Rémanence

This evening at at 8:30pm – Jean-Baptiste Masson presents a new radio work based on found materials, recorded by amateur sound hobbyists in France and Germany between the 1960s and the 1990s.

The tapes and cassettes were collected in the two countries in Summer 2023, while on trip to investigate the sonic practices of French and German sound hunters. This piece documents and poeticises their activities, that ranged from family recordings, to musique concrète, to the recording of bird songs, to the soundtracks of amateur films, to music, interviews and audio documentaries.

Rémanence is based on found materials, recorded by amateur sound hobbyists in France and Germany between the 1960s and the 1990s. The tapes and cassettes were collected in the two countries in Summer 2023, while on trip to investigate the sonic practices of French and German sound hunters. People were interviewed, and sonic material gathered.

Sound hunters were amateurs interested in sound, who, from the 1950s, started to produce radio programmes, to organise national and international contests, to edit magazines, to gather themselves in tape recording clubs. This piece documents and poeticises their activities, that ranged from family recordings, to musique concrète, to the recording of bird songs, to the soundtracks of amateur films, to music, interviews and audio documentaries. Short electroacoustic compositions by me link and sometimes frame sound hunters’ recordings.

The tapes and cassettes of this piece were collected thanks to a funding from the Deutsch-Französischer Bürgerfonds.