Pamela Z- Performer/Composer/Audio Artist

Pamela Z is an artist who uses her extraordinary voice, sampled sound and a wide assortment of digital techniques to create her audio work. She has been making music and playing with sound all her life. Z took to the stage with her first public performance at age 5 when she and her sister sang La Cucaracha in the Smedley Elementary School talent show, using dried seed pods from neighborhood trees as “maracas.”  Later she studied viola in grade school and majored in classical voice in college, but she taught herself (with help from friends and colleagues) everything she knows about experimental music and computer technology. While some of her compositions are created exclusively for the stage or commissioned for galleries and museums, many of Pamela Z’s audio creations are well-suited to radio and the Internet.

Here are three works by Pamela Z , all of which explore language and sound:

Voices in Your Head is an audio segment from a performance work Pamela Z created in 2003 called Voci.  Voci (Italian for "Voices") is an evening-long multi-media performance work exploring the concept of voice from many different angles. This segment is a true story and the sampled voices are Pamela Z's audio interpretation of the voices her mother hears in her head. (5:41)

	Vulgar Remedies is a segment from Z's multi-media opera Wunderkabinet, which is inspired by the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles, CA.  The libretto is taken from language on the display captions of the museum’s "Tell the Bees" exhibit.  In this excerpt, all of the sounds are created by Pamela Z's voice…sampled, layered, and looped. (7:44 )
	GeekSpeak is a movement from a larger work called Parts of Speech, which explores many different aspects of language.  During a 1995 artist residency at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center, Z became fascinated by the language and voices of some of the researchers I met there.  At times it even seemed as if practically no English was being spoken... (7:32 )

Pamela Z explains the beauty of repetition, Behind the Scenes.

Learn more about Starkland, the label that released Pamela Z's "A Delay is Better."

The Wire - a radio series about the impact of electricity on music
by Jowi Taylor, Paolo Pietropaolo and Chris Brookes, for the CBC

From the earliest microphones to the current digital age, electricity has utterly changed the sound of music around the world. Incorporating some of these very changes into the story it tells, The Wire creates a unique radio experience that’s somewhere between a documentary, a remix and a music show.

The Wire is made up of eight, hour-long episodes ranging in topic from early experimentation in recording, to the invention of such instruments as the synthesizer and theremin, to some of the legal issues that have cropped up around DJ / sampling culture. Interview subjects include composers (Steve Reich, Karlheinz Stockhausen), inventors (Bob Moog), DJ/Turntablists ( DJ Spooky, Amon Tobin) and also include musicians, writers and theorists. The project also includes a commissioned remix of each episode by a notable DJ/Remix producer, and a lively website with additional information, un-cut interviews and an interactive timeline.

(Please note: As you may or may not know, the CBC is currently experiencing "a labour disruption," hence The Wire's website is unavailable. We strongly recommend you check back in a few weeks, as it's well worth visiting.)


Featured here are excerpts from two episodes of The Wire:

In the opening episode, Hallo, Hallo, the story of the impact of electricity on music begins, circa 1900. (14:30)

The fifth episode of the series, The Sound Around, focuses on the ubiquity of recorded sound in the world, including archival tape of John and an interview with the VP of the Muzak Corporation. (14:47)

Producer Jowi Taylor writes about the merging of form and function in producing The Wire, and confesses to nerdish tendencies, Behind the Scenes.

A few from the 2005 International Features Conference,

held in Sinaia, Romania, April 29 - May
reported by Julie Shapiro

Since 1974, a group of dedicated radiomakers from (mostly) across Europe has gathered in a different city each year for the annual International Features Conference. Five years ago, the IFC welcomed the Third Coast Festival, and we've been present at the conference ever since. The 2005 IFC was hosted by Romanian Radio. Over the course of six days, nearly two dozen radio pieces were presented and discussed; here is just a taste of the sonic experience that was shared.

Note! These excerpts are not in English! But please don't hesitate to follow along with the transcripts. It may be a little bit awkward for you at first, but it gets easier if you stick with it. We can guarantee it's worth the effort.

Snow On Plum Blossom Japanese Springtime: the motif of countless Haikus and soulful pop songs, spectacular Kabuki and elegant Noh plays, short stories and novels. In Japan spring begins in winter, and evidently with a lot of noise.... Presented by Radio Berlin-Brandenburg / Kulturradio Script Editor: Barbara Entrup; Director: Malte Jaspersen First broadcast: March 2004 Transcript (7:10 excerpt from a 53:16 program)

Voices from the Past Can you remember the sound of voices from the past, even of a close family member? For instance, will you remember the sound of your grandfather once he has gone? This feature blends the stories of people trying to hold on to familiar voices and dear memories, through the few recordings they own. Presented by VRT Radio 1 by Wim Vangrootloon. Production: Pat Donnez First broadcast: 2004 Transcript (9:12 excerpt from a 27:01 program)

India Song Originally a text by French writer Marguerite Duras, India Song was next made into an extensive radio program (excerpted here) and eventually into a film of the same title. Production: Marguerite Duras, Georges Peyrou. Transcript (5:20 excerpt from a 150-minute program)

So ... what exactly happens at an IFC gathering? Julie Shapiro shares some of her experiences in Romania and tries to define the elusive "Feature," Behind the Scenes.

UbuWeb.com
Founded by Ken Goldsmith

A basic explanation of UbuWeb borrowed from the site reads "UbuWeb was founded in November of 1996, initially as a repository for visual, concrete and, later, sound poetry. Over the years, UbuWeb has embraced all forms of the avant-garde and beyond."

But UbuWeb is additionally a portal, archive, library, and a destination point for curious minds and ears. It gives away its content freely, and has no use for money, funding or backers. It's provocative in principle, in practice ("UbuWeb posts much of its content without permission..." ) and in content. Oh, and, not to be overlooked: UbuWeb has a wicked sense of humor.

UbuWeb's founder Kenneth Goldsmith picked a few audio selections from the site for you to explore, but we encourage you to continue mining for material far beyond what's here:

People Like Us - Abridged Too Far These recordings offer a pastiche of impressions of popular music from Europe and America from the 1920s thru to 1990.

Erik Belgum - Bad Marriage Mantra Behold ... the musicality of the argumentation. (Warning: this piece contains excessive language not usually heard on the radio airwaves, to put it mildly. Listener discretion is advised.)

Max Neuhaus - Radio Net Witness a broadcast experiment of epic proportions, enabled by a very young and adventurous NPR!

Otis Fodder - "The 365 Days Project" Here's a years worth of audio miscellania, including a very special homage to cheese (January 20th)

Why check out the above audio selections? Goldsmith explains his choices, Behind the Scenes.

illustration by Lucy

Edkins