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ARFORD, SCOTT - Radio Station

Format: CD Label & Cat.Number: Antifrost afro 2033 Release Year: 2005 Note: first time listing of this overlooked debut album by SCOTT ARFORD, installation / sound artist from the Bay Area, using here only noises from shortwave radio: "everything in between the stations - the cracks, the static, the hiss... a rather forceful, mean and loud mixture of waves crumbling over each-other, falling apart, chopped up...He knows how to make a strong, vivid collage of sound out of these radio station and how to make a forceful, interesting piece of music." [FdW/Vital Weekly] Price (incl. 19% VAT): €13.00 More Info "Tune into the shortwave bands in and around San Francisco and you're likely to discover little more than static, hiss and electrical interference broken up by an occasional transmission from a libertarian wacko in the Santa Cruz mountains. Scott Arford has spent his entire carrer manipulating a similar static from televisions in his searing audiovisual installations ans perdormances, so it makes perfect sense for him to begin investigating his hometown's cracked ether. Just as he does through his jacked up TV's, he seeks only the most caustic radio signals as his source material and aggresively cobbles together jagged layers of hotwired sound. In many ways, Arford picks up where John Duncan and Daniel Menche - particularly in the use of conglomerates of throbbing pulses and sub-frequency vibrations - Arford manages to highlight the most inherent "musical" nature of a highly fascinating cause of aural enjoyment." [Jim Haynes/ THE WIRE] "In the Bay area he's quite well-known, Scott Arford, operator of the 7HZ label, video artist, musician and collaborator of Francisco Lopez, Randy Yau and Micheal Nine. His output however is quite small. 'Radio Station' is his latest work, and it deals with one of the easiest to obtain sound sources: radio sounds. Not the speech type, or plunderphonica, but everything in between the stations - the cracks, the static, the hiss. Arford is not a sensitive man: whatever he finds on the radio waves he uses, but with a high intensity. His work is not about careful, delicate sounds, but a rather forceful, mean and loud mixture of waves crumbling over each-other, falling apart, chopped up. Not really moments of silence and contemplation here, but on the other hand, Arford isn't interested in doing 'just' a bunch of noise either. He knows how to make a strong, vivid collage of sound out of these radio station and how to make a forceful, interesting piece of music. Energetic and present. The use of radio sounds may not be entirely new, the results of Arford are certainly very very nice." [FdW/Vital Weekly]