RADIO REPORT #1 FROM THE DISSIDENCE

An episode from WORM Sound Studio’s Klangendum Radio series, 2024

Field recordings and mix are by an old WORM friend, the “free” musician Sajjra Xhrs Galarreta. 

All sounds are one-take live recordings: no effects, no overdubs or overlays were applied, just small crossfades, equalizations and an intense process of selection and exposition to the live acoustic experiences during the recordings. Spoken words by Galarreta and Margarita Milova. Everything was mixed in Kathmandu in September 2024.

About the dissidence:

In 2020, during COVID’s border restrictions, Turkey was the only “neutral” place where I and my partner – She is a Russian national and I am a Peruvian national– could meet and live together, after more than one year of not seeing each other. COVID catches us living separated on different sides of the formerly called “Iron Curtain”. In Turkey, we were living peacefully for two-and-a-half years, running a research and artist-in-residency project called “Melismas : voices modulated by Anatolian landscapes” with the participation of Ukrainian, Dutch, English and Romanian artists.

There, for the first time, I felt that renewing the residence permit was not as complicated for people of our nationalities as it was in many other countries. Then when the war in Ukraine generated more border restrictions, unexpectedly we were evicted from Turkey. As I work mostly in Europe, I was willing to bring Margarita with me to continue making art together but the border restrictions still do not allow us to go there.

So we went to Russia. I stayed there for some time then I travelled alone through Europe for six months to work playing concerts, making art projects, building stages and to update my French residency permit. Then I crossed all Europe again by land to meet Margarita in Russia, with a plan to go somewhere else to live. Uzbekistan and Georgia were options considered, but the facilities that India gave to foreigners for a long term stay and the affordable tickets departing from Moscow, make us decide for this country. We are currently continuing our “transhumance” through Asia.

I came up with the idea of sharing in raw form with others the acoustic gems that I have been accumulating while travelling all these years, and to do it in radio format. Since I have had a portable recorder (I got my first one in 1995 approximately), I have made field recordings in different acoustic dimensions – ex: environmental, electromagnetic, underwater sounds – within my country and also in different places in South and Central America, Europe, Eurasia, the Middle East and Asia.

I am not loving, making music, working or living within the standards or in the politically correct way to be welcomed everywhere I go without restrictions. Always, I have to deal with visa issues and because of my natural insubordination, I also awaken allergies to social control organisations. So I don’t have the profile to be welcomed as a potential citizen who will pay taxes and keep quiet in exchange for comfort. So I have to be constantly moving. I don’t choose to act like this, sometimes it happens even me not noticing it. I don’t regret it, however I can not say that it is easy. It got dangerous, epiphanic, funny, tragic, mystical, kamikaze, ridiculous and boring sometimes, but still feels and sounds good.

Listen to this episode: click here