Radio Free Aarhus
2022
Radio Free Aarhus is an experimental audio zine created by Lee Tusman for Flux Factory's Residency at ARoS Art Museum in Aarhus Denmark, Summer 2022. All recordings were captured on an Olympus Pearlcorder L150 Microcassette Recorder purchased at a swap meet in Berlin in July 2022. In one of its initial test recordings, composer/instrument builder Daniel Fishkin aimed to demonstrate how one could create a vibrato effect just by shaking a microcassette recorder, instantly permanently altering the playback speed of the recording device.
Recordings were made at locations including ARoS museum, on the lawn before Book1 hostel late at night, at Institute for (X), at an apartment dinner party, and at a Turkish restaurant in Gallerup. Our approach to recording is one of eager sampling and experimentation, allowing spaces to create sound and for sound to create space. This space is a manifestation of Flux Factory in its own time and space.
Here the fragments and juxtapositions become part of the texture pallete. This is far from a perfect digital recording. The tiny handheld recorder can be played like an instrument itself, and it imposes its own speed, distortions, fuzzes, glitches.
The album was mixed in an improvised studio I set up at ARoS museum in ARoS Public. It was tracked and arranged using a found 15-year old computer that I installed (Lubuntu) Linux and open source audio editing software on (Audacity).
Tracklist
- Lee singing loops in ARoS atelier / Nat talking 06:24
- Aarhus rainstorm / staircase sounds / Gender Museum / baby Lou / atelier ambient and restaurant / gargling 08:15
- Turkish restaurant in Gallerup / Nova chants / Catalina sings to Lou / James Turrell construction equipment / Danish drunk singers in front of BOOK1 at 2am / Danish revellers yelling Gangster's Paradise 08:24
- Excerpt from Lee's performance at ARoS Public "i would die 2 u" modular synth 00:32
- Eating carrots at ARoS / descending to ARoS vaults / fake rainstorm (Janet Cardiff, George Bures Miller installation) / Drone Collector recording 06:22
- Party at Institute for (X) / park hangout and radio capture near Aarhus canal 06:23
- Will's failed phone call 00:16
Credits
Sounds recorded by Lee Tusman, Daniel Fishkin, Nova Scott James, Nat Roe, Catalina Alvarez, Jonathon Sims.