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may 02, 2006.

[ quicknav-: cab.{apr. 27th} | tampon.{apr. 28th} | radio.{apr. 27-30th} ]

This april 27th, twenty years after 'the liquidators' were sent out to clean up the mess left by the Chernobyl nuclear accident - without even the least of warning about the dangers they were facing - an ana-R antiNoise brigade assembled around 18h00 near the exit on the crossing of the 'grands boulevards' Italiens and Haussmann of the parisian metro station Richelieu-Drouot, unraveling crackleboxes, a vintage massage machine, a home built toy Theremin, a toy gun mike, a palm, a handy and more and more and more ... then slowly marched towards the building housing the Areva offices in the rue Le Peletier ...

It looked like rain but it didn't ...

While walking up to Areva, I played a cracklebox. [A monophonic recording of this 'crackle walk' (kraakloop), made on my dictaphone with a lapel microphone on my jacket, is joined as a podcast to this entry. More sounds and pictures from the event are part of Rébus' official report of this sixth antinoise brigade event ...]

[ next related SB-entry: The Ministry of Silly Crackles ]

[ quicknav-: cab.{apr. 27th} | tampon.{apr. 28th} | radio.{apr. 27-30th} | ^ ]

Blinde Kinder - Jonas Kocher and Raphael Raccuia - came over to Paris from Switzerland for a couple of days. They just missed the CAB, but we met later that same thursday evening in the bistro Beaubourg, for dinner and drinks with Jean Bordé and his charming wife Yoko (in the picture to the left you see her in the bistro, holding a novel that has her lips on its cover :-) ... ) Fun evening, that got a musical suite on the next day, friday april 29th, when the four of us - Jonas, Raphael, Jean and I - performed in the Atelier Tampon (rue Jules Vallès, Paris XI).

Jonas already had played several times with Jean as an instrumentalist (he plays the accordion), but this was a first time with the 'Blinde Kinder' set up, as a 'second hand elektronikr' ...

On paper the concert looked a lot like the Diktat concert we did in Project 101 two weeks earlier: again there was Jean on double bass, surrounded by three 'table musicians' ... again there was me with an assortment of dictaphones ... and also Jonas and Raphael installed a large collection of sound-sources (records, cassettes, reel-to-reel) and -treaters ...

And as in Project 101, we did two improvised 'quartet sets' ... This time around though, there were far more 'melodic' and 'rhythmic' elements used; by all three 'table-players', making the net result quite different. 'Less abstract', in a way ... Really good, actually, especially the second set.

[ quicknav-: cab.{apr. 27th} | tampon.{apr. 28th} | radio.{apr. 27-30th} | ^ ]

The original reason why Jonas and Raphael came to Paris precisely these days, was the Radio-sur-internet project, that was taking place from thursday 27th until early monday morning may 1st. Organized - with great enthusiasm and passion - by Joelle Flumet, Jerome Leuba, Laura Solari and Editions Dasein, RADIO collected audio contributions from some 70 artists, to diffuse in a period of 4 x 24 hours on the internet, but also with several places to go and listen (in Paris and elsewhere). Most notably in the Dasein office in the cité Aubry, where all the live contributions took place, and which for the occasion - with lots of paper, cardboard, wood, tissues and imagination - had been transformed (by Perfyme Deluxe and Douglas Paulson) into a wondrous cross between a stalactitic/stalagmitic cavern and a ship's cabin.

Blinde Kinder did a 50 minute set there on saturday afternoon, at 15h30, and I played half an hour long, starting at 18h45. In Babel(i)on I mix the sound from 5 of my cassettes (not just any, but rather carefully chosen ones), which are then played straight, for 30 minutes, while I give certain passages more or less focus by adjusting the relative volumes of the channels. There is no effects applied, just the 'brute' amplified sounds of the dictaphone recordings.
I was pretty satisfied with the result (but also came under the impression that Babel(i)on managed to chase away all of the audience, apart from Jonas and Raphael :-) ...; ah, but maybe that was just due to the time of passage ...)

Together with Massimilliano Baldassarri Blinde Kinder did a second RADIO performance, towards the very end of the manifestion's final evening after earlier live sets by Dinahbird and Bliscappen van Maria, at midnight on sunday. Very different this time. The kids used a one hour long, continuous, recording that they made in the morning in the apartment where they were staying, as some sort of a sonic canvas, which then was filled in by them, seated at a table, each with a microphone ... with vocal sounds, words, phrases, soft sounds, some music, played through a dictaphone's built-in speaker ... I found especially the very minimal passages quite impressive. A right thing done, at the right place and the right time.

[ Editions DASEIN publishes "RADIO Sur-Papier", the complete catalogue of the event, including a DVD with the full program in mp3. ISBN 2-9526054-1-6. ]

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