ I highly recommend them cause they’re bloody hilarious. There's also some vocal clips from Waking Life towards the end (1:54:07 and 1:56:51) which is obviously quite a thinky kind of film.

I’ve got some tunes in there that make me just zone out and get lost in thought (Gather at 1:06:00, Dreams at 1:37:00ish). There's a recording I took one night in a taxi of the driver whistling along to UB40 (1:32:18) which was quite a lost in thought kind of drive.

There’s a few tunes in there for Billy Bongo who’s been in my thoughts a lot these past months, after his life was tragically cut short in August. Nico - These Days (1:48:00) was the first song played at his funeral service, for obvious reasons I get such a bittersweet feeling now whenever I hear it. Rest in paradise fella - 93 ’til infinity.

If your thoughts have become darker and you’re finding it more difficult to cope, please remember that there are people out there who will listen to you, give you advice and support you when you need it.

The CALMzone (Campaign Against Living Miserably) - www.thecalmzone.net

You can contact the Samaritans 24 hours a day 7 days a week on a Freephone number - 116 123. Alternatively, you can email [email protected]

Turn 2 Me is a web space for people to share, discuss and offload personal problems, find support and get useful information. They use technology to connect people, promote mental wellbeing and help prevent suicide. - https://turn2me.org/

The Sound of Fantasy

India’s Mix

This mix for me is an ode to my summer. I’ve had one of the best summer’s of my life (very much contrasting last year’s The Sound of Summer show!) and I really wanted to capture this in a mix.

What I take to be fantasy for this show is more about my periods of being in a reality and then almost being in a dream world. I went to four festivals this summer (Sonar, Glastonbury, Boomtown and then finally Bestival), the BangFace Boat party, Berlin and then Budapest. That’s a lot of really fun stuff, but it’s equally a lot of really incredible high’s and great experiences, with crashing lows of coming back to reality and going to work!

I start the mix with some OST’s from FEZ & ICO, obviously gaming takes you into a fantasy world.

I then play some Evian Christ - Drip, who I saw at Bestival & he played probably one of my fave sets this summer, and I play Fuck It None Of Ya'll Don't Rap later in the mix too. We also went to go see The Cure at Bestival which was incredible, they were one of my fave bands when I was younger so it was so good to finally see them live! After The Cure I play Iglooghost, someone else we saw at Bestival (this isn’t just an ode to Bestival mix I promise!)

If you’ve heard any other of my shows, you’ve probably noticed that this one is a bit more lively than usual. This is obviously because a lot of the stuff I listened to in these fantasy lands was club music. Tbh one of my favourite things to do is be in a field listening to great music and having a dance, I find something about festivals really inspiring.

I’ve purposely punctuated parts of the mix that are high energy with droney/less intense tunes, this was to signify my up and down feelings I often would get, an example of this is Vanilla - That Dream Again (34 mins in).

I played a lot of old school-inspired tunes, I saw Mella Dee, Special Request & Om Unit and they all played similar stuff to this, it’s one of my fave things to listen to in da clurrrrb and brings up all those happy feelings.

I give a shoutout to Lana in the show because she’s been my partner in crime this summer! I also give a shoutout to our Samosa Blog, check it www.samosablog.tumblr.com

I play a weird recording of a child singing in Hungarian (46 mins). This was over some water-fountain display on an island in the middle of Budapest. It’s this small island where you hire driveyourown tuktuks, it was really weird and I felt a bit out of reality there! I also fuck about a bit with the record at the end just to make it sound even weirder. There’s a few recordings at festivals in there too, one at 1hour19 mins was me playing some chime pipe things.

At 1:02hours I play Teknoist - Lion Girl, someone I saw at the Bangface boat party in July. I love hard&breakcore & I’ve wanted a chance to include it in my shows for a while.

I play Prince - 17 Days at 1hour10mins: I saw two Prince Tribute sets this summer (both were amazing) and 17 Days very much reminds me of that after-festival feeling.

I always listen back to my shows when I’m doing the write up, and listening back often brings back the feelings I felt at the time or wanted to portray in the show. This one brings up lots of happy feelings that I felt this summer, so I think I’ve achieved what I set out to do!

I end on some ‘Game Over’ samples.

TSVI’s Mix

This is a mix featuring a collage of sounds collected over the years. Put together to represent the different stages of fantasy: from lush to dark, and vice versa.

India’s Mix:

This time of year was always going to be a bit reflective for me. It was around the time last year that I was very introspective and doing a lot of self development stuff. Have a read back from The Sound of Summer and The Sound of Calm and that will give you a good idea of where I was at.

So much can change in a year and I feel like I have changed a considerable amount, and I wanted to make a show that was a tribute to this.

The mix features a lot of tunes that I listened to last year, tunes that got me through a rough time and tunes I listened to on repeat because of their melancholy vibe (a lot of the first few tunes I play reflect this). Equally, I play a lot of tunes that I reflect on to remind me of some excellent recent memories. These include a lot of tunes from Glastonbury 2016, which again was a bit of a significant event for me.

I remember walking down South Bank a bit dazed and in my own head, early July last year and being mesmerised by a man playing the Kora, I play the recording at 57 mins. I then blend another recording of someone else playing the Kora after The Lambeth County Show a few weeks back. The sound of the Kora always makes me feel reflective because of when I first heard it.

I deliberately play the first bar of Gundam’s remix of AJ Tracy - Wifey Ridim & loop it to sort of signify that I’m over that period of my life (I played it on repeat last year), and then I mix it in with a tune that means a lot to me right now (Andy Stott - Butterflies)

I play Prince - Crystal Ball (46 mins) as a reflection of Hot Chip’s tribute set at Glasto, arguably one of the best sets I’ve ever seen. Another favourite from Glastonbury was The Unknown Mortal Orchestra - The World is Crowded (1 hour 12mins). This band was introduced to me by my girlfriend and I remember watching them in the cold & rain thinking of how I hadn’t seen a band in ages and feeling reflective of my yooouuth. 

Some field recordings include a lovely steel drum band in Barcelona (34 mins) and a live recording of Anoushka Shankar (1hour9mins), who played this amazing tune on her Sitar that featured a breakdown vid of the current migrant/Syrian crisis that made me all reflective.

The Sound of Distance w/ Yamaneko 

One of the first things Yamaneko and I spoke about when he chose this theme was it's versatility - there's so much you can do with it. That's one thing we both came to realise when we put ours together, although some of our approaches were similar, others were completely different, I suppose that’s the beauty of doing joint themes innit!

When I first started preparing for this mix I was pretty worried about the time I had to prepare, I was a bit stressed and it left me feeling quite removed from the process which was a sort of distance in itself. However once I embraced this it actually sort of helped shape my approach.

I also recorded the mix on CDJs, a first for one of my Radar shows. My serato isn’t working at the minute plus I thought using a different medium to record could show a sort of distance between technologies and equipment and challenge me in a way.

My mix approached distance from two angles and my arrangement for the mix split into the four compartments:

Theoretical: Songs that have a lot of space in them/have beats or notes far apart and, by contrast, songs that are very busy, and have beats within a close proximity of each other.

Personal: Songs that I feel far away from, or songs that I used to love but don't that much anymore. Tunes that sit very close to my heart, and also songs that have been brought into my life after I felt distanced from them

I included a sample of the doppler effect from a siren at (18:50 mins), I always hear this sound cycling to work and it was something I wanted to include in the Distance mix.

I also included samples of Southern Pacific Blue whales at 31.50 mins in. I absolutely love whales and a blue whale’s sound can be heard at a distance of up to 500miles (omg). Tracklist: 

Rhythm and sound - Distance (speaks for itself)

Fsol - Cerebral (love the slow notes on the guitar)

Sky H1 - Memories (spread out/far apart notes)  

Neat beats - D Wave (a tune that is close to me, one of my faves at the minute)

Mala - Change (I remember Mala talking about the importance of space and silence in music and so wanted to include one of his  his for that reason)

Peverelist - Gather (slow & distanced beats)

Andy Stott -  Selfish (Those really intense & distanced beats at the beginning arghhh so good)

Finn - Lightwork (I love this tune so much & Finn is a good mate so this fits in nicely to the ‘personally close category’)

Altern8 - hole in the speaker (Lots of drums short distances apart, and my favourite tune when I was 16)

Prince - Wouldn't You Love to Love Me (This tune is really close to me right now, RIP Prince)

Andy Stott - Butterflies  (One of my all time faves)

Velleitie Lentamente diventando (Distanced)  

Smashing pumpkins - 1979 (My fave tune when I was 15, and a tune me and my girlfriend started playing on guitar with each other   the other month so it’s sort of brought it back closer to me again)  

Quantic - Tell it like you mean it (Close to me - I love Quantic)

James Blake - I need a forest (Close to me again)  

Flying lotus - endless white (My fave FlyLo tune)

The Sound of Colour

India’s Mix:

This month’s theme was inspired by Deadboy’s NTS show and all of the New Atlantis artwork - lots of colour! Big thanks to him for the guest mix, such a great selection.

[If you haven’t already checked it, New Atlantis is a new age/ambient social at Rye Wax I’ll be taking over running as Deadboy’s moving to Canada - come along every 1st Sunday of the month!]

It’s not surprising that colour and sound are linked, each colour has its own frequency which can ultimately be translated into sound. Music evokes feeling, and feelings for some people can be felt as colour. I’m not sure if I have synesthesia myself, but I definitely feel certain colours for certain songs, or tunes remind me of a particular time when I was around certain colours.

I feel like this mix is a lot happier than usual (not that I’m not happy ofc.) it’s more that I prepared it when it was a really sunny day. For me, songs that make me feel lots of colours have a positive/light sort of sound. Although I have included some tunes that I listened to when I was going through a dark time.

Gonna explain the mix a little differently this month and with a full track list:

Bliss - Bass Communion - The artwork for this tune on youtube has loads of lovely colours! 

Circle of Fifths - pt.6 A Rainbow of Sound (youtube tutorial) Nice lil quote about music and colour I found

Green Relaxation Meditation Music Green nature sounds!

Riverside Drive - Seachel Nana - A bit more green,

The Sound of Colour - Sir Psych -  Doesn’t need an explanation really!

What I Need - A/T/O/S Make me feel red/dark maroon. Listened to this when going through a break up

Heart - Sundrenched This tune is so colourful to me! I just see lots of different colours of light beaming around.

Don’t Love you Like I Do (Drake - Sango Right Hand Remix) - This tune is has so many colours on the Serato waveform!

My Homeland - Renja Greeeeeeeeen

Recording of me sat by a purple/red tree in Hyde Park I wanted to record the sounds of being around lots of colour, I was sat next to a really red tree which stood out among all the green (image below) 

Gabriel Yared’s response to Cezanne’s Bathers - Soundscapes (National Portrait Gallery Exhibition) A really great exhibition with artists musical interpretations of paintings, I thought this quote was great

Mountain Goat - Amorphous Androgynous Spring time, lots of green and yellow!

Aqua - J A K O B Y - My fave tune from the additive colours collection (aptly named because of the 15 tracks on top of each other). This one Jakoby named colour because of the bubbley sounds.

Zodiac Shit - Flying Lotus.  This video!

Between Us (Instrumental) - Hazel Yellow, mainly due to the artwork & serato waveforms (I’m such a visual learner)

Electric Counterpoint - Fast (Movement 3) - Steve Reich & Pat Metheny All the guitars remind me of lots of yellow

Break With - Ryuichi Sakamoto. Such a beautiful tune. I see lots of blues and teals in it

Stay With you - Lemon Jelly Dark reds/maroons. Lemon Jelly make really colourful music

Haven’t You Heard - Patrice Rushden So many colours on the Serato waveform! lots of pinks

Recording of my walk down Prince Consort Road -  Again I wanted to include recordings where I was surrounded with colour. I work around lots of orange/red brick and this was on a bright day with blue skies.

Recording from the Boohbah’s TV show This show is fucked but really colourful.

You can do it - Spike Dark blue, purples, reminds me of driving late at night looking up at a starry sky.

Easy on Yourself - Jerry Williams The bass in this reminds me of a brassy brown, a real funky tune

Orange - J A K O B Y -  Another from the Additive Colour collection. Orange being the favourite colour of someone real special to meet

Something got me started - Simply Red I was listening to a bit of Simply Red over the weekend and this tune reminds me of being a kid singing to the tape in my living room!

Deadboy’s Mix:

The Sound of Other Worlds

India’s Mix:

After hearing Murlo’s play his edit of a Chrono Trigger tune at New Atlantis, we got talking about music from alternative realities and came up with this theme.

I really like the idea of using music to portray other worlds; since the music is created in our world it becomes almost metaphysical and abstract. Brian Eno wrote on his piece in the Other Worlds Exhibition that ‘we can’t resist imagining space as a sonic experience, translating our feelings about it into music.’ Although the mix isn’t all about space, I think he makes a really good point on our desire to use music to make sense of a reality different to our own.

I’ve taken inspiration from a few types of ‘Other Worlds’ for this mix, with space being the main one. I visited the Other Worlds at the Natural History Museum (which was a total coincidence by the way) exhibition over the Easter break (this is also where the show artwork comes from) and included some field recordings from there. I included some recordings from the NASA Voyager missions around Saturn’s rings (1hour 1 min) and also an audio sample of the frequencies of our solar system (18 mins). I play a really powerful tune by Greg Manta called Pluto (so fitting) at 41 mins

I’ve also included samples from the films Interstellar (26 mins) and Signs (1hour2min). Signs used to scare me a lot as a kid and I used to be really into aliens so it was fitting to bring them in!

I was listening to a lot of Vapourwave stuff around the time I was doing research for the show so I’ve included a lot of that in the mix. I really like how the internet has fostered a whole movement/genre of music; I would consider the internet as another world too. ‘Nobody here’ (27 mins) is also really fitting to the whole loneliness in space feeling, I think it has quite a dystopian sound too.

At 51mins is a Celtic ‘Journey through the Elven Forest’. In Celtic mythology the Otherworld is considered to be the realm of the dead and the home of the deities and other powerful spirits. After that I play the tune from the Windmill in Zelda - Ocarina of Time (games being a whole other world of course). I used to play that on the N64 when I was 7 years old and go into the windmill just so I could hear the music!

Massive thanks to Murlo for the guest mix on this one!

MURLO’s Mix:

When me and India first chatted about this theme I came up with idea of different worlds in terms of size and environment. I wanted to go from the tiny to the massive, and have it all kind of emphasise the different worlds within the ones we know through sound.

Because the way I made the mix it will be quite difficult to tracklist it, so il chat loads in rough time stamps about why its there. As a narrative the mix roughly goes through from microscopic to interplanetary, so that where it begins.

00:  The sound of the Higgs Boson: 

The guys at pan-European GÉANT network put together a piece of music that was using the data from the Atlas experiment at the Hadron Collider. The process was called "Data Sonification”, and it used the data from the experiment which discovered the Higgs Boson and transcribed it to melody. I used the midi notes and ran it through some of the VST’s I use on ableton.

2:06: Sound of an Atom:

This is another piece of music I constructed straight into the mix. The grinding background synth you can hear is actually the sound of Atoms Bonding.  Professor Philip Moriarty from Nottingham University (shouts to east mids) made an experiment that attached a microscopic piece of silicon to a tiny tuning fork and bounced it off a silicon/silver piece at a sub atomic level, its kind of mental but the noise you’re hearing is an actual chemical bond happening. 

4:00: The sound of DNA

Using a similar process to the Higgs Boson song track where the data is data transcribed into melody, this time I came across a youtube user “heyyjune" that made a piece of music from DNA replicating. (I’ll add the youtube link at the bottom). I took the notes and again passed it through my own sounds and added some strings.

5:20: This is ambience from inside a womb ft a heartbeat.

6:45: Insect Life! The next section is music I put together in the mix, features samples of bees and cicadas. 

8:35: Hawks and Crows: Another section of music I made, basically changing pace of the music as the animals get larger and faster.

10:50 Humans. This section focuses on people, and its where I naturally thought to spend the most time in the mix. I wanted to take this opportunity to put some music in that I personally listen to to escape. heres the tracklist:

Murlo - Furies Call

Chrono Trigger - WCTEND (Murlo fix)

Shigeo Sekito - The Word II

Odeko - Setsuko

Kenji Kawai - Chant 2 Ghost City

27:15: Space! 

 Various samples from Atalas V lift off, Earth’s message in morse code of “Hi” and radio waves that surround earth audible to us called the “chorus”. Theres a ton of stuff on NASA’s website so take a listen.

28:35: Kirill Pokrovsky - Divine Transcendence

31:58: The sound of stars. This sample is of our sun vibrating. Its pitched up to make it audible however as the frequency is super low.

32:30 Paul Warner - The Interplanetary Voyage To Arcturus And Other Compositions

The Sound of Time

India’s Mix:

I’ve wanted to do a theme around time for a long time so I was super excited when Tom Lea and I decided to do it.

Perception of time and music are massively interlinked, there’s tonnes of research that looks into how different tempos affect how we perceive time. For example, music is used in supermarkets to make us stay longer, & in waiting rooms to reduce the subjective duration of time spent waiting. 

I start the mix with a recording of the clock in my bedroom. The clock is stuck on 21:40 because I haven’t changed the batteries since November. So the ticking is just stuck on the same second. I like how dull and monotonous it sounds. I should really change my batteries though…

After that I play Radiohead - Hunting Bears. This tune is considered to be free from musical time and time signature, the rhythm is intuitive and free-flowing (check out Free Time Music) 

I’ve included tunes that I feel have stood the test of time. I found some Enya CD’s down my street so I included a few of them in the mix. Including Aldebaran (played at 33rpm) & Boadicea. Pink Floyd - On the Run (48 mins) has definitely stood the test of time, what a powerful tune!

I’m sure everyone can relate to that feeling where you lose all sense of time when listening to music, and I’ve included some tunes in this mix that reflect that for me. I play Slackerbitch by Placebo (10 mins in), a tune that I loved a long time ago (over 10 years!), I used to play that loop on constantly guitar and just lose myself in it.

16mins in I play a piece called String Quintet in C Major, D.956 by Franz Schubert. Schubert was one of the leading composers to experiment with time signature. This article describes the piece well: In the work, he turns contrasting distortions of perceptual time into musical structure. Following the opening melody in the first Allegro ma non troppo movement, the second Adagio movement seems to move slowly and be far longer than it really is, then hastens and shortens before returning to a perception of long and slow. The Scherzo that follows reverses the pattern, creating the perception of brevity and speed, followed by a section that feels longer and slower, before returning to a percept of short and fast. 

Keeping in with the classical theme, I include an example of Rubato at (58mins). Rubato Is used in romantic period music. It has a expressive element whereby the composer deliberately sways out of time in order to give the sound a more natural, rhythmic flexibility whilst not losing pace.

After that I play Eudaemonia by Them Are Us Too (21mins). A tune introduced to me by my lovely friend Emily who was visiting from America during my preparation for the show. We haven’t seen each other in 3 years and it was so great to share music with each other. Raime - Passed Over Trail (51 mins) was also from Emily <3

I purposefully speed up and slow down a few tracks and played with the pitch a bit for obvious reasons. 42 mins in is Rockwell - Underpass played at 33rpm, I used to love this tune back when I played a lot of Drum and Bass, I think it works so well slowed down too. I’ve also slowed down a DJ Rashad tune at 1hour5mins in (Something 2 dance 2) as this sounds so soulful slowed down! RIP DJ Rashad. I’ve also played some tracks backwards.

The night before I saw Special Request at Tobacco dock, his set blew me away so I wanted to include one of his tunes. His jungle/old school influence obviously links into the time theme!

At (1hour 11mins) I play the sound of Gravitational Waves, one of the major scientific breakthroughs of our lifetime which favour’s Einstein’s theory of general relativity through measurable space-time (or something like that).

Tom Lea’s Mix:

When India originally said we were doing Time as the theme I was going to do a mix of tracks played at the wrong tempo. I’ve always been into the idea that music sounds totally different in different situations: when I first got an iPod as a kid I used to listen to an entire album just through the left earphone, then again on the right because some albums were so panned that it was like listening to two different records. Then you have records sounding better played at the wrong speed, and even in a v practical sense there’s two sets of monitors at the Local Action studio and demos never sound the same in both. It’s a constant reminder that there’s no such thing as perfect or true sound - it’s all to do with context, perspective and time - or at least, the time when you’re listening to something. 

 Anyway, I didn’t do that in the end - though I did keep the chopped and screwed version of Paul Wall ‘Girl’, which is one of my all-time fav records. There’s a lot of different things on this mix: some of it is lost Local Action demos that never got past the loop stage, which is often when music’s at its most truthful and powerful (there’s at least one Local Action release where I prefer the original drafts to the masters), some of it is songs that remind me of specific times in my life, and there’s no mixing and a lot of ambient layers and tape saturation - I wanted the whole thing to sound like that situation where you’re on a long-haul flight and you have headphones on but you’re drifting in and out of sleep for hours. I guess that’s the ultimate situation where you have no concept or time or timezones, right? 

The Sound of Sentiments w/Finn

My February show fell on Valentines day, so of course I was going to do something related to emotion/feelings! This is also the first show featuring a special guest. Thanks a lot to Finn for the mix, check out his soundcloud.

The title of the show was chosen by my friend Frankie who I was visiting in Berlin. The artwork for the show is the bar we were sat in when she suggested it.

India’s mix:

My shows generally tend to have lots of feeling, so for this one I specifically chose songs that were sentimental to me.

At  44mins I play the intro to Minus the Bear - Pachuca Sunrise, on a loop & with some echo and at 16 mins I play Lykkie Li - A Little Bit (Stenchman remix), those are both huge sentimental tunes for me and reminds me falling in loveeeee back in 2011. After that I play Clams Casino - Never Understand. This is one of my fave tunes and brings up a lot of feelings, I played it on repeat when I was going through a break up.  Similarly with Kornél Kovács - Szikra (43mins) and Kahn - Like We Used To (54mins). </3

As usual I’ve included some field recordings. 12 mins in is a guy playing guitar under a subway in Berlin, you can hear my friend Sharna say ‘Frankie’ in the background and I’ve included this because I wanted Sharna to have a part in this show because we share our feelings with each other a lot <3

29mins in is a recording from Berlin again, it’s lots of cars sounding their horns. When the cars passed we saw a Bride and Groom in them, sounding horns is apparently a Turkish wedding tradition.

The last field recording (53mins) was taken on Friday 12th Feb after Crystal Clear brought Murlo & Finn to Hull for a Valentines special, what a great night. I don’t remember doing the recording and only found it when I was sorting them out on Sunday, whoops. After that I play Mary J Blige’s classic, Be Happy. The lyrics totally resonate with me and that tune means a lot.

Finn’s Mix:

I was really mixing definitions of "sentimental" making this mix - I didn't really want to just record an hour of music that was personally sentimental to me, that'd be all over the place - although I still included a lot of records that mean a lot to me.

I tried to put together songs that were sentimental sounding generally - records that feel kind of precious, euphoric, introspective, synonyms for sentimental basically. And totally wet sometimes too to be fair. The sort of tracks that make you feel sentimental even listening to them for the first time ever anyway.

I actually made this mix on ableton - which I don't really do anymore - because I didn't get a chance to go studio. It's how i first made mixtapes in school and sixth form so I almost got sentimental about the process itself. (Almost)

Anyway - I ended on a Rashad tune because it reminds me of India teaching me to mix on technics - all his records sound kind of sentimental now I think, RIP.

The Sound of Duality 

First off, the Sound of Shows are now a year old, woohoo happy birthday wooooo.

This month’s theme was decided 10 days before the date due to a bit of a change up, and aired on the 10-01. When deciding what to do for the theme I started looking into what the number 10 symbolised.

According to Pythagoras, the number 10 was the most important of numbers. "It is regarded as the most perfect, because it contains the unit that did it all, and the zero, the symbol of the matter and the chaos of which all came out; it then includes in it’s figure the created and the non-created, the beginning and the end, the power and the force, the life and the nothing…" the duality. (This quote is featured in the mix at 1hour2mins in)

I’m pretty fascinated with duality and the concept of Yin and Yang so it was exciting to portray this in a mix. I’ve shown this in a number of ways, the most obvious being that the first half of the show is relaxed, chilled, ambient music and the second half is lively, upbeat and music you’d listen to in a club. I did this because I wanted to show my experiences with music, from what I listen to at home to what I listen to out. Music both relaxes and energises me, it chills me out and then it fills me with excitement - the duality of music! 

After the quote on Yin and Yang I play the Inside Out soundtrack at 29mins. Inside Out is one of my favourite films and it’s main storyline emphasis the idea that happiness and sadness exist alongside each other, they are codependent on each other. It’s such a lovely film and a beautiful and truthful message. After that I play Paths in Soft Focus by Savath & Savalas, one of my all time favourites. I think the song has two contrasting parts, the first being quite hard & rugged and it then breaks down to this lovely relaxing harp.

I was listening to Christ Air by Leon Vynehall (54 mins) on repeat whilst preparing the show, it reminds me of a dull wet and reflective day in the office. The same goes for Three by Ólafur Arnalds & Nils Frahm (40 mins), a beautiful tune. Equally, Boogie Pro’s remix of Hud Mo (1hour40) was played on repeat leading up to the show as it made me really uplifted and happy. 

As always, the mix features a few field recordings I recorded out and about during the preparation of the show. The first being a recording of my favourite busker in London (42 mins), this time spotted in Shoreditch - it’s the third time I’ve included him in the show (maybe I should tell him next time). A group of guys appeared from behind a wall and one of them started doing interpretive dance around him, it was pretty special. I included this because the last time I recorded him it was a lovely sunny day, this time it was cold and raining (contrast, duality etc.!)

The second recording was done on the same night (1hour55), I was out at a Dance Mania night at Dance Tunnel & whilst chilling in the smoking area ‘No Letting Go’ by Wayne Wonder came on in Voodoo Rays, a group of people were signing along so I went in and recorded it. This used to be one of my favourite tunes as a kid, it was a massive contrast to the music in the club and it was a great addition to the night!

The Sound of 2015

The final theme of the year is all about the sorts of feelings you get towards the end of the year, feelings of reflection and looking back. I wouldn’t say it completely mirrors my year, there’s a lot of tunes I’ve purposely missed out - mainly because they feature in other mixes and some also just hold too much emotion for me to play them again, I’m happy with some to be left in the past. When recording it I was very surprised at how it came together, I imagined it totally different in my head. Maybe that’s saying something about my year, yo!

I really wanted this mix to be a bit like :) :( :) :( :), as my year has totally been like that. I think everyone’s probably has though aaaand that’s the beauty of life (everyone should watch Inside Out). 

When I was recording it was a really dark and gloomy Sunday, the weather was rubbish and I had had bit of a heavy weekend, I think that kinda shows in the mix. I got quite reflective sad when I was recording it and I think that’s just what the tunes do to me - that isn’t a bad thing though. I love that sort of mellow subdued mood music can put you in.

I also wanted friends that have been an important part of my year and supported me through all the shit to be involved in the show, there’s a few that sent over tunes that I’ve featured in the mix. At 1hour17 is I learned by Wonder - chosen by Jess. 1hour23:30mins in is Lilac by Blue Hawaii chosen by Jay. A/T/O/S - A Taste of Struggle (1hour45) is Gaba’s choice (alongside her remix of Portishead at 1hour40). I put the intro to You Got the Love remix by The XX on a loop with a delay and an echo to make it sound all dreamy (1hour43.20secs) that was chosen by Sharna. Unfortunately I couldn’t include Nesta’s tune (I’m sorry) but cheers guys for your contributions you’re all amazing <3

22mins50 is a recording form Sognsvann lake in Norway, I was sat around on a rock for a while on my own just being all thoughtful and reflective - which is what this mix is all about. Another field recording of some sails on the beach in Brighton (sorry about all the wind) at 45 mins in which is from my visit there in November - i had one of the best weekends and wanted it to have a place in the mix for that reason. 1hour10mins is a recording of a man singing in Christiania, Copenhagen. That place is amazing and that guy was hilarious!

Flowers by Theo Parrish & Andrew Ashong (11 mins in) actually reminds me of the end of 2013 when I first heard it on Bonobo’s Late Night Tales mix, but that feeling I got from it has generally carried on over the years, especially around this time. There’s loads of reflective tunes in there in general really (too many to list), ones that make me go all d33p w/ lyf.

Equally, there’s some uplifting tunes which give me a lot of positive feeling and energy. I’ve been listening to loads of disco & Delroy Edwards recently I’ve included some of his tunes. Although I’ve not done it a lot, I have included some tunes that I’ve played in other shows (maybe you’ll recognise them if you’ve listened to them, ooo!) Lyk U Use 2 by Andres and Moodyman (1hour 12mins) is my fave tune at the minute so I had to include that in. Although it was difficult to listen to, I included Sinuses by Caribou - that song brings up a lot of emotional stuff from the last year but it’s a really important tune to me so it had to go in.

Thank you everyone who’s tuned in, listened and read the blog this last year. The Sound of Shows have been a great platform for me to channel what’s been happening in my life, good or bad. I’m happy that I can attach personal feeling to the themes and look forward to continuing them next year with some special guests.

The Sound of Travel

When I first decided I was going to create my next themed mix around travel, I thought I’d look into how sound waves travel and all the science behind them. As interesting as that sounds, I realised the real reason that I was doing this theme wasn’t because of the science of sound, it was my relationship with travelling how I use those opportunities (just being sat there not really doing much) to listen and to connect with music.

Some of my favourite memories of tunes come from when I’ve been listening to them on the way to somewhere, it’s that memory and excitement that’s all ravelled in together with the experience of travelling to somewhere.

Up until this year I hadn’t been on a proper holiday in 10 years and due the events over the summer, I bought a load of plane tickets to help get over all the crap. Travelling has helped so much, and I think this really links into my other two shows, particularly about being in the present.

When you’re on a plane, bus or train you’re allowed to just be there, you’re in this interim and that’s all there is to do. I think there’s something very cathartic and therapeutic about that. This mix is mainly about the music I listen to when I’m in that state, and the songs and sounds I listened to whilst travelling around.

I start the mix with a recording from Kings Cross station, where I get most of there trains back home. Clouds by Gigi Masin (7:30 mins in) is one of my favourite tunes, and the title is quite appropriate! Sonao by RSNS is another favourite (16 mins in). Earl Jeffers - Bridge Street Groove (37mins) really reminds me of being on a the tube and going into a bit of a trance at how good the tune was! Same with Last Magpie - Fallen (1hour5mins in), I remember having to put my book down on the tube and just stare into nothing so I could listen, a real physical reaction to music! Actually I include so many of my favourites in there it’s hard to name them all.

24:06 mins in is a recording of me cycling home form work - I’ve started cycling quite a bit and a lot of the music I listen to whilst cycling tends to be uplifting/energetic. I mix HNNY - Nothing into it as it’s one of the songs I always listen to in a morning on the way to work - so uplifting!

42:40 mins in is Sad Grime by O$VMV$M, I first heard this on one of Mr Mitch’s Rinse FM shows whilst cycling home and was blown away! After that (44:44 mins) is a recording of a street band I took in Croatia in June. I play a recording of the announcer at Highbury and Islington over Pearson Sound - Thaw Cycle (1 hour 12mins in) because this guy is amazing and always makes me smile on the way to work!

I remember playing Kid D - Set Fire on repeat on a bus back in February, and Polygone Fame by Pixlelord, I played that tune a lot when I first moved down to London.

56 mins in is a looooong recording I did whilst sat on the tram in Geneva. I purposely left this playing without backing music to give importance to the actual sound of being on public transport, which is mostly silent or at least has minimal amount of background noise. I often notice just how silent the tubes and busses are in a morning on the way to work, it’s quite a contrast to all the noise going on in my headphones, so I thought it was important to give attention to how travelling actually sounds.

Similarly to my last point, at (1hour42:30) is a recording on the plane back from Geneva, this is mixed with a recording of a club I was in whilst there.

When I’m travelling I generally listen to mixes. So here’s some of the mixes that inspired this show:

The Choon Room Episode 7 - Based in Berlin, this show very aptly reminds me of my time in Berlin at the end of September and part of my inspiration to do this mix around travel. So many good tunes in there!

Midland Dekmentel Podcast - Listening to this at 1am on the bus back from Gatwick after a delayed flight, reminds me of being quite spaced out after 6 hours of travelling

Dirtcast #60 with Urlu - Tube journeys in the morning, lots of great uplifting tunes in there

Move D live at FreeRo 2013 - arguably one of the best Move D sets everrrrr.

Yeti in the Basement 7th Oct Radar - My cycling to work mix!

Taneli Fokus FM Mix - The Crackazat tune (Dancecrodile) I play 1hour 15 mins in reminds me of being on the overground. It also sounds a bit like a train!

Artwork for the show was taken on a plane on the way to Geneva. 

The Sound of Calm

My last show was about my experiences this summer, having a major life change and sort of adjusting to that. This show reflects one of the ways I’ve been able to deal with the change and what I’ve been up to in that last month.

Meditation and sound therapy have really helped me become present, calm down my anxiety and become more focused on the now rather than ruminating about the past or worrying about the future. This last month has been pretty transformational for me in terms of how I’ve been able to become more aware of my non-stop mind and to try and relax a bit.

Sound therapy is based on the notion that each organism has its own vibratory rate, and every object in the universe has its own unique resonant frequency. I have included a few text to speech clips in the mix quoting stuff like that. The instruments used in sound therapy (gongs, Tibetan singing bowls, chimes etc.) all have a particular sound and frequency that helps rebalance the mind and body. I recommend this Ted Talk by Alexandre Tannous for more info

The first tune in the mix is called Za Zen (Meditation) by a clarinet musician named Tony Scott, it was released in 1964 after his travels around South East Asia led him to create an album reflecting his experiences of meditation. It’s also considered to be one of the first new age records so worth checking out.

4 mins in is some Ignis Chimes, something that has been used in sound therapy that I have been to, alongside Tibetan singing bowls (41 mins) and gongs. At about 7 mins in there’s some binaural beats which are used in alternative medicine and are said do induce relaxation, meditation and creativity. 37mins20secs in I include a tune called Soothe by Kip Mazuy, this guy produced most of the music that used in the meditation app I used called Calm - I recommend it! I include a recording from an interview with John Kabat-Zinn on What is Mindfulness? where he explains the key principals to mindfulness meditation, around 1hour15 mins in, this is over the top of William Basinski - Watermusic II, a great ambient record.

Music really helps me become more present, and just get really into the sounds of what’s going on. I’ve included songs that send me into a trance as I love that feeling you get from it, such as Steve Hauschildt - 05 Vicinities (21mins), Vox Portent - Sembalance (33:30), Burial - Forgive (1:03)

At the beginning of September I went to Norway for a couple of days and visited the Noble Peace Centre, inside they have a dark room lit up by LEDs with screens showing everyone that has won the Nobel Prize, playing ambient in the background. This is included 1hour45mins in. There’s also a recording from a stream at Sognsvann lake (1:02:20 ) which was beautiful - flowing water is used a lot in relaxation and meditation techniques. 1hour40 I play Columbus by Imogeon Heap, this tune was playing in a bar in Norway and I thought it would fit perfectly. Another field recording includes some whale music (1:46) which was playing in a toilet of a pub I was at in Bethnal Green last month - toilets need more stuff like this!

1hour22 mins in I play Recovery (Vessels remix) by Rival Consoles and after that Need You Now (Percussions Edit) by Hot Chip as I listened to these tunes straight after finishing sound therapy, whilst I was in this sort of half conscious reflective state just trying to figure out what just happened to me!

Finally I end on Flim - Aphex Twin, this song used to calm me down before exams a few years ago, and was one of the first tunes I thought about including in the mix, what great tune!

I’ve been getting in touch with my inner ~zen~ and I’ll be playing some peaceful and relaxing meditative tunes this Friday on Radar. get into the mommmeeennttttttt

India Jordan presents Sound of The Summer - 13th August 2015 by Radar Radio Ldn on Mixcloud

The image I used for this artwork was taken in Croatia, the waves at the beginning of the mix are the ones pictured here!

When you think of summer mixes, you think happy, uplifting music, probably some Will Smith and ‘Everybody Loves the Sunshine’ sort of tunes. I was originally going to make this mix quite similar to that, but due to a turn of unexpected events it ended up being a lot deeper and darker than I anticipated!

This mix pretty much symbolises a huge change in my life, a separation. A lot of the tunes in this mix act as a sort of language to how I was feeling at the time. Songs like Caribou - Sinuses (57mins) Kwala - Idle Spings (1:02)… this song!! and, Maribor - Blinkered (Wifey Riddim) (1:24) all sit really closely to me and will always remind me of this particular time.

I’ve included songs I would play on repeat and songs that would send me into a trance. It’s amazing what music can do to you when you feel so low. And to not sound so depressing, I did include quite a lot of summery tunes in there (because it hasn’t been all bad!)

I start with a recording of the waves in Croatia (the same waves I used in my promo image of the show) where I spent a week doing Yoga and meditation by the sea, and then various bits and bobs that either remind me of summer and relaxed me when I was feeling anxious.

22 mins in is LHF - Natural Boost, I was listening to this a lot when I was trying to get myself out of a bad habit of negative thought, it’s really uplifting. I thought that was quite relevant to summery stuff! I feel like this mix has a bit of contrast of kind of depressing tunes with uplifting, which is quite representative.

Brian Eno - Deep Blue Day has also gotta be one of the most chilled summer tunes ever. Larry Heard - Missing You reminds me of summer 2013 (and really relevant lyrics omg).

India Jordan Presents "The Sound of the Heart" - 12th June 2015 by Radar Radio Ldn on Mixcloud

I ran the London Marathon in April and raised money for the British Heart Foundation in memory of my friend, Lee, so it made total sense to dedicate my next show to something that had been my life for the last six months.

During training I monitored my heart rate and replicated this through the BPM of some of the tunes in the mix. The tempos are quite varied and I did this to symbolise the changes in heart rate from resting to training.

I came across an article which explained the effects of the heart rate when experiencing different tempos, this article suggests that when changing the tempo from really fast to really slow, it has a similar effect on the body as if you were meditating. The article can be found here , I try and replicate this in the mix by playing #05 by d’Eon (one of my favourite tunes) followed by a ‘Heart Opening’ Chakra vibration used for meditation. I also copied some of the text from the article in a ‘text to speech’ generator and include it in the mix.

When training, I listened to a lot of footwork/juke and jungle, so it was great to include this in the mix as it’s music that I listen to a lot, but haven’t included it in my Radar shows yet.

Another aim for this show was to change the tempo quite a lot, again to replicate the changes in heart rate. This was done quite often by switching from 33RPM to 45RPM on the turntable and by playing tunes that were a bit all over the place.

I included songs that meant a lot to me, Stray - Triangles, Knwledge - Sewintoyew both sit very close to my heart. I also ended on Sneaker Pimps - 6 Underground as it reminds me of Lee.

The Sound of Spring 

Winter was nearly over and I was getting excited about the fact it wouldn’t be as cold and so wanted to make a mix for the start of Spring.

The first tune (Dusk by Siavash Amini) symbolises the end of winter, it’s quite a dark tune and I wanted to show a transition from one season to the next. Meadows by the Future Sound of London symbolises this quite well, birds chirping and lots of positive strings.

I include music from Jason Singh, a beatboxer who replicates the sound of spring in the morning, afternoon and evening, a project that was done for the National Trust. More info can be found here

The general theme of this mix is positivity, nice light tunes that remind me of coming out of winter and having a little more energy, the sound of animals and the outside and lots of upbeat tunes.