#550: This device is not a radio / De Grote Kahn
1. This device is not a radio
Radio piece for radios
Francesco Zedde is devoted to pocket radios and the sonic possibilities of hacked radio circuits. The idea of using radios as musical instruments is not new—John Cage already made most of the fun stuff—but there is still something left for us. By customising radio circuits, it is possible to create harsh feedback oscillators, chirping bird-like tones, roaring drones, ghostly screams, and more. In this piece, we explore a wide range of soundscapes built from ordinary radios, mutated circuits, radio waves, and people experimenting with them. Each section unfolds like a map of alien sounds emerging from ether and silicon—consecutive quests in a surreal video game. Will you manage to listen all the way to the final boss?
We begin with a patient explanation of how the hacking works: remove the screws, connect the right wires, and you are ready to explore. You will hear what happens when ten people dismantle and rewire radios in the same room, as Francesco once demonstrated during a workshop in Prague while delivering electrotechnical pseudo-notions. After that, we turn to music created with electromagnetic waves and feedback circuits, from the duo performance of Frédéric Stritter and Francesco. Towards the end, we plunge into the dense, foggy sound of eighty radios resonating together—an overwhelming sonic mass, screaming in your face, like the nightmarish installation Francesco presented last month in Linz.
Produced by Worm Radio
Thanks to:
Synth Library Prague
Sound Campus Linz
Stadtwerkstatt Linz
Frederic Stritter
Gido and Mathias
2. De Grote Kahn
live radio piece/poem written by Bas Kwakman
recorded live at HBS, Rotterdam, 29 juni 2025
music by Bakker, Hitz, Kwakman en Tabarnac
