At 5pm today the radio debut of ‘Siloed Thinking’ by Radiophrenia’s own Stevie Jones.
Siloed Thinking is a radiophonic soundscape composition based around field recordings from the Cupar silo in Fife, a vast cylindrical warehouse dominating the Cupar skyline, in a state of dereliction since the 70s. Incorporating oral histories recorded by photographer Carolyn Scott, the piece engages with the social and historical context of the building, while interrogating the site through improvisatory, performative, self-reflexive methods. Making use of radio transmission throughout the site, Siloed Thinking complicates and collapses space, explores the grain and decay of radio and offers a fragmented, mercurial navigation through imaginary and corporeal spaces combined. It seeks a balance between the ambiguity and narrative possibilities of subjective listening and a conscious, cultural sensitivity.
A recursive companion film, Live at the Cupar Silo, deconstructing a series of site-specific performances utilising tape, microcontrollers and interactive music systems, works with similar site abstracted materials. Live at the Cupar Silo, a kind of audiovisual remix of the performances is available to view below.
Siloed Thinking is followed by two related pieces from Jones. Transducers is a field recording composition based around sustainable energy production in Glasgow, similarly blurring boundaries between environment, instrument and performer. Following that is A Silk Purse, a modular synthesiser-based work which takes an oral history of Scotland’s performing magic community as its point of departure.
