Experimental Online Radio

Most radio stations are also sending out their signal online these days, which means there's a whole range of specialist listening available to those with net connections. The internet also enabled Andrew Kettle, sound artist and presenter of Atmospheric Disturbances, the long running experimental music program at Brisbane's 4zzz, to answer the following questions from Jean Poole.

If you're after something a little different for your ears, it's probably worth tuning into Atmospheric Disturbances, the Experimental Musicians and Sound Artists show, beaming from Brisbane every Wednesday night from 11pm to Midnight.

http://home.pacific.net.au/~kettle/atmos.html gets you a real audio file, and a huge list of Australian experimental music links. As well as programming and announcing his show though, Andrew Kettle has a long history in experimental sounds, being a longtime organiser of live events in Brisbane, performing as a solo sound artist, collaborating with other Brisbane Artists, and psych-ambient/Experimental DJ-ing. He also has three CD releases to date, and numerous tracks on various compilations.

His work is heavily influenced by alchemy and his passion for found sounds and extensive, discordant layering of repetitive digital snippets lead him to complete field research into drones. With an attraction to non-music sounds that originates from listening to the bad reception of radio in rural Queensland as a young boy, ladies and gentle people, we give you: Andrew Kettle.

> What inspires your sound creation?
Mainly fulfilling ideas, dreams, visions, thoughts and fantasies for live performances, sound environments (trying to re-create "sound feeling places" that I enjoy), recorded collages, bringing fellow sound artists / poets / musicians /dancers / designers to a collaborative project (with a secret desire to stand in a nightclub one day where people are all wildly convulsing', not dancing), or theories that I have been thinking about - I've just emerged from a fascination with architectural resonance (highlights being the Test pattern performance at Electrofringe99 and Drone 9 / Turing Test at MAAP99. Previous to that was 'language destruction' and I see myself being consumed by the simple physical nature of hearing .

> What sound projects are you involved with at the moment?
I'm involved with the Australian Computer Music Associations Conference in Brisbane; conceiving a performance submission to the MAAP's festival of Brisbane's first Experimental Orchestra in a carpark; weekly collecting and writing the Atmosdist NEWS, programming the show; arranging a track for the 4ZZZ 25 year compilation celebration; arranging a collaboration proposal for a Q-Music night; and mastering the final 3 CD's in the 15 CD project of "Deviations Live" documentation of local experimental musicians before the turn of the century. I'm also trying to find time to finish a 99 track Random Play CD, the "Sounds for Found Textures" CD which is putting music to a coffee table book that I made in 1992, compiling a POOTA retrospective CD, starting the next CD project for the AtmosDis label, a studio series of new experimental musicians in Brisbane; stealing time to return to my prototype electronic mouth organ and working full time in a hearing aid Lab! I have a problem saying 'No' and sleeping.

> What software /hardware have u seen in last few years that aids innovative musicmaking?
The most influential I would have to say is pirate software... I see this as a launching pad and most musicians come to the point when they Do buy the software to become 'Professional'. If this 'War' on piracy was redirected in developing professionalism in the industry it would be money well spent. But without a doubt, the most influential software of the past few years has been the net browser, and on a music making side, definitely the development of MP3.

> What musicmakers excite you in Australia at the moment, and why?
There are literally heaps of artists that I find fascinating and inspiring, the submissions to date have been 98% great material .... just check out the site for artists / labels ./ shows lists etc.

> Do you get much feedback from listeners outside Brisbane? ie - those listening online?
Actually, Simon Wickham-Smith a UK artist that was in Aus for the What is Music? festival and toured to Brisbane for a gig that we hosted, then went to California and people there knew of the show ... Simon referred to the surprise as 'small world', laughing i replied that you can't underestimate the power of AtmodDis! The newsletter regularly includes gigs around Australia, calls for submissions, festivals, and I'm attempting to document every Aussie experimental radio show/ label / zine, etc. with postal addresses websites and email addresses in the one location on the web at http://listen.to/atmosdis , so potentially you can have a small CD run made and post out 100 of them directly to the your peer group, explore a huge portal of links, etc.

> Do u listen to much online radio yourself? What sites?
House of Laudanum ( http://www.laudanum.net/ )and Radioqualia ( radioqualia.va.com.au ) are the only online radio stations that I listen to, both aussie. It's truly important to support Australian Radio stations on-line, I'd hate to see an abduction of our audience again by overseas media, like what has happened to TV.......

mailto:jeanpoole@skydiveworld.com