"Radio Music", an essay by Jon Leidecker.

Quaderns d'àudio (Audio Notebooks) is an online collection of publications related to Radio Web MACBA programming. In "Radio Music", Jon Leidecker (curator of the series VARIATIONS - http://rwm.macba.cat/en/variations_tag) connects three examples from the history of the potential of the radio receiver as musical instrument, from its early beginnings in the twenties as captured on a comedy record, to formal art experiments in the forties and fifties, to its nostalgic presence in one of the very first song-based pop music collage albums, which heralded the now familiar practice of sampling.

Link: http://bit.ly/bkg32l

PDF file: http://bit.ly/doEnzf

Since 1990, Jon Leidecker has performed appropriative collage music under the pseudonym Wobbly, improvising live with prerecordings to coax the harmonies out of the recorded sounds of individuals from disparate cultures. Previous and ongoing projects include the bands Chopping Channel (with Don Joyce & Peter Conheim of Negativland), Sagan (with Blevin Blectum, Lesser and Ryan Junell), the Freddy McGuire Show (with video artist Anne McGuire) and Amen Seat (with MaryClare Bryztwa), as well as live and studio collaborations with People Like Us, Matmos, Negativland, Thomas Dimuzio, Tim Perkis & Xopher Davidson, Hrvatski, The Tape-beatles, The Evolution Control Committee and Otomo Yoshihide. In 2009 he was commissioned by Radio Web MACBA to produce VARIATIONS (http://rwm.macba.cat/en/variations_tag), an ongoing radio show on the history of musical collage & sampling.

Follow us on Twitter: @Radio_Web_MACBA