Category Archives: highlights

The Resonance Highlights podcast feed. Add into this any notable shows for recipients to download.

Six Pillars – Persian Esoterica ‘1

Mithras - temple fresco in Marino, Italy. 2nd Century A.D.

Mithras – temple fresco, Marino, Italy. 2nd Century A.D.

nabarz

All too often the English language refers to pagans as an insult, or a primitive people. Yet some of our most common roots are deep within these complex and highly telling belief systems, one of which: Mithraism Nabarz upholds as Persia’s greatest export to date.

Sufi-mystic Payam Nabarz discusses Phrygian Caps, snakes in ancient Persia and the calender of the moon. Zoroastrian and Sufi interests brought Payam to read up about Mithras, and he has steeped his life in the esoteric history of Iran and Zoroastrian rituals, publishing several books and numerous papers on aspects of both, available from Amazon

Fari interviews him on what Mithraism is and the different Persian calenders. For a deeper conversation on these matters refer to late Dec 08/Jan 09 when we invite Nabarz back in the studio for stage 2 in our radio foray into Persian esoterica.

This show was broadcast live from Resonancefm studios, London on March 31st 2008

Music: Kali Z. Fasteau

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The Bike Show: The Moulton Story (part two)

The concluding episode of a two-part feature on the story of Dr Alex Moulton and the reinvention of the bicycle. We pick up the story with the launch of the Moulton space frame design (pictured left) in the early eighties. Featuring interviews with eaturing interviews with Dr Alex Moulton, Shaun Moulton, Tony Hadland, Michael Woolf, Paul Villiers, George Coulouris, Jean Dollimore, Chris Mahon, Patrick Doocey and Mog from Brixton Cycles.

Play on links below. Other file formats (Ogg Vorbis, 64kb MP3) over here.

The Bike Show: The Moulton Story (part two) [ 29:40 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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The Bike Show: Around the world the hard way (part two)

Alastair Humphreys has cycled round the world ‘the hard way’: four years, sixty countries and forty-six thousand miles. In the second of a two part special he tells the story of his epic adventure: from Mexico to Alaska, through Siberia, Japan, China and central Asia.

Thunder and Sunshine, the second volume of his travelogue is out now, published by Eye Books.

Play on links below, other file formats (e.g. Ogg Vorbis) over here.

The Bike Show: Around the world the hard way (part two) [ 27:00 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The Bike Show: Around the world the hard way (part one)

Alastair Humphreys has cycled round the world ‘the hard way’: four years, sixty countries and forty-six thousand miles. In the first of a two part special he tells the story of his epic adventure from Yorkshire to South Africa and Chile to Colombia. Thunder and Sunshine, the second volume of his travelogue is out now, published by Eye Books.

The studio at Resonance FM is closed on 18th and 25th August so there will be no show on those dates. The second part of this two-show special will be broadcast on 1 September.

Play on links below, other file formats (e.g. Ogg Vorbis) over here.

11 August 2008: Around the world the hard way (part one) [ 30:00 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The Bike Show: Looking back at Le Tour 2008

TDF 2008

Looking back at this year’s Tour De France, with Guy Andrews, editor of Rouleur magazine and author and broadcaster Graeme Fife. As well as discussing the racing, we go into what it means for a small towns when it plays host to a stage of Le Tour de France. You can listen to an hour-long Tour De France themed edition of Ruby’s Chicky Boil Ups on Radio Nowhere, featuring Jack Thurston and a pile of cycling tunes over here.

Play on links below. Other file formats (Ogg Vorbis etc) over here.

28 July 2008: Looking back at Le Tour [ 30:00 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Six Pillars – we mean it when we say experimental.

This is the most work we’ve ever had to do for a show: collating the sparse and little known threads of modern Persian music. Mostly Persian music is tripe, with little but the language or a few musical notes to differentiate it from other trash music. In fact so abundant are the cheap imitations by Middle Easterners, that Middle Eastern pop, hip hop, house and dance have developed into their own sub genres and even spawned a stereotpye anti-appreciation movement (Kill Iranian Kitsch)...

Happily however, we do not linger on that here, instead we leap from Jew’s harp to percussive experiments to nu-fusion jazz: we’ve searched far and wide to bring you some of the best sounds in alternative Iranian modern music. Listen out for the distinct Iranian vocal technique employed by Mamak Khadem. Also listen out for the throat sound experiments with a Jew’s harp (Morteza Esmaili pictured) and the wonderful Sitar piece by Omid, (but he should have called it Se tar).

Thanks to all the artists, who gave permission for this podcast.

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Hooting Yard: The Book of Gnats (re-loaded)

So was a tempest loosed upon the city, and its very fabric uprooted from the mud. Whirling and howling, the city was dispersed upon the firmament, coming to rest none knew where. And the mud spawned all manner of noisome pests, squirming and wriggling to escape the gigantic puddles which were left in the wake of the storm. These were not puddles of water, no, nor of any liquid known to the human mind. And then my eyes saw, standing fiery on a wooden plinth ringed by scum-pools, the obscene figure of Winckelmann. In his left hand he brandished aloft a scrap of burning linoleum. His right hand was made into a fist. As, dribbling, I watched, the fist was slowly opened to reveal a….. I cannot say. I do not know. For just at the moment my peering, watery eyes would have seen that… that thing, I was startled by a toad, which leapt up at my face, and thwacked me on the forehead, leaving an imprint which remains there to this day, like a brand.

  • A history of “The Book of Gnats”
  • Three extracts from “The Book of Gnats”
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Resonance Radio Orchestra: The Death of Nero

THE DEATH OF NERO – a radiophonic operetta. Devised and performed by The Resonance Radio Orchestra, music written by Alfredo Genovesi, Chris Weaver and Ben Drew with texts and lyrics by Ed Baxter after Tacitus, Suetonius, De Quincey et al.. Performed live at the Shoreditch Festival and broadcast live on Resonance 104.4FM Sunday August 1st 2004

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