RADICAL SCOTLAND returns to Repeater Radio this Saturday at 8pm. Our special guest Fielding Hope, of Cafe Oto, Counterflows and Cry Parrot fame, digs into Glasgow DIY history and discusses his inclusive and fun approach to presenting experimental music. Catch up with previous episodes - and all the other great stuff the station has to offer - here.
Jazz Police
And while we’re on a radio tip, why not catch up with my other show, Jazz Police, over at The Neon Hospice? Our latest episode celebrates the life and music of Milford Graves, alongside a whole bunch of great new sounds.
The Big Announcement
I’m thrilled to announce that I’m starting a Creative Scotland funded residency at the CCA Glasgow at the end of March. I’ll be establishing a digital archive of jazz and improvised music at its previous incarnation, The Third Eye Centre, from 1975 to 1992. This will be shared online in October, along with two special events featuring new work inspired by the archive.
All this builds on my “Once Upon A Time In Glasgow” feature for The Wire and the talk I produced for Tusk Virtual 2020.
This might seem a rather muted announcement, but I’m going to follow up with a more detailed post in the coming weeks. In the meantime, I’m making a public call for contributions to the archive. This can include interviews, anecdotes, audio recordings, video footage, flyers, programmes, press clippings etc. While the project remains open, there are four key themes: the legacy of musician and Third Eye founding director Tom McGrath, the Glasgow jazz scene, international artists, South African jazz and the anti-apartheid movement. If you have anything you’d like to share, please drop me a line at thirdeyejazz@gmail.com
Spicy Porridge
Raymond MacDonald
A lovely interview with saxophonist, improviser, organiser and academic Raymond MacDonald by Tom Bancroft. The Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra co-founder discusses group improvisation via Zoom and reminisces about legendary Scottish bassist, tubist and poet Lindsay Cooper, who can be heard in a duo with Lol Coxhill on this recent Scatter archive release.
Raymond has also co-authored a paper on Online Music Improvisation, which you can read here. While I don’t wish to fetishise “lockdown music”, GIO’s response to the pandemic has been brilliant, both in terms of building inclusive community online and inventing new ways of making music. It’s a hugely exciting development which will long outlive the virus.
Hanna Tuulikki - Bat Echolocation Call Out
The ceaselessly inventive Hanna Tuulikki - who I interviewed for The Quietus a few years back - is looking to work with recordings of bat echolocation calls for a new sonic composition for Hospitalfield. Over to Hanna:
For the development of my new work 'Echo in the Dark', I've been tuning into more-than-human rhythms and frequencies, to explore the interconnections of bat echolocation and dance music as a model for ecological coexistence.
I'm beginning to gather an archive of recordings to be made into a public library of sounds and, from these, I plan to compose a new piece of music that will feature in a performance event next year in Arbroath's Hospitalfield, as part of their 2021-2 art programme.
I'm looking for recordings of UK bat species made in a variety of ways, from heterodyne to time expansion and direct sampling.
To learn more about this project and hear recordings from the public archive visit: http://www.hannatuulikki.org/echointhedark/
If you would like to contribute a recording, or for more information, please get in touch with me and my team at inthedarkecho@gmail.com
And finally…
Fuck Wings Over Scotland. I didn’t campaign for independence in 2014 so obsessive bigots could take over “the movement”.