#58. A program with independent sound-art, radiophonic projects and other audio-non-visual misunderstandings. Presenting a fine mix of soundscape and electronic music.
1- Félix BLUME.
Los gritos de Mexico.
Mexico city’s soundscape.
2- Hans Kulk.
De Equalizer.
3- Tetuzi Akiyama & Anla Courtis – Los Frets Nomades.
4- Dr Klangendum Bakker: Beacon Ballet ecerpt.
Produced for Concertzender and Klangendum by H Bakker. Jingles by Dito.
September 2014.
Félix BLUME
Mexico city¹s soundscape
SUMMARY
Mexico City: more than 20 millions people gathered making noise!
A noisy city for most; I would like to transform it in a sonorous city.
The street sellers make the voices of the polyphonic choir, the small bell from the ice cream seller substitutes the triangle from the orchestra, and the hammering of the protesters on the metallic wall are the percussions.
In Mexico City, people shout to be heard, they shout their rage against the cops, they shout at the Œlucha libre¹ fights, they shout together ¡ Viva Mexico ! to feel united, and during a demonstration they also shout ¡Viva Mexico ! People shout in church, they pray together or alone, whispering in the silent night.
The thunder booms: nobody can shout at the storm, and the rain cleans the silent city. A solo voice after the rain, and the choir resumes gradually.
People sing to forget and the shouting starts again, louder, so that the others donZt forget.
The water flows under the city, the forgotten lake is mourning; it remembers when the city was an IslandŠ On the top, it is too noisy, underneath, the water keeps in silence the secrets of the past.
INTENTION
Most of the people in the world live in cities. The daily soundscape is in most of the case a continuous sound of traffic, close or distant. Mexico City has a series of sounds added to the background which make the specificity of the city: the cries and sounds of the street sellers are in most part responsible.
In the past, most cities had their own cries (as some classical music can testify, like ŒLes cris de Paris¹ from Janequin). In Mexico City, this tradition has persisted until today, but the government and general opinion is not in favour of them: street sellers are each time further away from the touristic center, advertising campaigns are done to make them disappear from the subway, and police operations block their access to the streets.
I would like to pay tribute to these Criers through a soundscape of Mexico City, that will become a sonorous memory of a time that sooner than later will disappear.
Félix BLUME – www.felixblume.com
Hans Kulk
de eerste 2 weekeinden van oktober 2014 presenteren architect Werner Evers en Hans Kulk ‘De Equalizer’, een ruimtelijk object met klankveld, tijdens de expositie ‘Breuklijn’ in de grote machinehal van de oude kolenmijn in Beringen, Belgie. Deze versie van het klankstukEqualizer is een bewerking.
Tetuzi Akiyama & Anla Courtis- Naranja Songs (CD, Public Eyesore, USA, 2014)
