An interview with the director of Haus Publishing, who have translated banned book The Colonel from Farsi to English for print. In its native Iran, where the office of censorship has prohibited publication, The Colonel by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi cannot be read, but now published in German and English, this critical work has been granted a voice in the outside world.
Barbara Schwepcke discusses the difficulties and importance of publishing authors like Dowlatabadi and the role of literature in revolutionary times.
This programme was originally broadcast Monday 12th September 2011 from the ResonanceFM studios.
Arriving all the way from Poland to perform live in session on the show today is the artist Izes. Also; lending their choral talents to the show we have Goodbye Leopold.
After her debut as an actress in Barry Adamson’s movie “Therapist“, started to work on her solo project as a singer and composer, cooperating with polish improv musicians Marek Rogulski, Andrzej Izdebski, Michal Gos, Irek Wojtczak and classic violonist Ewa Kaszuba. She returned to acting, playing a role in the punk-rock group Vulgar in their music video for “Tschenstahau”, which premieres in early 2012.
Izes is an artist that experiments within many areas of art. She has worked with photographers Sylwia Makris and Christian Weiss and clothing designer/artist Bartholomäus Wischnewski. As well as creating visualisations and short films she also composes music for shows (most recently for the Theaterkontor in Bremen (Germany) for the project Urban Desert, collaborating with director Tobias Pflug.)
Goodbye Leopold combine the ethereal sound of three blended voices, choreography and a unique aesthetic to communicate their ideas, intrigues and passions. Their holistic approach to delivering music stimulates all the senses. Their focus is to create alluring atmospheres within which the audience is easily connected to the concept the piece is illustrating whilst being given the freedom to imagine their own meaning. Their work is either self- composed or their original arrangements of obscure songs from across the globe. They experiment with the extremities of the human voice with improvisation, adopting abstract sounds and techniques and playing with tension and release in their dynamics. Each Goodbye Leopold set explores a different concept. At the moment Goodbye Leopold are experimenting with singing Christmas Carols in reverse.
Track list:
Unit – The Signals*
Izes – Execution (LIVE SESSION)
Izes – No Future (LIVE SESSION)
Izes – Purgatory’s Gate (LIVE SESSION)
Izes – White Devil (LIVE SESSION)
Izes – Blood (LIVE SESSION)
Barry Adamson – Aaa Kotki Dwa (from soundtrack to ‘Therapist’)
Izes – ’Interview’
One True Dog – Dog
Lime Headed Dog – Proof
Slate Islands – Trial Seperation
Sergeant Buzfuz – God To Holloway
Goodbye Leopold – My Ach Ba (LIVE SESSION)
Goodbye Leopold – A Picture Of You (LIVE SESSION)
Goodbye Leopold – Yovano (LIVE SESSION)
Goodbye Leopold – Yarsh (LIVE SESSION)
Goodbye Leopold – Sonnet (LIVE SESSION)
Goodbye Leopold – Chant (LIVE SESSION)
Flameprooth Moth – Thomas Rhymer (HG archive)
Goodbye Leopold – ’Interview’
Peepholes – Step One
Live sound engineers: Kacper Ziemianin, Leanne Bower & Tom Kemp.
Continuing our month of shows about about non practitioners’ love of comics, Alex Fitch talks to Lord Baker of Dorking about The Cartoon Museum‘s latest exhibition ‘Her Maj: Sixty years of unofficial portraits of the Queen’ and to John Huddy, founder and curator of The Illustration Cupboard about the gallery’s history.
Also, from last week’s Manga Jiman awards ceremony at the Embassy of Japan in London, Cultural Officer Simon Wright and Minister Hiroshi Suzuki, the director of the Japan Information and Culture Centre, introduce this year’s winning entries to the comic book competition.
Art from Her Maj / Lord Baker at the exhibition opening / Kevin O Neil on display at the Illustration Cupboard / Manga Jiman Winner Elena Vitagliano: The Deep Needs Train
Introduction to Polish Deli for 2012. My only New Year Resolution was to improve the programme, which I failed to do very soon… (next week I was down with a flu)
But I played you some nice music by Polish artists including: Arszyn, Nucleon, Bajkoczytacz, Aloes and Zbigniew Karkowski
Imperial War Museum educator Grant Rogers talks to Pat Mills about his seminal wartime strip Charley’s War, serialised in Battle Action comic in the 1970s and 80s. Grant and Pat Mills discuss the history of the strip, working with Joe Colquhoun and the real life events that influenced the comic. (Recorded in front of an audience at the 2011 Comics and Conflicts conference at the Imperial War Museum, London.)
You will learn about comic and graphic novel storytelling techniques, and how to create your own visual narrative. Everyone will end the course with one completed comic page, and the skills to continue their work for themselves. We will look at comic and graphic novel art styles, the use of text and images, the “grammar” of comic art, use of sound effects, abstraction, and styles. You provide a story from your own experience, or one you wish to adapt into the medium.
West Dean College, Chichester (Suitable for all levels)
2nd – 4th March 2012
Details here: www.westdean.org.uk
Starting a month of shows about non practitioners’ love for comics, guest presenter Robin The Fog talks to graphic designer and music producer Strictly Kev, better known as DJ Food. A lifelong comics fan, Kev tells us about engaging legendary 2000AD artist Henry Flint to make the artwork for his new LP ‘The Search Engine’ and also for the three EPs that make up the release; and also how a love of comics in his formative years compliments not only his graphic work but his musical productions today.
Covers of The Search Engine and constituent EPs by Henry Flint and DJ Food
Beatlemania. Klaus Beyer sings The Beatles (out of tune and in German), Rodney Graham’s version of Blue Jay Way, Those Were the Days (Mary Hopkin/Paul McCartney/Apple single) from Ground Zero plays Standards with Otomo Yoshihide and Vanilla Fudge’s rendition of Ticket to Ride.
Soundtracks, library and television music with Jonny Trunk. Today Ian Helliwell is coming onto the OST Show. Ian lives in Brighton, is somewhat of an archivist and dare we say it, a polymath. He has spent the last few years, investigating (amongst many other things) the life and work of a certain F.C. Judd. Frederick Judd was responsible for some very early electronic music in the UK, wrote extensively on the subject and much of his musical work was issued on the Studio G library label. Ian has also made a full length film about this great, inventive man, ‘Practical Electronics’ and a new compilation of his Judd’s work ‘Electronics Without Tears’ is about to be released on the rather marvellous Public Information label. And pretty fabulous they both are too. The stage is set for a journey into the deeply strange and utterly wondrous soundworld. And don’t be fooled by the skip in the first few seconds, this is actually a lovely high-quality 320kbps mp3 file, which as you will know is CD quality. We really are too good to you…
A bit of a Radiophonic theme on the show today with live music on the show today from both Alexander Tucker and Paper Dollhouse.
Alexander Tucker began his musical career as singer in punk and post-hardcore bands and since the early part of this century his solo music has channelled widely varied influences from folk to musique concrète-style tape experimentation to the English psychedelia of the Cardiacs. From his earliest records Old Fog and Furrowed Brow on ATP Recordings to his latest song-cycle Dorwytch on Thrill Jockey, his records are at once brooding and intense, joyful and humourous. Deceptively simple, the harmonies are heavily layered and often use accidental ambient sounds (Victoria Line trains rumbling by are audible on his first two albums). His discography is spiralling out of control, having released at least 9 albums since 2004, often in collaboration, including Stephen O’Malley of Sun O))) and previous guest on this show, Duke Garwood.
Alexander will perform live in the Resonance FM studio today and also talk about his latest record, the second released in collaboration with electronic musician Daniel Beban under the name Imbogodom, out this week on Thrill Jockey. Using vintage analogue equipment and recorded at the BBC’s Bush House, Imbogodom recreates the techniques and textures of those early pioneers of electronic sound at the Radiophonic Workshop.
“… when I got it home to a pair of monolithic 1970s stereo speakers [Dorwytch] transformed into a pool of potential deep listening. A relatively still surface daring you to dive in, its sharp, cold depth containing bindweed, or maybe worse… things that threaten to drag you under, away from surface beauty into a totally different, forbidding world.” – John Doran, The Quietus review of Dorwytch
Paper Dollhouse is the work of Astrud Steehouder; dark minimal gothic folk which comprises haunting vocals, acoustic guitar, effects pedals, found sounds, slide projector and minimal electronic atmospherics. Her debut album ‘A Box Painted Black’ was recently released on Bird Records, the femme-folk off shoot of the Finders Keepers family.
Inspired by early 60s electronic pioneers Delia Derbyshire and Eliane Radigue, bleak British television soundtracks, minimal dark electronica, Arthur Russell, Christine Harwood and France Galle, the music combines simple folk songs with environmental and electronic textural sounds and visuals to create a pared down, beautiful experience.
Named after the 1988 cult horror film Paperhouse “I watched the film when I was about 10 and was really drawn in by it. Something about the quality and tone of it, the psychology and aesthetic has stayed with me ever since. I’m into actual dollhouses and models of things as well. I used to make these little viewfinder boxes containing little scenes in them as a child for fun, I found them magical.”
‘A Box Painted Black’ was recorded entirely in the kitchen and garden of her London home amongst the incidental sounds of trains passing, children playing, door slams and running water, “the album’s like a Pandora’s box of messages. It was kind of a dark solace for me, the slight way the album happened. Almost hidden.”
Track list:
Imbogodom – Borogmog’s Clock
Alexander Tucker – ‘Untitled’ (LIVE SESSION)
Imbogodom – Heir Looms
Alexander Tucker – ‘Interview’
FC Judd – Steel Particles
Daphne Oram – Hamlet Youth Theatre
Li De La Russe/Nikki St George/Don Harper – Liquid Energy
Frieder Butzmann – No Title
Paper Dollhouse – Daisies (LIVE SESSION)
Paper Dollhouse – Golden Ships (LIVE SESSION)
Paper Dollhouse – ’Untitled’ (LIVE SESSION)
Paper Dollhouse – ’Untitled’ (LIVE SESSION)
Paper Dollhouse – ‘Interview’
In an hour long show about children’s book illustration, Alex Fitch talks to three generations of illustrators: David McKee, creator of Mr Benn, King Rollo and Elmer the Patchwork Elephant; Dave McKean, artist of of young adult books by David Almond, graphic novels and picture books by Neil Gaiman and Richard Dawkins’ first science book for children The Magic of Reality; and Jim Kay, illustrator of Patrick Ness’ A Monster Calls and Toby Forward’s Flaxfield Quartet of novels about dragons.
Also includes an extract from Dave McKean’s presentation of his work from The Magic of Reality at the book launch in Foyles, September 2011.
Mr Benn by David McKee, The Magic of Reality by Dave McKean and Richard Dawkins, and A Monster Calls by Jim Kay and Patrick Ness
An interview with the director of Haus Publishing, who have translated banned book The Colonel from Farsi to English for print. In its native Iran, where the office of censorship has prohibited publication, The Colonel by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi cannot be read, but now published in German and English, this critical work has been granted a voice in the outside world.
