Tag: BBC

Listened Late Junction – Thom Yorke’s mixtape – BBC Sounds from BBC

Catch up on your favourite BBC radio show from your favourite DJ right here, whenever you like. Listen without limits with BBC Sounds.

I always love Yorke’s thinking about music. In a short discussion at the start of his set he discusses his love of tape for recording, the place of mathematics within art and different possibilities and potentials out there. It was this last point that really left me thinking. Listening to Autechre or Father John Misty is not about reproducing their sound, but simply being aware of what sounds are in fact possible. This was in part in reference to his work associated with his soundtrack for Suspiria.
Bookmarked Should we really all fly less? by Diego Arguedas Ortiz (bbc.com)

But if I eat less meat or take fewer flights, that’s just me – how much of a difference can that really make? Actually, it’s not just you. Social scientists have found that when one person makes a sustainability-oriented decision, other people do too.

Diego Arguedas Ortiz discusses a recent study unpacking the individual actions that can help lead to climate change. Some of these actions include taking public transport, invest in renewable energies, eat less meat and stop flying. If this is too much then Arguedas Ortiz provides a list of actions to offset your activities. On the flipside, Martin Lukacs argues that individual action is a con and that what is really needed is collective action:

So grow some carrots and jump on a bike: it will make you happier and healthier. But it is time to stop obsessing with how personally green we live – and start collectively taking on corporate power.

Listened The Cult of Aphex Twin – BBC Radio 4 by John Doran from BBC

Music writer John Doran ventures into the strange world of Richard D James. Over the course of three decades James, known to his legion of hardcore fans as Aphex Twin, has achieved the primary but evasive aim of most serious musicians – the invention, exploration and curation of a truly unique and inimitable sound.

John Doran reflects on the stories associated with Aphex Twin. The myth that maketh the man. This is in contrast to something like Deep Cuts’ guide to the music:

I remember growing up with many of the myths, such as Richard D James drove around in a tank. I also once met a DJ who told me he was a part of a tour in the 90’s where Richard D James spent a whole gig just playing ping pong on the computer.

What is most intriguing about Richard D James is his ability to push back on expectation. I remember when I saw him perform in 2004.

It was like nothing I had ever experienced before and since. Where some dance/electronic acts have a certain rhythm and structure of highs and lows, the whole set was just intense music with no transitions. A musical journalist I went with actually left the gig early.

There is something about both Richard D James and his music that drags the listener in only to spit them out once again. There is a constant teasing of order never quite achieved.

Bookmarked How faking your feelings at work can be damaging by Keren Levy (bbc.com)

Remaining true to your feelings appears to be key – numerous studies show those who report regularly having to display emotions at work that conflict with their own feelings are more likely to experience emotional exhaustion.

Of course, everybody needs to be professional at work and handling difficult clients and colleagues is often just part of the job. But what’s clear is that putting yourself in their shoes and trying to understand their position is ultimately of greater benefit to your own well-being than voicing sentiments that, deep down, you don’t believe.

It is an interesting dilemma balancing between the personal and private. I think that rather than everyone maintaining the ‘party line’ that it is important for people to translate the core message into their own story or explanation.
Liked How your workplace is killing you by Jeff Pfeffer (bbc.com)

The evidence is unequivocal: job-related anxiety is a growing health crisis with repercussions for your mental and physical well-being.

People need to choose their employer not just for salary and promotion opportunities but on the basis of whether the job will be good for their psychological and physical health. Business leaders should measure the health of their workforce, not just profits.

Listened Bookclub – BBC Radio 4 from BBC

Led by James Naughtie, readers talk to acclaimed authors about their best-known novels

Here are a collection of quotes I came across in my Evernote as I was cleaning it out from old BBC Bookclub episodes.

Hilary Mantel

History is not something that is behind us, it is something that we move through

History is never cut or dry, because it happened that way, it doesn’t mean it had to happen that way

We have to think of [fiction] not as an addition to history or an alteration of history, we have to think of it as a parallel record, because fiction deals with that which by its nature never comes along to the historical record. The private life, the private thought, the private word, the unexpressed impulse, the thought repressed, the dream, the inner being, the workings of the psyche

Clive James

The problem with anyone who talks well is that they often talk too much

Eventually I achieved sharing as a moral imperative, but I never learnt it

Paul Auster

A book is made by two people – a writer and a reader

Will Self

You don’t really research fiction, except through life

John Banville

I know there are failures on every page and I am tormented by that. That is why I write another book, so that I can get it right.

Listened Kate Bush, Radio 4 on Music – BBC Radio 4 from BBC

In November 2005, Kate Bush broke a 12 year silence with the release of her double album ‘Aerial’, In this programme she gives a very rare interview to John Wilson in a special edition of Front Row, where she talks about why the album took so long to appear and tells some of the stories behind the songs.

Kate Bush reflects on music, the influence of technology and way in which she crafts her work.

I think that it would be a shame that, amoungst all this technology, for us to lose our sense of humanity. Music is suffering greatly from the overuse of computers and taking away the human element, which art is about human expression. I think machines and technologies should be used by people, you should not be a slave to them.

This reminded me of the discussion of Nigel Godrich’s use of tape in the production of music as a part of episode two of the Soundbreaking documentary.

via Austin Kleon