Free Lab Radio Podcast - Booman vs. Iraq

Is there a place where naive fine art and home studio production meet...?

Tonight we sample an entire album by Bambooman, UK who has his latest release 'Dulcet' on Sonic Router. As a tangent, we end with two Iraqi folk songs to mark the first ever UK exhibition of Welcome to Iraq, the Iraq Pavillion contribution to the last Venice Biennial. It is the first ever show at Venice to feature artists from inside Iraq since 1976.

The work in Welcome to Iraq, currently on show at South London Gallery, is mostly all made from found objects and materials, as formal art education in Iraq still has not recovered since the foreign invasion and artists are generally self taught. From cardboard to recycled tires the sculptures are effectively parallel to the sampling and re-appropriated field recordings of young Bambooman.  Like these Iraqi artists Bambooman uses a colloquial audio palette to create some of the most interesting beats we've heard in a while.

Free Lab Radio - Bambooman vs Iraq by Fari

This Week's Free Lab Radio - BambooMan vs Iraq

So as we can on Free Lab Radio, this week we're shifting format to curate a listening experience between you, us and them. How often today do we sit down and listen to an entire album? In fact with the exponential rise of the .mp3 over other formats, despite the last chugs of cassette and a niche resurgence of vinyl, the track download has been killing of the album listening experience.

Urged on by an interview with did this week with u:ber musician David Harrington of Kronos Quartet (airing this Thursday on our sister show Six Pillars on ResonanceFM) we're Bambooman (Booman).

We're looking at the art work, the composite album in order and the physicality of the final object of a new release on Sonic Router by young Bambooman.

The Yorkshire kids said of this new album “I definitely spent a lot of time sculpting the overall sound that I've been developing over the last few years. There’s a nice balance of musical feelings from the more dark minimal sound design evident in ‘Birth’ and ‘Cast‘, to the classic kick/snare hip hop flex of ‘Knox’, through to the more up-tempo garage-esque feel of tracks like ‘Dulcet’ and ‘Clasp’.”

“Similarly to Hollowed, this EP is made almost entirely out of found sounds and field recordings that I’ve made and processed; sounds I’ve synthesized myself or recordings that were made and donated by friends. There’s certainly more development and progression within the individual tracks and I feel like that’s also reflected in the EP’s sequencing.”

Also to mark the Welcome to Iraq show this week at South London Gallery, we're going out with an Iraqi folk song, full of the richness of the classical and folk traditions of the region and the elements of hauntology that comes with early recordings.

11-midnight tonight on Resonance104.4FM repeats 2am Wednesday. Listen on your transistor radio on 104.4FM if in London or use the radio player on phones and laptops:
http://radioplayer.resonancefm.com/console/

Here's the promo link to check out Booman's style