Thing of the Day
RESONANCE AND THE
CONTINUED ART OF LISTENING
January 10th 2011
The Thing Of The Day today is London radio station Resonance 104.4FM.
Resonance is special. Resonance
is a unique radio station, legal and advert-free, broadcasting on FM
across London (and of course streamed on the net). We feel very
privileged to have been involved in the station for a number of years
now, we don’t really want to talk about our show on the station today.
Today the new 2011 schedule and a whole load of new shows kick in.
There’s a whole load of intriguing new names and fresh show titles on
the listings waiting to reveal themselves over the next few days and
weeks.
You never know what you’re going to get
with Resonance FM - there’s all kinds of left field experimental music,
radio art, discussion, documentary, political thought, counter culture,
globe trotting, sound sculpture and lots (lots) more besides, all there
on your old school FM radio band waiting to be discovered (well, FM in
London, online all over the world). You can go explore the schedules and
cherrypick the things that take your interest or the best way, is to
just turn it on and see. Not everything is brilliant, but most of it is
more than interesting and by just dipping in you’re probably going to
find something wonderful you’d never imagined would be in the radio…the
sound of icebergs cracking, militant pensioners ranting, the oppressed
minority that is
Americans in London, an experimental piece of prog rock
that really has no right to expect to be on the radio, a strangely good
strange drama, conspiracy theories that have you wondering if the
station might just be a whole conspiracy…
The best way to explore Resonance FM is just to jump right in and listen,
tune in and take pot luck… it might be alternative music, it might be
underwater sound art, it might be Whitechapel Anarchists, it might be a
Persian art show or an alternative view of the stock markets or a punk
rock record played at the wrong speed…Our favourite shows? Too many to
mention, Framework maybe, or Hooting Yard.. or - nope, can't do it or
this is going to be a very long list. The new schedule starts today,
go explore and see
Here’s the station’s very own manifesto…
Mission Statement
Imagine a radio station like no other. A radio station that makes public those artworks that have no place in traditional broadcasting. A radio station that is an archive of the new, the undiscovered, the forgotten, the impossible. That is an invisible gallery, a virtual arts centre whose location is at once local, global and timeless. And that is itself a work of art. Imagine a radio station that responds rapidly to new initiatives, has time to draw breath and reflect. A laboratory for experimentation, that by virtue of its uniqueness brings into being a new audience of listeners and creators. All this and more, Resonance104.4fm aims to make London’s airwaves available to the widest possible range of practitioners of contemporary art.
Resonance104.4fm is the world’s first radio art station, established by the London Musicians’ Collective. It started broadcasting on May 1st 2002. Its brief? To provide a radical alternative to the universal formulae of mainstream broadcasting. Resonance 104.4 fm features programmes made by musicians, artists and critics who represent the diversity of London’s arts scenes, with regular weekly contributions from nearly two hundred musicians, artists, thinkers, critics, activists and instigators; plus numerous unique broadcasts by artists on the weekday “Clear Spot”.
And while we’re here I guess we might as well mention that we Organs
are back on as
part of the new schedule at 9pm on Sunday evening. The Organ Hour
alternates between a general Organ Thing and The Other Rock Show -
The OTHER ROCK SHOW is presented by Marina O, it's about
exploring 'other' time signatures within structures of rock and
filtering out the conventions of the 4/4 time easy option in favour of
something a little more challenging. It's really all the avant,
progressive, experimental music happening now getting cherrypicked out
Organ postbag - plus the influential rarely-heard originators.
Meanwhile
on the ORGAN THING Sean O plays an
eclectic mix of diverse left-field things from all points in between
and beyond - the best new releases and demos that are circulating
around the underground fanzine channels and landing here in the Organ
bunker, along with forthcoming events and general alternative
music news, arts news and goings on in and around London, interviews
with painters, performers.... Expect an hour of challenging alternative
music each week, special guests, expect who knows what... Here's our
dedicated Organ Hour /Other Rock Show page
...but that’s not the point of this piece! this is about all the other things you can find if you go explore the Resonance schedules or maybe the podcasts...
