Aerial Holding Hands

Prior to the Internet, I grew up on the Orkney Islands. Popular radio was broadcast on both AM and FM, but due to harsh weather conditions, inconvenient landscapes and general far-awayness, signals often experienced interference or were limited. At midnight, the music I listened to on AM was interrupted half-way through by a warning that broadcasting on this frequency would be phased and replaced by FM. Night after night, I lay in contorted positions in my bed, holding onto a wire aerial so I could cling onto a mangled FM signal, in a battle to preserve my grasp on mainstream pop and contemporary late night chatter.

This is an experimental narrative that attempts to re-enact my experience as a radio listener, and consolidate two opposing characters: the slick hiss of FM and the dull thud of AM. Aerial Holding Hands will be aired as a split broadcast with a different channel on the FM broadcast and the Internet webstream.

Written and produced by Catriona Shaw except ‘Transmission’, written by Joy Division (Curtis; Morris; Hook; Sumner)
Co-production by Fred Bigo Shaw.
Recorded in The Padded Cell, Berlin, Germany and Le Chantier, Louverné, France in 2016.