Easterndaze On Air 2022
Second radio event celebrating community radio in Central / Eastern Europe

✨Listen live on December 9, 2022, from 4pm CET on individual radio websites and on FM 88.4 Berin 90.7 Potsdam.✨

Easterndaze On Air is happening again in 2022. The first radio day was organized in April 2021 on the purpose of connecting radios and listeners during the pandemic with a week-long radio community marathon, where radios exchanged moderators, interviewed each other, and created a special programme for the live broadcast (including a speculative radio play). But the war in Ukraine has further heightened a state of political and social crisis. Community radios from Central and Eastern Europe will connect through the Easterndaze x Berlin platform, in cooperation with Cashmere Radio in an effort to encourage collaboration between these DIY mediums and underline their importance. These kinds of platforms subserve the free flow of information and opinions, supporting cultural projects and embracing talented local creators.

The project’s participants are community radios from Central or Eastern Europe: Radio Kapital from Warsaw, Lahmacun Radio from Budapest, 20ft Radio and Gasoline Radio from Kyiv, Mutant Radio from Tblissi, Radio Plato from Minsk along with the Independent Community Radio Network (ICRN) connecting radios in Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius and Helsinki, hosted by Berlin’s Cashmere Radio. The project will encompass collaborative programming, including joint shows and radiophonic contributions created by each radio especially for this live broadcast on FM and online.

The session will culminate in a panel talk about the issue of community radios, hosted by musicologist and community radio expert Ieva Gudaiyte. The main concept behind this year’s Easterndaze discussion is the idea of network: what it means to build, maintain, and belong to one. In that framework, we will discuss how (our) independent community media/radio responded to Russian invasion of Ukraine; how our Ukrainian colleagues, and how we can use our radio platforms to practice resistance, solidarity, and responsibility respectively.

✨Full schedule of the event:
16:00 – 17:30 Independent Community Radio Network
17:30 – 19:00 Radio Plato
19:00 – 20:30 Panel Discussion
20:30 – 22:00 Gasoline Radio
22:00 – 22:50 Lahmacun Radio
22:50 – 23:45 20ft Radio
23:45 – 1:15 Radio Kapitał
1:15 – 2:15 Mutant Radio
2:15 – 3:00 Cashmere Radio

✨Special broadcasts:
Independent Community Radio

The Independent Community Radio Network (ICRN) meet for a hybrid broadcast akin to the goal of the network; to connect like-minded community radios from across Europe. Co-founders from Palanga Street Radio (LT), Tirkultura (LV) and IDA Radio (EST/ FI) will share experiences from our summer of activity across the Baltic-Nordic region that evidenced the important role of working together to support, inspire and sustain one another, as well as the wider field of independent community radio. We will accompany our conversation with recordings from our travels.

ICRNs activity has been made possible thanks to the Nordic-Baltic Mobility Programme for Culture (Nordic Culture Point).

Radio Plato

Radio Plato contributes with a live broadcast from the studio, showcasing Belarusian music scene through carefully selected tracks by our producers. The show will involve a couple of interludes and informative talks about the mission of the radio, community and problems they are aiming to solve.

Gasoline Radio

For the broadcast Gasoline Radio invited two of their residents – Mires (host of the show Placid Tones) and Heskbo (host of the show “Emotional Landscape”).

Since the launch of the radio, the team has discovered dozens of new names that previously remained in the shadows. The activity of these names in the field of selection or production, gave the understanding that the current support of young blood is the formed future of the non-mainstream Ukrainian music community. That’s why the two young invited representatives are from the experimental scene, prepared a 1 and a half hour recording of their own material.

Lahmacun radio

The material of the Hungarian station is created by the group called PAIKKA. This time, they gathered a very diverse group of creators, some of them might be familiar for Lahmacun radio enjoyers, as they are regular guests in shows, or they produce their own.
Crew:
Sound: Emcsi, Ádám Kalamár
Acting: Balázs Csémy
Post-production: Roland Nagy
Script and facilitation: Sanna Bo, Levente Hajdú, Wang Dani Xu

The radio play is centred around Tamás, a young visual artist living in Budapest. The play follows a 50-minute segment of one of Tamás’ average weekday.

20ft Radio

20ft Radio is represented with a live performance by Polina Matskevich aka Mlin Patz. She is a Ukrainian musician, who have opened the Grains of Peace radio-marathon.

Launched in the end of March, aim of the Grains of Peace was to to raise funds for Kyiv volunteers and create a recreational audio space where people can have an emotional rest. Here are some words by radio’s writer and resident Anthony Junkoid on Polina’s recording:

“Home audio sketches from one of the members of the dub-surf trio “Chillera” Mlin Patz. Unreleased tracks, live and field recordings, radio noises and looped dub-not-dub improvisations – a relaxed and wonderful trip to the seaside bedroom districts.”

Radio Kapitał

Polish collaborators have woven together contributions from artists, activists, and scholars into a narrative about how the voice can bring about change:
⎯ Rajyashri Goody’s 22 vows written in the Ambedkarite tradition.
⎯ Paulina Miu and Ola Zielińska from Otucha collective and their feminist singing practice
⎯ Scholar Gascia Ouzunian’s work on sonic memories of the Armenian genocide
⎯ Andrius Arutunian’s work Do Not Fear, Then! based on Armenian incantations and spells
⎯ Iranian collective Only Voice Remains and their sonic protest around the feminist revolution
⎯ Edka Jarząb’s personally political and politically personal manifesto

Interspersed with Polish, Ukrainian, Iranian, and Armenian music, this 90-minute piece ebbs and flows, from soothing chants to ear-splitting bass, with screaming, singing, whispering and words that weigh heavy on the soul – but also carry dreams. We have explored the limits of the voice to make our spell work. Will you listen?
Created by Hanna Grześkiewicz, Edka Jarząb, Julian Rieken, Izabela Wolf.
Curated by Julia Antczak, Ola Szkudłapska.

Mutant Radio

Mutant Radio introduces FH HF female sound artist from Tbilisi, Georgia, mainly known for structured randomness of sound. Her compositions build upon overlapping synth melodies that ascend variety by impromptu spacing between internal harmonic details or tones, where each frequency is integer through subtle variations of similar patterns.

Cashmere Radio

And last but not least a Goat Chorus Remix by Cashmere Radio. Initiated in the time of the pandemic as a cashmere take on the traditional German ‘Rundfunkchor’ – the goat chorus started its sonic life in the echo chambers, feedbacks of zoom and the walls of each participant’s living room. This autumn we met in a series of four workshops in person to resonate and sound our voices together.
The goat chorus explores the idea of a ‘choir’ not just as a space to use our voices, but also a structure to practice listening together, and engage in listening as both a political and demographic practice which can benefit every area of our lives and communities. It also offers an approach to the voice which treats it just as any other part of the body, a muscle and tool which anyone can learn to use functionally and healthily (regardless of musical and/or vocal ability) to communicate, create and have fun with. In the workshops as well exploring basic vocal technique, how the voice relates to the body, and how we relate to our voices and those around us, we dove into a series of exercises, games and scores of exploration.

This broadcast is a remix of the recordings of each of our sessions of vocal exploration, mixed and alchemised in the cashmere booth by Rupert and Matteo.

✨

Interview with Lucia Udvardyove, Matteo Spano and Ieva Gudaityte: https://kaput-mag.com/catch_en/easterndaze-on-air-2022/

Lahmacun News

Easterndaze On Air: Community Radio Special ’22