February 2022
Currently Off Air has collaborated with Xelís de Toro, a Galician writer, performer and singer based in Brighton. we have begun creating a series of ‘word s p a c e s’, mixing field recordings, voice and created sounds for broadcast. In february, a new piece was aired as part of ‘Radiophrenia‘, who describe themseleves as ‘a temporary art radio station broadcasting intermittently from the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow – a two-week long festival exploring current trends in sound and transmission arts‘. The piece is called ‘Criscrossing’ and is made up of a combination of sounds recorded in Galicia and on the South East of England coast mixed with vocal manipulations of words uttered while walking. It tries to create a non-geographic place, with a non-linguistic expression, that tries to build a dome of sound inviting the listener to wander inside. Vocalic, non-semantic voices mix with recognizable sounds such as bells and water to draw an unbalanced landscape.
Recent collaborations between Xelís de Toro and Currently Off Air led to broadcasts as part of installations at The Dark Outside, September 25th – 26th 2021, Murrays Monument, The Galloway Forest, and as part of a temporary radio station during the Tidemills Project held in August 2021 in Newhaven, UK. They are currently collaborating on a series of videos and radio shows looking at the history of Sound Poetry.
January 2022
I’ve recently helped to restore ‘Somebody Help Me’, a 30 minute film from 1975, directed by Morris Baker, that documents a performance by Afro-Latin-Jazz group, ‘Ujamaa’, at Glenside Psychiatric Hospital, Bristol, UK. The film was shot on 16mm for television broadcast on ITV via HTV West but was never aired due to an appeal from a relative one of the patients shown in the film.
The band includes:
Vocals: Jeannette Tavernier
Piano: Lionel Grigson
Tenor Saxophone: Dave Quincy
Alto Sax: Paul Zec
Drums: Spike Wells
Camera: Mick Sutton
Sound: David Lascelles
Director and Editor: Morris Baker
You can view the full film above, or view a 5 minute excerpt of one of the musical performances here: