Number Stations
When I was a child, I used to think I could hear aliens speaking through the radio.
Back then (late 80's/early 90's), shortwave radio transmissions were still popular in Italy and my grandmother used to keep one of those transistor radio in the kitchen, listening to the news in amplitude modulation, while having breakfast.
This part of the electromagnetic spectrum was, and still is, packed with weird noises, tones, and voices from other countries.
I couldn’t help but think there was a secret hidden beyond these puzzling communications.
And I was right!
During the heydays of cold war, shortwave radio transmissions were the only safe way to communicate with field agents. And it was common, while surfing through the white noise sea of shortwaves, to encounter a voice repeating numbers in a random order.
These voices were speaking in code, and these radio station are commonly called Number Stations.
But why am I writing about spies in this electronic experimental music blog?
Obviously, I am deeply worried and sad about the war in Ucraine and I am afraid of a new Cold War, since diplomatic relations between western countries and the rest of the world are quickly deteriorating.
But it was while listening to one of my favourite electronic band that I started questioning myself about these weird recordings.
Incidentally, I was listening to Geogaddi for the 20th anniversary.
The first stop of my pilgramage through encrypted radio messages was THE CONET PROJECT.
This unique collection, released in 1997 by Irdial Discs, is an incredible hystorical document and I think it should also be considered some kind of early signalwave album.
The Conet Project features a large amount of Number Stations recordings.
The CDs contain 150 recordings spanning the last twenty years; taken from the private archives of dedicated shortwave radio listeners from around the world.
I have to publicly say thanks to Irdial Discs for believing in free music and releasing their archive under the copyleft license.
In fact you can listen and download to The Conet Project from The Free Music Archive.
Be sure to check also the other release from Irdial Discs.
I was immersed in the listening of those beutiful and relaxing recordings when I remembered another popular artist using samples taken from number station.
Moby (the prince of thieves, in my humble opinion, when it comes to taking samples from incredibile public domain music and recordings) used some classic Conet Progect samples in two of his tracks.
The one above happens to be my favourite, but the other, 257.Zero, is pretty good too.
So, while digging for number station inspired music, I found a lot of good music inspired by these transmissions, in every genre.
You can find a short and incomplete list of songs featuring number stations samples HERE.
If you want to find out more about number stations, you can find a lot of informations about them HERE
What about my monthly composition?
I am happy to tell you that my piece for this month is a 22 minutes live improvisation, recorded during my practice for a live performance I had a couple of week ago.
It also features some radio recordings, but unfortunately I didn’t record any number stations.
Missing Earth Vol 1 is a track deeply inspired by solarpunk ideology and culture.
(probably i will write about solarpunk in my next newletter)
This piece is about finding a way to reconnect with nature, even through technological processes.
The track is released under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0), this means you are free to copy and redistribute the piece in any medium or format.
Feel free to remix, transform, and create something upon it.
