Radio Nederland's "What's New"
Radio Nederland's "What's New" was a Saturday night program that featured hits from the weekly Dutch Top 30.  The show was co-hosted by American Bruce Parsons and Australian Graham GIll.  Based on the charts from that week, this show aired on 6 November 1976.  Shows like "What's New" introduced me to pop/rock artists that didn't receive airplay in the USA.  It also introduced me to other shows ...
35m Jan 16, 2022
35m
Radio Polonia: martial law declaration
After the declaration of martial law in Poland on December 13, 1981 Radio Polonia ceased broadcasting. Broadcasts in English instead continued from a military base near Warsaw Airport. The staff of Radio Polonia returned to the air soon afterwards and here are three broadcasts from that period in Poland's history. Of some of the presenters that you will hear, Konrad Gocman is in retirement and ...
22m Jan 16, 2022
22m
King George V's Christmas message
 King George V addresses the British Empire during Christmas 1934. Recorded by Fred Waterer, courtesy of the Shortwave Radio Archive. Part of the Shortwave Transmissions project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of shortwave radio - find out more and see the whole project at https://citiesandmemory.com/shortwave
13m Jan 16, 2022
13m
0-kanada
"There was limited melodic material available in this recording and what I could get kind implied a more sample based approach, instead of trying to create "instruments" from the recording, and that led to a more hip-hop/beat driven sound than I usually go for. Past that I was interested to explore what messages I could find by rearranging the words spoken in the recording." Composition by Mat...
3m Jan 16, 2022
3m
The end of radio
"There’s something inherently intimate, even clandestine about radio – sound sent into the ether in the hope of reaching an ear. We feel much more personally and directly connected with someone speaking to us via radio than, say, television. There’s an added poignancy in the recording of the final hours of broadcast of Radio St Helena that forms the basis of this track, a sense of the condemned...
11m Jan 16, 2022
11m
Out of the static
 "I've been fascinated by shortwave radio since a young age - way before the internet - the appeal of being able to hear transmissions from any where in the world was always intriguing. Sadly it's been in decline for a number of years now, you often don't hear many stations these days. That was the inspiration for this piece, preserving some of the original recording overlaid with signal loss ...
15m Jan 16, 2022
15m
Telling it like/Your check shirt
""Telling It Like/Your Check Shirt" was created using samples extracted from a 30-minute 2013 shortwave broadcast of Radio Australia Jazz Notes. Sound/conceptual artist Alyce Santoro and composer Reed Maxson collaborated long-distance to create the finished piece, with draft sound files sent back and forth between Texas and California over the course of several days.  The following works are w...
3m Jan 16, 2022
3m
Football spillover
"I was travelling on a train between Köln and Berlin; a group of football fans had lined up empty beer bottles in the aisle so when someone would come by, as they made a big step over the bottles, they would cheer on. It made me think how the game spills out in all of our other living spaces, like the train, and how in the head of the fans the match returns romanticised by memory and high spiri...
2m Jan 16, 2022
2m
Final broadcast, Radio Canada International
Radio Canada International's final shortwave radio broadcast. This recording was made on June 24, 2012 beginning at 1550 UTC on 11,675 kHz.  Listeners will note that the broadcast ends abruptly during the mailbag program -obviously the transmitters were turned off prematurely. Recorded by Rajdeep Das, courtesy of the Shortwave Radio Archive. Part of the Shortwave Transmissions project, docum...
10m Jan 16, 2022
10m
Radio St. Helena, The final hour (sign-off)
December 25, 2012: Closedown begins with the last few seconds of Love is Everywhere by Caught in the Act (1995). Recorded by Sarah Boucher, courtesy of the Shortwave Radio Archive. Part of the Shortwave Transmissions project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of shortwave radio - find out more and see the whole project at https://citiesandmemory.com/shortwave
37m Jan 16, 2022
37m
Final sign off of BFBS Malta
Recorded by John Bruno, Richard Astbury was the last announcer to speak from Floriana, followed by the Evening Hymn and Last Post, an instrumental version of L-Innu Malti and a church choir sings God Save The Queen, accompanied by a Church Organ and a Military Band. The final program was the Eurovision Song Contest 1979, won by the host nation Israel. The studios of BFBS Malta are still around ...
10m Jan 16, 2022
10m
The World Cup final
The second half of the 2014 World Cup Final. This recording was made on Sunday, July 13, 2014 starting around 20:00 UTC on 11,810 kHz. The broadcast originates from the BBC relay on Ascension Island. Recorded by Thomas Witherspoon, courtesy of the Shortwave Radio Archive. Part of the Shortwave Transmissions project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of shortwave radio - find out more and...
1hr 1m Jan 16, 2022
1hr 1m
Radio Australia Jazz Notes
For your listening pleasure: thirty minutes of Radio Australia’s Jazz Notes. This broadcast was recorded today at 13:30 UTC on 9,580 kHz.  As on most mornings, the signal out of Shepparton, Australia, was very strong; the audio fidelity was, in consequence, very impressive for a transmission emanating from some 9,800 miles away. Recorded by Thomas Witherspoon, courtesy of the Shortwave Radio ...
30m Jan 16, 2022
30m
Repeating waves on the static sea
"There was a lovely intro on the piece I selected, a repeating radio station indent that sounded great. I looped part of this and added a number of synths playing alongside it, some with slight effects, it was a nice sound and I found looping it for a few minutes was pleasent. I added some other little bits of the radio transmission, voice snippets and a sad sounding violin track that was on th...
3m Jan 13, 2022
3m
Sunday
"The original recording is a broadcast from a Christian radio station based in Papua New Guinea. The snippets I chose to sample includes the radio announcer's speech, a few bars of gospel music and a variety of celebratory whoops. It got me thinking about radio as a force connecting isolated people with their communities or cultures, something which many of us were grateful for during the recen...
3m Jan 13, 2022
3m
And it came to pass
"This piece was built around a recording capturing the voice of a Preacher out of Guatemala. I was fascinated by the dial spinning and cruft that surrounded the voice- music, noise, other voices slipping in. I'm fascinated by layered voices- so I dug into my archives and found a number of other sermons that I've used in projects in the past, and layered and spatialized them into and around the ...
9m Jan 13, 2022
9m
Ottawa shortwave
"In a field in Ottawa, Canada, a 1940s facility distributes the signals of time, maintained by the National Research Council and occasional human contact. The 2015 bilingual broadcast sample featured throughout Ottawa Shortwave (provided by SRAA contributor, Richard Langley) is used almost as-is, as it fights against a timestretched version of itself and tries to make every second count, despit...
5m Jan 13, 2022
5m
Radio Responsorium
"I wanted to keep the very organic feel of the original recording. Using only this single sound through numerous processings, I performed the fragments produced live, as on a theatre stage." Composition by Stormy. Part of the Shortwave Transmissions project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of shortwave radio - find out more and see the whole project at https://citiesandmemory.com/short...
4m Jan 13, 2022
4m
Transworld Radio, Polish language edition
This broadcast was recorded in Europe on October 17, 2014 at 0545 UTC, shortwave frequency of 7320 kHz. Recorded by Frank, courtesy of the Shortwave Radio Archive. Part of the Shortwave Transmissions project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of shortwave radio - find out more and see the whole project at https://citiesandmemory.com/shortwave
18m Jan 13, 2022
18m
Inaugural shortwave broadcast of Wantok Radio Light, Papua New Guinea
Inaugural shortwave broadcast and celebration of Wantok Radio Light, Papua New Guinea on June 11, 2005. Frequency was 7120 kHz. Receiver: AOR AR7030+. Antenna: Wellbrook Communications ALA100 Phased Delta Loop Antenna. Recorded by Guy Atkins at Grayland, Washington USA. ----------------------------------------------------- 00:00 Introduction by speaker or host named "Witness" 01:31 Song "Naso J...
31m Jan 13, 2022
31m
Telling the good news abroad
  Broadcaster: TGNA - Guatemala Frequency: 3,300 kHz Receiver Location: Kingsport, Tennessee Recorded by Timothy Land, courtesy of the Shortwave Radio Archive. Part of the Shortwave Transmissions project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of shortwave radio - find out more and see the whole project at https://citiesandmemory.com/shortwave
2m Jan 13, 2022
2m
Leap second
Live recording of time signal station CHU, Canada, on 30 June 2015 beginning at exactly 23:55:00 UTC on a frequency of 7850 kHz. The recording last exactly 10 minutes and 1 second, ending at 0:10:00 UTC. A leap second occurs at 23:59:60 UTC. This can be noted by the 1 second of silence between the 5m:00s mark in the recording (23:59:60 UTC) and the 5m:01s mark (0:00:00 UTC) denoted by the start...
10m Jan 13, 2022
10m
Radio Reloj: August 30, 2015
The recording, in Spanish, is a typical Radio Reloj broadcast with two announcers alternately reading news bulletins accompanied by time signals. The announcers identify the station and verbally give the local time each minute. In addition to the verbal station identification, each minute either the letters RR in morse code (using 1800 Hz tones) are transmitted or five-note chimes (D4, G4, B4, ...
39m Jan 13, 2022
39m
Shifting stations for string quartet
"Gulf Harbor Radio is a radio station that features weather conditions for ships offshore of New Zealand. The audio contains a lot of static along with hosts reading off weather reports. The static itself reminded me of the howling winds and roaring seas so I processed it to further accentuate that. Then I selected a section of the 30-minute recording that I preferred and used them as the backd...
3m Jan 13, 2022
3m
Away at sea
"Two main considerations influenced my reimagining decisions. First, I wanted to respond to the grainy nature of the recording. I took a section of the radio air and looped it to create a melody. I felt that both the grain and the actual noise of radio fuzz acted as the heartbeat of the entire piece. Second, I responded to the relationship that exists between a speaker and listener, and how the...
2m Jan 13, 2022
2m
Taajuuksia ja ääniä
"Our primary audio genre is composition of ambient soundscapes using a combination of digital computer software, analogue field recordings and electronic experimentation to produce acoustic sounds, textures and undulating tones - rather than the more traditional use of musical notes, scales and rhythms - which allows for a richer freedom of expression, resulting in generative soundscapes that c...
6m Jan 13, 2022
6m
Farmed horses radio
"The original radio piece was dominated by static so I sampled some very short parts of this to make percussive sounds to form the rhythm track. Over this I added samples of some of the singing and the main spoken part: "this is the Nigerian Armed Forces Radio" which I edited slightly to make it fit in with the rhythm. The track I created was completely different from the music and rhythms feat...
2m Jan 13, 2022
2m
MachineStalk
"When listening to the full 23 minutes of this recording, at first it seems very repetitive, a combination of tones, silence, station idents and test numbers. Where would it lead me? As with many of my tracks there are elements of memory attached to them, often as starting points and the starting point for MachineStalk was the date - 1980. The uniformity of the recording, the repetition, someh...
6m Jan 13, 2022
6m
Gulf Harbour Radio
ZMH286 Gulf Harbour Radio reporting weather and sailing conditions and communicating with yachts sailing in the South Pacific. Broadcast at 1915 UTC Monday to Saturday, from May to November. Transmitted from Whangaparaoa, New Zealand, kw unknown. In association with Yachts in Transit, http://www.yit.nz/gulf-harbour-radio. There are some deep fades during the transmission.  Recorded by Lekiodx,...
31m Jan 13, 2022
31m
USAF EAM Voice Transmission
Emergency Action Message (EAM) transmissions are associated with the High Frequency Global Communications System (HFGCS). The HFGCS is a network of single sideband transmitters used by the United States Air Force to transmit encrypted messages to in-flight military aircraft, ground stations and in some cases, US Navy surface vessels. The purpose and format of the messages are subject to wide-ra...
2m Jan 13, 2022
2m
Voice of Saudi Arabia, test transmission
Saudi Arabia obtained new transmitters in the 1970's and was widely heard with test transmissions before going on the air with full programming. This transmission was heard on a number of frequencies. Saudi Arabia is today, in 2014, still on the air on shortwave, one of the last of the Middle East countries still using this method of transmission. Recorded by Dan Robinson, courtesy of the Shor...
2m Jan 13, 2022
2m
Nigerian Armed Forces Radio
At 06:00 UTC this morning, I recorded one hour of the Nigerian Armed Forces Radio test on 13,775 kHz. This broadcast was transmitted from a 250 kW transmitter in Issoudun, France. Hypothetically, this may have been the last test transmission of the NAFR as WRMI's announcement stated the test period would last only one week, beginning June 30th. Recorded by Thomas Witherspoon, courtesy of the ...
1hr Jan 13, 2022
1hr
NIST Radio Station WWVH
NIST Radio Station WWVH as it sounded in the 1980s. To contrast with other recordings of the WWVH station ID, note that announcer Jane Barbe does not say (her now-famous) “Aloha!” at the end of this version. This recording was found at WWVH in 2015 on an undated cassette labeled “JB on Old Audichron TCG” (which stands for Time Code Generator, the device which reconstructs and plays back Jane’s...
23m Jan 13, 2022
23m
Potentialities
"When I was picking a sound to use for my submission, something about the rhythm and sounds of the timekeeping station caught my attention, and I really wanted to run with it and see where it went. I'd recently downloaded a marching band sample library and this gave me an excuse to get to grips with it. I ran one of the beeps through a sampler and used it to create the other melodic parts, so ...
3m Jan 12, 2022
3m
In the wind
"This track is a mixture of my field recordings, US coast guard transmissions, the atomic clock broadcast and a guitar track. It (very briefly) explores the development of transatlantic communication. The field recordings that open the piece were recorded at the site of Marconi's first transatlantic telegraph signal - a windswept peat bog at Derrigimlagh in Connemara, Ireland. On the site of t...
5m Jan 12, 2022
5m
Voices of Biafra
”Nobody felt guilty for our country’s disappearance because it hadn’t survived long enough to appear on any official maps. It was more than a rumor but had not become a symbol.”   - Louis Chude-Sokei, Floating in a Most Peculiar Way A longitudinal mix of radio trails from past and present, an echo and clash of historical ruptures and traumatic waves. Electronic string tones are modulated by a ...
4m Jan 12, 2022
4m
El Trabajo y La Paz
"I chose the Radio Sandino shortwave recording because it reminded me of the year I spent documenting a popular uprising in Oaxaca, Mexico, in 2006, when a people’s movement occupied several radio stations and used them to organize and mobilize people all over the state. We listened to the occupied radio stations day and night, and the sound would often blend with the sounds of rural and urban ...
2m Jan 12, 2022
2m
Radio Liberacion 1988
"I wanted to play around with the transmission noise-- the squelches and squeals, the static and faint voices behind the broadcast interference. I copied, pasted, and manipulated bits of samples. I really didn't do any processing or modulating. The tones and textures of the captured transmission already had great character." Composition by Bender. Part of the Shortwave Transmissions project, ...
5m Jan 12, 2022
5m
CHU Canada (Time Station): July 1993
" I recorded it in July of 1993 on  7,335 kHz with my Kenwood TS-690S transceiver." Recorded by Bruce Atchison, courtesy of the Shortwave Radio Archive. Part of the Shortwave Transmissions project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of shortwave radio - find out more and see the whole project at https://citiesandmemory.com/shortwave
6m Jan 12, 2022
6m
US Coast Guard Radio Station NMC: Summer of 2003
"As for radio station NMC, I forget the frequency. It was somewhere in the aircraft band, somewhere about 8000KHZ. I used a Kenwood TS440S transceiver and I believe it was taped in the summer of 2003." Recorded by Bruce Atchison, courtesy of the Shortwave Radio Archive. Part of the Shortwave Transmissions project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of shortwave radio - find out more and s...
10m Jan 12, 2022
10m
Voice of Biafra: September 8, 1969
This broadcast was recorded by Al Sizer in North Haven, CT, on September 8, 1969 on 6,145 kHz starting at 2140 GMT. The receiver used was a Realistic DX-150. Mr. Sizer introduces the recording. Recorded by Al Sizer, courtesy of the Shortwave Radio Archive. Part of the Shortwave Transmissions project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of shortwave radio - find out more and see the whole p...
4m Jan 12, 2022
4m
Nicaraguan clandestine radio station
Radio Sandino, Nicaraguan clandestine radio station, voice of the Sandinista National Liberation Front. Recorded the day Anastasio Somoza DeBayle resigned the presidency and fled to Miami.  The following is a translation of the first two minutes of the announcement:  "Somoza is leaving. During these moments, [inaudible]. No one shall act freely. Everyone should act under orders of the one res...
28m Jan 12, 2022
28m
Radio Liberacion SRRN: January 20, 1988
Radio Liberación-Sistema Radial de la Resistencia Nicaragüense recorded in Kalamazoo, Michigan, from 0240 hours to 0330 hours UTC on 20 January 1988 on frequency 5,929.3 kHz. The clandestine station opposed the Sandinista regime in Managua. The transmitter may have been in Honduras. Recorded by Andy Robins, courtesy of the Shortwave Radio Archive. Part of the Shortwave Transmissions project, ...
47m Jan 12, 2022
47m
Saharawi
"I've used the original recording throughout the piece as a continuous sporadic commentary that struggles to achieve clear transmission, somewhat parallel to the turbulent history of Western Sahara and the Saharawi people. I dived into the their culture and the amazing music of Western Sahara for inspiration and had my partner(features as LadyLópez) kindly translate the radio broadcast into Eng...
6m Jan 11, 2022
6m
Radio reverberations
"For this piece, I decided to use only elements that were in the original recordings. I wanted to create something that gave a sense of a funeral procession, and I was particularly inspired by the music at the end of the announcement." Composition by Rosie Parsons. Part of the Shortwave Transmissions project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of shortwave radio - find out more and see th...
2m Jan 11, 2022
2m
Transvaal
"The idea is about Mandela's flight to Libya a while before the radio transmission. Before Mandela was physically "on air" and after the news about him. Just before landing going trough the clouds, where the speed feeling disappears and time vanishes. This moment is a blurred border during the crossing countries frontiers for a man fighting against Apartheid." Composition by Erratic Bloc. Pa...
4m Jan 11, 2022
4m
The Voice of Free Sahara
"The Voice of Free Sahara, 32 kbps mp3 ripped from a cassette recording. Received with a Sony 2010 and a 40 meter long wire from the France-Switzerland border  in 2002.  After the news bulletin in Spanish, there is a clear ID at 5”45." Recorded by Enrique Fernandez, courtesy of the Shortwave Radio Archive. Part of the Shortwave Transmissions project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of ...
6m Jan 11, 2022
6m
Death of Pope Paul VI
Vatican Radio - announcement of Pope’s death 2210 GMT 6 Aug 1978 (i.e. 7 Aug 1978 Eastern Standard Time, Australia) 9615 KHZ Recorded by Ian Holder, courtesy of the Shortwave Radio Archive. Part of the Shortwave Transmissions project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of shortwave radio - find out more and see the whole project at https://citiesandmemory.com/shortwave
1m Jan 11, 2022
1m
Nelson Mandela arrives in Libya
Shortwave from Libya as recorded in Australia. "I recorded this shortwave broadcast from Libya in 1997. I have no knowledge of the source of the broadcast but it may be from the main Libyan radio service. I found this while twisting the dial. There was no general commentary, just the voice of South African President Nelson Mandela on his arrival in Libya followed by music". Recorded by Ian Ho...
3m Jan 11, 2022
3m
Forever Noël
Christmas music in a church in Vicenza reimagined by Cities and Memory. The natural reverb was the obvious starting point, wanting to create a hyperreal Christmas soundscape in which the church reverb slowly takes over the Christmas songs, finally ending in a somewhat-unrecognisable but still familiar drenched pulse of the original festive song. 
5m Jan 08, 2022
5m