"Memories, like little waves, licked the edges of my mind ..."

Some context to my last radio show, Fictions From The Rivers - or a diary of some sorts

Nov 25, 2024

Hello from flooded Wales,

This month’s newsletter is organised around my most recent radio show: Fictions From The Rivers. APOLOGIES, it’s such a long text :( Please, please, please, remember you will not -never!- be considered a lesser friend if you don’t read these emails!! The show can certainly be appreciated without digging through the layers underneath each selected sound. But if you do fancy more (re)sources, well, here they are.

May you all be safe. (I am!)

Nono

Fictions From The Rivers - or a diary of some sorts

“They closed the coffin and nailed it shut with a stone, and the whole time, the priests and nuns were chanting. Memories, like little waves, licked the edges of my mind. [...] Form is emptiness and emptiness is form. It made sense to me now, because one moment old Jiko was form and the next moment she wasn’t.”

In Ruth Ozeki’s novel, A Tale for the Time Being, young Nao describes [SPOILER ALERT] the funeral of old Jiko, her great grandmother and Buddhist nun. The phrase “Form is emptiness (śūnyatā); emptiness is form” stems from the Heart Sutra, one of the most famous Buddhist Sutras. According to it, human beings are composed of five elements that flow like a river: the river of form, which means our bodies; the river of feelings; the river of perceptions; the river of mental formations; and the river of consciousness. These five aggregates are always flowing in us. The sutra concludes that when we look deeply into the nature of these rivers, we realize that they are empty of dependent origination: “gone, gone, gone beyond…”

DJing is often compared to an art of narration. Although I usually introduce my newsletter with an abstract from a novel, and although my radio show is called Fictions, and although people often describe my DJing as “cinematic”, to me the ways in which music might “tell” a story are singular. With radio in particular, I’m less interested in developing a thesis or progressing towards a conclusion than in opening the doors of a space to enter, perhaps even float in for a bit. Today’s essay follows meandering river paths: murmured voice notes, streams of consciousness, fluid confessions from a grounded explorer.

00’00’00: Institute of Queer Ecology - Today

In the spring, I played music for the opening of the exhibition The Earth Does (Not) Need Us at Schloss Moyland. The title speaks to the common belief that we've damaged the Earth and that it might be better off without us. However, the inclusion of 'not' suggests an alternative: What if the Earth loves us, and we, in turn, love it? This piece of music was featured in an installation by the Institute of Queer Ecology, which explored sounds for the past (since the Big Bang), present, and future. My friend Nic recorded this piece 'today' on a piano in a farmhouse near the museum.

00’02’50: Nic Baird from the IQECO talking at the opening of the exhibition

“Just to say, maybe for a moment. If you can try to forget that you’re human. When you come back into being human again, there’s a lil more empathy. I think that’s the goal.”

00’03’00: At Fluctuations

This summer, I spent a week on a river boat traveling between Brussels and Utrecht as part of an artist residency. These sounds were recorded near the water, as we were navigating.

00’04’00: Fergus Jones - Been Here (And Gone) with Koreless

You know what Heraclitus said about rivers, right? “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” This track is from the latest Fergus Jones / Perko album, Ephemera, which just came out on Numbers and gathers a series of collaborations. If I wasn’t afraid of using heavy metaphors, I’d compare the album to a sea which was fed by multiple streams and currents but... woeps too late. Look, I guess this is why I record mixes and don’t write reviews. Another highlight of the album is the track Heima which fits perfectly into the dubby and romantic cuts I’ve been enjoying including in my recent selections.

00’05’10: Ethereal Logic - Stream Passage

I was obsessed with this album when it came out on Slow Life in 2017. Sometimes you just gotta say exactly on the tin what it does. I think they nailed it with the word “ethereal”.

00’07’20: Unknown Rivers - Aleyrac River

Is there such a thing as an ambient banger? This one feels like an addictive blanket-earworm—hypnotic yet distinctly laid-back

00’19’00: Langston Hughes - The Negro Speaks of Rivers

This excerpt features the Harlem renaissance writer reflecting on inspiration, the Mississipi river, trains, African heritage and reading his poem.

« I’ve known rivers:

Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers. »

00’14’00: somethingmaker - Wet Meadow

This track was produced by Vietnamese artist Hoàng Vũ as part of the Mangroves album: “When will you reach the estuary? When will you merge into the immense ocean?”

00’23’00: Ollie x Alice Walker

This is the voice of Ollie, who was the one to introduce me to Ruth Ozeki. This time, they’re reading from Alice Walker’s The Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult, a book I stumbled upon at the library and borrowed purely because of its intriguing title. Although I eventually abandoned the novel, I was drawn to this particular quote and the concept of 'two rivers.' It felt fitting to invite Ollie to read it, as a tribute to our meandering, multifaceted conversations. Recently, Ollie also shared some passages from Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet, including this one: “Suppose a wave appears on the ocean and asks herself, who am I? If the wave has some time to get in touch with herself, she will find out that she is the ocean. She is a wave, but at the same time, she is the ocean. It’s very important that the wave realizes she has a wave body, but she also has an ocean body.”

00’24’00: Guan Pinghu - Liu Shiu (流水; Stream)

Guan Pinghu playing the guqin. This performance was featured on the Voyager Golden Record, to which I dedicated a Fictions radio show in 2018.

00’28’00: Ugo x Irene Sola

In Irene Sola‘s magic realistic novel, When I Sing, Mountains Dance, rivers play a significant role in shaping the world and lives of the characters. They act as silent witnesses, connecting characters and becoming a space where the boundaries between life and death are blurred. This is Ugo reading a bit from the French translation (original in Catalan). The drawings I’ve used for the collages of this newsletter are from the book (the pictures and paint are mine).

00’29’30: Jon Keliehor - Subcontinent

This one is from a compilation abundant in river references (Blue River, Tambours D’Eau, The Same River Once, etc.) and which came about when Glasgow’s JD Twitch and Fergus Clark debated the concept of “Fourth World” music. “… the undercurrent tying each piece together is this deeply personal feeling of intrigue and mysterious elation. Strange and unparalleled, this feeling manages to eschew geographic borders and rigid genre movements in favour of something which manages to evoke an inner sanctum, a musical private place for both reflection and assessment.”

00’35’00: Parasite Jazz - Glissement de Terrain

Parasite Jazz was the first band I caught on the first night of the four magical days I spent at Meakusma in August. “Glissement de terrain” is French for landslide. 'Glissement de terrain' is French for 'landslide.' The growing prevalence of images depicting flash floods around the world serves as a sobering reminder of water's devastating power.

00’43’00: Jon Hassel - Slipstream

Fourth World from the source: floating, flowing, fluid.

00’44’00: Nono reading a definition of rivers

“Rivers may regularly overflow their banks and flood the surrounding area, spreading nutrients.” Yet again, shouts to everyone who cries more days than they don’t. I think around this point of the show, David (who plays as Naga) entered into the Cashmere studio and it made me so happy I burst into tears. Phaya Naga is also the name of a mythical creature believed to live in the Mekong River.

00’45’00: Nubya Garcia - Water’s Path

As a kid, I was obsessed with watching windows in the rain: the way a drop would trace its path through pearls of water, gathering some along the way, leaving others behind. These visions came to mind recently as I wrote about the politics of withdrawal and the possibilities of participation. I stand by the affirmation that I do not intend to play at venues listed by PACBI or aligned with pro-Israel stances, nor to participate in the extractive industry that aviation represents. I also stand by the suggestion that we try to be humble, honest and realistic about our respective material conditions. After clarifying this position, some people asked if I had initiated this thread: I did not. In the words of Janaya Future Khan, I am not interested in “using the suffering of others to score political points against each other.” Free Palestine, Free Lebanon, Free the Congo, Free Sudan, Free Syria, Free Yemen, Free Haiti!

00’48’40: Nala Sinephro - Continuum 4

In A Tale for the Time Being, Young Nao experiences bullying at her school. The novel critiques the societal structures that allow bullying to persist while showing how compassion and introspection can offer a path forward : Old Jiko teaches Nao about impermanence. As someone who’s spent hours on the meditation cushion, I found that, eventually, there was no other experience that provided any deeper insights into impermanence than listening to music. I’ve needed to listen to music a lot recently.

00’51’00: Kiri-uu - Meri Kiige All / The Sea Under The Swing

From Creak-whoosh (Estonian, Ingrian and Votian song re-imagined in Australia by Olev Muska and Mihkel Tartu) on StroomTV.

00’54’00: The Flamingos - The Blue Rinse

Streams joining!!! I heard The Flamingos for the first time when StroomTV boss Nosedrip played This Heat during his amazing set at Meakusma.

00’58’00: Sango - River Water

Someone on Bandcamp described Seattle’s Sango music as « African-sounding Baile Funk Trap » and there could hardly be a more tempting combination of words.

00’59’00: Bitstream - Streamlining

Speaking of streamlining, anyone else is migrating towards Bluesky?

01’02’20: Ruth Ozeki - A Tale for The Time Being

“You can’t hold on to water or keep it from leaking away.” In this bit of the book, the narrator describes the way the Fukushima incident led to radioactive water flowing into the sea. “Information is a lot like water: it’s hard to hold onto, and hard to keep from leaking away.”

01’04’00: Silent Harbour - Aquatic Movement

Underwater wrecks by Boris Bunnik (Silent Harbour/Conforce).

01’08’20: Aboutface - La Chute d’eau de marbre liquide

Freero regular Aboutface (Ben Kelly, the “Mind Sculptor”) presents “Pensée sculpture” on which he recorded the clarinet, flute, guitar, electronics, made all the artworks and collaborated with Taro, Abdelrahman Hariry, Noemie Decaen and darker. The voice says: “close your eyes”.

01’16’00: Ed Dowie | Refaat Alareer ft. Maraea Rakuraku, Selma Dabbagh, Tomás Ó Loingsigh, Weaver

This is from the first release from the Red Clinic, “a collective of mental health workers united for a radical psychotherapy and the care of the oppressed, combining the two in the service of solidarity politics.” A collaboration with the Ajyal Foundation, the EP brought together Palestinian and international artists. The funds raised are being gathered for psychotherapeutic support to the people of Palestine. My friend tobha also collaborated with Lara Sheehi and Catene.

01’20’20: CBC News - What ‘from the river to the sea’ chant means to different people

The first person interviewed is the Palestinian-American writer Yousef Munayyer. The documentary also mentions Rashida Tlaib who was re-elected to a fourth term representing in the U.S. House of Representatives during the November, 2024 election.

01’21’20: Mark Pritchard - Be Like Water

During my Fluctuations residency aboard a riverboat, I wrote a playful piece narrated from the perspective of the river beneath us. Interestingly, this river-as-narrator approach has emerged as a recurring motif in contemporary literature, though it might stem from ancient traditions. Perhaps this perspective has gained new traction in the wake of nations like Colombia, New Zealand, and India granting rivers legal personhood, reshaping how we conceptualize their agency and voice.

01’24’10: Sainkho Namtchylak - Singing To The Sea

Tuvan throat singing from the experimental and spiritual artist.

01’27’40: A voice note from Alice

Friends, I’ve heard you worry that your voice notes might end up in my sets. But keep them coming, pals—I would never use anything intimate publicly without asking for permission first. This is Jan Loup speaking, and it makes sense that she might be featured here, as her shows Mana Machine are perfect examples of free-floating musical diaries. Ugo and I often refer to Alice as our wise daughter: she’s younger than us in age, yet always offers wise, caring, and thoughtful words. In this message, Alice talks about worlds collapsing and the hope of love—whether romantic, erotic, platonic, friendly, or however you define or desire it. This encapsulates the tension I’ve been trying to hold in my mixes recently: I find myself tending to grief, making space for anger, sadness, confusion and sometimes silence, whilst also allowing eros, perhaps joy or even playfulness. So very grateful for the vibrations that move through and the sounds that transform us.

In A Tale for the time being, Nao reports that as memories “licked the edges” of her mind, “like little waves”, she remembered a karaoke party where Old Jiko sang a song called the “Impossible Dream”. In her diary, she writes: “Somehow, I connected that song to her [Old Jiko’s] vow to save all beings, and as I watched her lying there, I felt sad because she had failed, and the world was still filled with creeps and hentai [perverts]. But then something else occurred to me, that maybe her failure didn’t matter, because at least she’d been true to her impossible dream until the very end.”

May all sentient beings live in peace. May our souls grow deep like the rivers.