FMN010: CHOPPA Chops

Free Music Now! Vol. 10: CHOPPA Chops
Original broadcast: January 20, 2010 (Wed), 2230-0000h (GMT +8)

In support of the good people at CHOPPA who've been diligently organising Singapore's only regular experimental and improv music night* since January 2007, FMN! presents choice cuts from the last three years of CHOPPA, as well as some favourites who will be performing at the second CHOPPA Festival, taking place on 19 (Tue), 21 (Thu) and 22 (Fri) January. By coincidence or otherwise, we'll be airing on the festival's "off" night (Wed)...

Link: CHOPPA 2010 Festival site

* Full disclosure: Mark has performed at three previous CHOPPA sessions

To tune in "live" to the show, please download either of the following:

http://unpopularradio.b2netsolutions.com:8000/listen.pls

http://unpopularradio.unionpost.org:8000/listen.pls

Then open the listen.pls file in your iTunes, Winamp or VLC media player during the broadcast time.

Live playlist:
(Reload this page during the "live" broadcast to see the playlist being generated!)

1. George Chua - Black Gold (excerpt) (8:00)
2. Zbigniew Karkowski - Execution of Intelligence (8:15)
3. Goh Lee Kwang - Godot is Coming 1 (3:23)
4. I \ D - Assimilate and spit fire. Destroy! (7:19)
5. Pimmon - New Matin (6:34)
6. Under the Velvet Sky - Rain at the Break of Dawn (2:41)
7. Iron Egg - Live at CHOPPA Nov 2008 (excerpt) (8:00)
*** Free Improv Poetry Response to Iron Egg ***
8. Aya Sekine/Yuta Nakayama - Syndoroma (2:12)
9. Uchihashi Kazuhisa & Yoshida Tatsuya - IMPROVISATIONS 3 (3:11)
10. Yoshida Tatsuya - Live at HADAKA C (excerpts) (?:??)

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CHOPPA Festival 2010

Singapore's only regular live improv series holds its second festival this week. This time, it's a three-day bash with the only downside being that it's all on week days (Tue, Thu, Fri)...

Full artist list: Ruins, Cho Sokkyo, Zbigniew Karkowski, Uchihashi Kazuhisa, Pimmon, Black Zenith (Darren Moore & Brian O'Reilly), George Chua, Brian O'Reilly, Goh Lee Kwang, Yuta Nakayama, Aya Sekine, Darren Moore, Tim O'Dwyer, I \ D, Under the Velvet Sky...

Links:
Official Web Site
My review of the inaugural festival for the Wire magazine

FMN009: Cover Versions

Free Music Now! Vol. 9: Cover Versions
Original broadcast: January 14, 2010 (Thu), 2230-0000h (GMT +8)

We're airing on Thursday this week! Why? Blame Cat Power!

In the spirit of Chan Marshall, this generation's foremost re-interpreter of song, FMN! presents a programme of cover versions.

While in some contexts (say, a night at Timbre), the idea of cover versions means a dearth of originality and a conservative clamour for the familiar, the tried and the tested, we've cast our nets far and wide to source for reworkings that are one or more of the following: radical, endearing, unusual, cute, impressive, fucked up...

To tune in "live" to the show, please download either of the following:

http://unpopularradio.b2netsolutions.com:8000/listen.pls

http://unpopularradio.unionpost.org:8000/listen.pls

Then open the listen.pls file in your iTunes, Winamp or VLC media player during the broadcast time.

Live playlist:
(Reload this page during the "live" broadcast to see the playlist being generated!)

1. Susanna and the Magical Orchestra - Love Will Tear Us Apart (Joy Division cover) 5:08)
2. Smashing Pumpkins w/ Red Red Meat - Sad Peter Pan (Vic Chesnutt cover) (5:03)
3. Imogen Heap - Thriller (Michael Jackson cover) (4:26)
4. Cat Power - I've Been Loving You Too Long (Otis Redding cover) (3:36)
5. Michelle Goh - Walk on the Wild Side (Lou Reed cover) (3:43)
6. Humpback Oak - Lower Girl (FMN! tribute to Ris Low) (3:38)
7. Force Vomit w/ Rizman Putra - Another Brick in the Wall, Part II (Pink Floyd cover) (5:03)
8. Etc - Guide These Hands (Zircon Lounge cover) (6:37)
9. Moods - No Ordinary Love (Sade cover) (5:29)
10. Phorous - There is a Light that Never Goes Out (The Smiths cover) (7:35)
11. Dishwalla- It's Going to Take Some Time (Carpenters cover) (4:16)
12. Coldplay - Fight For Your Right (Beastie Boys cover) (2:29)
13. Nina Gordon - Straight Out of Compton (N.W.A. cover) (1:49)
14. Banjo or Freakout - Archangel (Burial cover) (5:22)
15. Ryuichi Sakamoto - Insensatez (Antônio Carlos Jobim cover, Remodel by Alva Noto) (5:18)

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FMN008: The Freedom Fifteen

Free Music Now! Vol. 8: The Freedom Fifteen
Original broadcast: January 6, 2010 (Wed), 2230-0000h (GMT +8)

Facebook Event Page

Presented by Mark Wong

Not since 9/11 had we experienced such a jolt to global consciousness as on June 25, 2009: the day MJ died. I'd woken up early that morning, seen the BBC tweet, then promptly posted the news on my Facebook wall. The air seemed to hang a little heavier that day, and I turned in a little late for work because I really had to re-watch that 1983 Motown performance of Billie Jean on YouTube.

For the next days and weeks, emotional tributes poured freely alongside more cynical commentaries. A cottage industry of conspiracy theorists was spawned, with news articles and blogs poring over "evidence" of his murder or "conversion" to Islam, even as Michael's "ghost" was spotted revisiting its old Neverland haunts.

If you're finding this all a little suspicious, don't worry, this week's show won't be about MJ. But as I was preparing for this relook at the year in music in 2009, I couldn't ignore the fact that MJ's death marked the significant passing of an entire cultural era; Michael may well have been the last truly global superstar with a multi-generational audience base to (moon)walk the planet.

MJ's universal appeal was the result of a number of factors, not least being the consolidation of media power amassed in the music industry of the eighties and nineties. This control of the channels of information lay the groundwork for a monolithic superstar to emerge. Simon Reynold's recent observations about the "musically fragmented" age we live in is precisely the result of the dismantling of the traditional music industry, the ascendancy of the internet and the gradually unfolding revolution in music production, distribution and consumption--hey, this is why unpopular.radio and Free Music Now! even exist!

So anyway, FMN008 presents the Freedom Fifteen: 15 songs of 2009 that made us feel a little better to be alive.

To tune in "live" to the show, please click on either of the following:

http://unpopularradio.b2netsolutions.com:8000/listen.pls

http://unpopularradio.unionpost.org:8000/listen.pls

Open the listen.pls file in your iTunes, Winamp or VLC media player during the broadcast time.

Live playlist:
(Reload this page during the "live" broadcast to see the playlist being generated!)

Honourable mentions:
* Animal Collective - My Girls (5:42)
* Burial - Fostercare (5:32)
* Dinosaur Jr. - Plans (6:42)
* Eswandy Sarip/Muliana - Darkness in Our Light (10:23)
* Patrick Wolf - Hard Times (3:33)

And the Freedom Fifteen...
15. X'Ho - Substation 1992 (3:46)
14. NAO - Movement (3:48)
13. Arrington de Dionyso - Rasa Sentuh (Sense of Touch) (2:42)
12. Killeur Calculateur - Tigers Gone Ape (2:13)
11. Stellarium - Fader (6:14)
10. Gnaw - Vacant (5:03)
9. I, Noiseferatu - In the City (4:43)
8. Max Lane - Preamble (3:29)
7. aspidistrafly - Endless Dreamless (3:05)
6. Joy Orbison - Hyph Mngo (5:38)
5. Tortoise - Prepare Your Coffin (3:37)
4. Mellonyellow - The Longest Yard (2:29)
3. Dirty Projectors - Stillness is the Move (5:14)
2. Sunn O))) - Big Church (9:42)
1. The Observatory - Mind Roots (5:35)

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