Hello You. It’s been a while, but I’m delighted to announce that FOGFEST returns for one last ride on Saturday August 1st at IKLECTIK, live from their new home at Peckham levels. Absolutely killer line-up too. Tickets available here via DICE.
FOGFEST returns to Iklectik for another explosive lineup of tunes, tape loops, turntablism, techno and trash. It’s our most packed line-up yet, featuring a four-way ‘audio-visual quest to further the exploration of rhythm, sonic groove theory and the boundaries of turntablism’ courtesy of DJ Food, Furrowed aka The Vinyl Tattooist, ’lathe-cutting journeyman’ Duplokit (making his UK debut) and the complex analogue video feedback loops of PuttyRubber. Away from the lathe cuts and locked grooves, we also have live performances from Ambient / Krautrock / Jungle doyenne Xylitol, currently riding high on the rave reviews for her second Planet Mu album ‘Blumenfantasie’, the ‘astonishingly beautiful’ ancient songs, theremin, custom electronics (and possible DIY automata!) of composer and genius creative technologist Sarah Angliss, intrepid sonic adventurer Karina Townsend with her collection of (un)conventional recording tools and sound making devices, including her magnificent homemade Bagpipes; plus writer and broadcaster Ken Hollings and sound artist Howlround bring you their intense collision of spoken word and blistering analogue noise better known as The Howling. Not forgetting the shadowy figure of tpwiiikatj resuming his position in the DJ booth to provide floor-burning techno. See you there.
In other news BBC Radio 4 has recently devoted an episode of its Archive On 4 strand to exploring the weird and wonderful history of Resonance FM. Stewart Lee delves through the archives with the assistance of programme makers, artists, volunteers and other key figures from over the decades. My own dulcet tones appear briefly, as do those of my niece Pippa thanks to the inclusion of one of our homemade jingles!
The summer of 1998 – a new guerrilla radio station, broadcast from an attic on London’s South Bank, with a tiny crew and an unsteady aerial, mixed improvised music, endless birdsong and angry pensioners demanding their rights with experimental comedy, polyglot children’s programming, circuit bending and the heady whiff of full broadcasting freedom. Nearly thirty years and several precarious office spaces later it is still broadcasting and now reaches the entire world – a beacon of brilliance and an ongoing work of radio art in its own right. Resonance platforms the unplatformed. Broadcasts the unbroadcastable. An audio outgrowth of a radical creative underground, it also pioneered the idea of community radio in the UK as a space where outside voices could find a platform – from devotees of Congolese dance music to Calling All Pensioners, where a reformed bank robber yelled angrily about senior citizen rights. From the beginning it’s been committed to the idea of what its founders called ‘radical hospitality’ – that anyone with a good idea can have a spot. Resonance is an ongoing invitation...
Do tune in, apart from anything else it’s a timely reminder of just what an incredible resource Resonance FM continues to be in our current rather dismal era. Can you believe it’s been 22 years since I accidentally bumbled into the studio a week early for my first volunteers meeting? It’s all been a magnificent blur, but listening back inspires nothing but pride at being involved in such a brilliant and unique project. As an old friend and former fellow Resonance grifter put it to me after hearing the programme ‘Resonance was my home, my kind of people and we were all oddbods and misfits and nothing has ever been like it’. Could not have put it better myself. I’ve since gone on to work for bigger, more professional, more commercial mainstream broadcasters, but frankly not one of them could ever hold a candle to Resonance. I always introduce it to newcomers as ‘the station that you’d get if you mashed up the best parts of BBC 6 Music, Radio 3 and Radio 4, only much much better and one a tenth of the budget – and I stand by that judgement still! Long may it continue to reign.
Speaking of Resonance, my own weekly show FogCast continues to light up the airwaves every Wednesday at 23:30 UK time (plus a repeat 02:30am on Sundays where to be honest it makes even more sense!). Here’s the latest episode, featuring new material from Lawrence English, the debut album from superb London duo Momen and a gorgeous live recording of Zachary Paul and Celia Eydeland from a 16th Century church in the village of Felpham (plus Pippa again and my nephew Matthew on jingle duties). Broadcasting continuously since lockdown 2020 (Resonance’s annual summer break notwithstanding) we’re rapidly approaching the 230th episode and to be honest I really need to pull my finger out and get better at promoting it. But then I also could do with going outside a bit more. It’s a tricky balancing act!
In other news… Is there any other news? Well, yes and no. If such a thing as a regular visitor to this site was to theoretically exist they would have noticed it’s been pretty quiet over the last year and might even be moved to ask ‘where have you been?’ To which the simple answer would be ‘right here, doing what I always do’. I’ve spent the last eighteen months making an awful lot of radio / a lot of awful radio (delete as appropriate) and an awful lot of podcasts (ditto) as well as a spot of teaching audio production and a fair bit of sound design for museums and galleries. But the museum project isn’t ready to share yet, the teaching sort of takes care of itself and frankly the vast majority of the radio and podcasting work just isn’t worth talking about. It keeps the lights on but has no real ultimate value (though I’m sure their pantheon of advertisers and shareholders would beg to differ). How would I describe it, if pushed? STRONG PREFECT VIBES would be putting it politely. If being sneered at by middle class public school types is your kind of jam then by all means come work in commercial radio and fill your boots. It’s cheaper than hiring a dominatrix (*SO I’M INFORMED*)….
Away from the lights that need to be kept on, I’ve also cut down live shows quite dramatically, because frankly lugging 40KG of vintage, fragile analogue gear across town with little more than a wing, a prayer and London’s sorry excuse for a public transport infrastructure isn’t doing the equipment or my spine much good at all. Last year two dear friends and trusted advisors presented me with the most fantastic flightcase, built like a tank. It protects the machines beautifully and could probably stop a bullet – but it takes three people to lift it!
Is this the end? Not on your life! I’m working on new material constantly, some of the best I’ve ever produced – a new Howlround LP is currently in the works and planned for early 2027, as well as not-one-but-two more albums by my text, tape and trash duo The Howling with the redoubtable Ken Hollings. I’m just not in any kind of hurry. There’s enough noise out there to be getting on with and to be honest I’d rather just go and walk the dog for a bit…
One thing I can confirm is that I’ve recently approved the masters of two live recordings from the archive for a bonus or ‘satellite’ release which I’m planning for this autumn and that they are sounding MAGNIFICENT, but more on that to follow. For now I’ll leave you this tantalising glimpse of the front cover…
Robin The Fog 