Stephen presented the story of X-Ray Audio at this year's TEDx conference in Krakow on Saturday, June 13, 2015 to a very enthusiastic audience.
You can wtach below
TEDx (Ray) Krakow
X-RAY AUDIO - review on VICE
Following our events, in New York last week, VICE have run a long piece on the project by Kim Kelly. The events were amazing. Sukdhev Sandhu of New York University invited us to speak at his Colloquium of Unpopular Culture. It was great and strangely appropriate to be in a physics laboratory with slightly cold war feel to it. A lot of Russians came and we recorded a live performance by New York based Russian jazz singer Svetlana Shmulyian. Svetlana sang a song by 'Eddie' Rosner - very appropriate as Rosner was one of the prominent Jazz musicians who was arrested and imprisoned during the post war Soviet era (although we have yet to come across his music on x-ray).
We followed up with an evening at the extraordinary Museum of Morbid Anatomy in Brooklyn. We were joined by our friend Marcella Puppini to sing the old Russian song Dorrogoi Dlinnoyou which Aleks recorded straight to x-ray.
Thanks to our hosts and to all the people who came. It is so rewarding to realise how much this story connects with people.
The VICE piece is HERE
X-RAY AUDIO - In The Moscow Times
Rather strange, though very nice, to have the X-Ray Audio Project featured in The Moscow Times last week. Seemed a bit cheeky in a way to have a piece in a Russian newspaper about a British project on Russian culture.. The piece was written by veteran Russian music journalist Sergey Chernov. We are hoping it might provoke Russians who read it or hear about it, to get in touch with stories about Music on the Bone.
We are grateful to Sergey Chernov because apart from authoring the article he helped us several times in St Petersburg to meet people and make various interviews for the project and book.
The Article is HERE
X-RAY AUDIO @ NYU Wednesday 6th May
THE COLLOQUIUM FOR UNPOPULAR CULTURE PRESENTSX-RAY AUDIO: A STORY OF FORBIDDEN MUSIC, COLD WAR CULTURE AND SOVIET BOOTLEG TECHNOLOGY
Aleks and Stephen will be presenting the project with a live demonstration of cutting to x-ray at New York University on May 6th and will be joined for a very special performance by Russian singer SVETLANA SHMULYIAN
The event is FREE
For more details go HERE
Morbid Anatomy
We are very much looking forward to being at the Museum of Morbid Anatomy in Brooklyn next week, It is a avery appropriate venue for X-Ray Audio. The director Joanna Ebenstein is a friend and she does incredible work. If you don't know about it already, do check it out
Stephen wrote this month's guest post on X-Ray Audio in the Morbid Anatomy blog
The event at the museum with Stephen and Aleks is HERE. We have just had news they will be joined by a VERY special guest from whom an x-ray record will be cut live..
Bones Baltic BBC
The exhibition at THE BALTIC CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ARTS (see below) is a fabulous tribute to crazy vinyl culture. The X-Ray Audio section is very nicely sited adjacent to an amazing film piece by Christian Marclay which shows a gramophone needle riding the grooves of a record in huge close up.
On 16th APRIL, Stephen and Aleks Kolkowski will be presenting an evening on the project with a talk, images, film and a demonstration of the cutting of a new X-Ray record.
Paul Smith vocalist of the band MAXIMO PARK has graciously submitted himself to be x-rayed this time. He will be performing a song form his new album live and Aleks will be cutting it straight to x-ray .
TICKETS HERE
BBC ARTS covered the exhibition with a film featuring the X-Ray Audio installation and an interview with curator Alessandro Vincentelli. (Although the x-ray bootlegs were not imported into the Soviet Union as stated, they were made there and the use of X-rays was not an attempt to disguise the true nature of the records).
The Curves of the Needle at The Baltic
The X-Ray Audio Project will be heading up to Gateshead next month for the next exhibition at THE BALTIC CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ARTS
Stephen Coates and Paul Heartfield have curated a selection of Soviet X-Ray bootlegs plus associate images and ephemera for "The Curves of the Needle' show:
3 APRIL 2015 - 17 MAY 2015
"The Curves of the Needle considers a recurring interest in the vinyl record by artists. This group exhibition explores album artwork, the cultural significance of the record collection and brings together contemporary artists who have experimented with the format, including; David Blandy, Sam Belinfante, Graham Dolphin, Rhodri Davies, Zoviet France, Bruce Haack, Sun Ra, Dj78, Jonathan Monk, Elizabeth Price, Philip Jeck/Lol Sargent, Eliane Radigue, David Toop, X Ray Audio Project, Christian Marclay, alt.vinyl, Jim Lambie, and Michael Wilkinson."
On 16th APRIL, Stephen and Aleks Kolkowski will be presenting an evening on the project with a talk, images, film and a live demonstration of cutting a new X-Ray record from audio
For more upcoming events go HERE
For the Vinyl Factory's post on the exhibition go HERE
X-Ray Audio in The Guardian
An extensive and detailed piece on the project by Pete Paphides was published in The Guardian today. It is called 'BONE MUSIC' and offers an insight into importance of format in the way we perceive recorded music as well as great words on our exhibition at The Horse Hospital.
There are wise words from Aleks Kolkowski and more about his work in cutting music onto repurposed cds as well as X-Rays.
You can read it HERE
X-Ray Audio: Bones and the BBC
The X-Ray Audio Exhibition has enjoyed a lot of media attention in the last weeks. Stephen was on BBC Radio 4's TODAY program talking about it with Sarah Montague and the Russian journalist Victoria Bazoeva.
You can check it out HERE
That piece made it to Pick of the Week on Sunday: the weekly round up of the best programming from the previous seven day
BBC Ukraine ran a piece with some of the music that Stephen has composed for the project and which Aleks cut onto X-Ray
And last weekend BBC WORLD ran a very nice piece called 'Bone Music' by producer Natalia Rolleston with Stephen and Aleks Kolkowski which almost sounds like a trailer for our upcoming documentary.
Have a listen
Extra Live Date at The Horse Hospital Added
Next Wednesday's Live event sold out so fast, that we have added an additional date at The Horse Hospital on Friday 30th January. Tickets are HERE
Stephen and Aleks will be telling the strange history story of the X-Ray Bootlegs and will be providing a live demonstration of recording onto used X-Ray plates using vintage analogue record-cutting lathes. This time, uniquely they will be cutting X-Rays from an actual live musical performance by special guest Marcella Puppini
The live events take place inside our exhibition at London's Horse Hospital which runs until January 31st. There is a selection of original beautiful and spooky forbidden x-ray bootlegs collected in Russia over the last few years plus film, images, associated ephemera and a miscellany of strange objects
X-Ray Audio: Soviet Bootlegs Exhibition and Live Event
STEPHEN COATES and PAUL HEARTFIELD will be holding an exhibition of Soviet X-Ray Bootlegs, film , images, associated ephemera and miscellany at London's Horse Hospital from January 21st - 31st. They will present a selection of these beautiful and spooky forbidden records collected in Russia over the last few years.
And Stephen and sound artist ALEKS KOLKOWSKI will be repeating October's sold out presentation of the story of the X-Ray bootlegs on Wednesday 28th January. Aleks will provide a commentary on groove-based recording techniques on plastic and they will be providing another live demonstration of recording onto used X-Ray plates using vintage analogue record-cutting lathes.
This time, uniquely they will be cutting X-Rays from an actual live musical performance.
More details HERE
EXHIBITION: Wednesday 21st - Sat 31st January 12 – 6pm (except Sundays)
PRIVATE VIEW: Tuesday January 20th 7pm
LIVE EVENT: Wednesday 28th January 7pm
Extinctions - X-Ray Audio feature in BBC's The Echo Chamber
The Echo Chamber is a beautiful, evocative BBC Radio Four program made by producer Tim Dee and presenter Paul Farley. Each episode features poetry and music around a particular theme. The first episode of the new series is 'Extinctions' and features sounds from the X-Ray Audio Project:
"Paul Farley listens to old and new poetry of extinction one hundred years after the death of Martha, the last ever passenger pigeon. With poems from Fleur Adcock, Sean O'Brien, W.S. Merwin and David Harsent and the sounds of X-ray audio, the samizdat music of the Soviet Union that used black-market plates of skulls and ribcages to capture the beginnings of rock and roll."
You can listen again HERE on I player until the end of December
X-Ray Audio in The Quietus
The magazine The Quietus have published an article by Stephen with background about the X-Ray recordings in the Soviet Union, the X-Ray Audio project and our recent Bone cutting experiments.
Click HERE to read
X-Ray Audio - The Real Tuesday Weld on X-Ray
The Skeletons in Waiting X-Ray Record
At the amazing launch of the X-Ray Audio Project at The Horse Hospital last week, we carried out a crazy experiment. Egged on by a very enthusiastic audience, Alex Kolkowski cut a new X-Ray bone record live from 'Skeletons in Waiting' a specially written song by The Real Tuesday Weld recorded onto a dub plate. (For more info on the process go here).
Buoyed by the success of the experiment, will be repeating the process for a radio documentary and, as a world first, making a special limited edition release on X-Ray for Rough Trade's independent Record Store day.
X-Ray Audio at The Horse Hospital
Courtesy Gregory
We will be at London's The Horse Hospital on October 8th, talking launching the project and showing images and films from our latest trip to Russia.
We will be joined by composer, sound artist and researcher Aleks Kolkowski. He will be providing a live demonstration of recording onto X-Ray plates using a vintage analogue record-cutting lathe and talking about the recording techniques used to make Bones records. Stephen has written a special piece of music for the experiment.
Tickets and info are available here
X-RAY AUDIO - Interviews
Photo:Paul Heartfield
Photographer Paul Heartfield and I have just returned from Russia. In St Petersburg and Moscow we filmed and interviewed several more people about the making, selling and culture of listening to X-Ray records. It was fascinating and at times, quite moving. As well as discovering more about a particular culture at a particular time, we learned much more about Russian music and the indomitability of spirit of music fans who at times risked their liberty to enjoy and share the songs they loved.
We will be showing clips of filmed interviews in upcoming events - including that with the delightful Nick Markovitch (pictured) who provided us with some hair-raising tales of the danger of trading with the illegal X-Ray bootlegs.
X-RAY AUDIO - upcoming Events
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We will be PRESENTING the project at:
THE HORSE HOSPITAL - 8 October 2014
WESTMINSTER ARTS LIBRARY - 13 November 2014
We will be EXHIBITING the project in London at:
THE HORSE HOSPITAL -January 2015
WESTMINSTER ARTS LIBRARY - March 2015
Contact us for more upcoming events
X-RAY AUDIO - in The Echo Chamber
Courtesy of Aleksandr Khrisanov
The X Ray Audio Project will feature in this Autumn's BBC 4 series 'The Echo Chamber' prior to the completion of a full radio documentary. The
X-RAY AUDIO - at London's GRAD Gallery
X-Ray Audio at London's GRAD Gallery
A selection of the authors' X-ray recordings are currently showing at London's contemporary Russian GRAD GALLERY in the"Work-and-play-behind-the-iron-curtain" exhibition.
They are exhibited above a 'Jubileyniy RG -3' portable record player made in the Zhdanov factory, Leningrad c 1957 - 1960. This would have been a typical machine to play such recordings at the time.
X-RAY AUDIO - now funded by Arts Council England
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The X Ray Audio Project has received ARTS COUNCIL ENGLAND funding.
We are currently researching toward exhibiting and publication in 2015 and will be presenting a series of public events in the meantime.
