Sounding 011

Sorcery

A few nights ago, my work was played on Estonian radio. It was introduced with such care that I wanted to share the host’s words in full.

On Fantaasia, the late-night programme on Klassikaraadio — the classical and contemporary station of Estonia’s national public broadcaster, ERR — host Hendrik Kaljujärv closed the broadcast with the title track of God Is Everything You Are Not.

“Even though there are still more than ten minutes left until the end of the programme, the next piece I’m going to put on will be the last one of this show. And I have a real urge to present this long piece in its full performance. It’s an artist on that same label — the Irish label Fort Evil Fruit — whose name is Elika Ostrov. Elika Ostrov released, just this March, the album ‘God Is Everything You Are Not.’ And looking into her a little, it turned out that she is Estonian. I hadn’t heard of her, and I also hadn’t noticed this major event being covered in Estonia at all — the release of this album — even though a review of it has appeared in none other than The Wire magazine. The Wire, for anyone who doesn’t yet know, is one of the more prominent publications of experimental music, one that still comes out in print. And the reason, perhaps, why Elika Ostrov isn’t so well known here in Estonia either is that she doesn’t live in Estonia — according to her website she’s based in Berlin. But even so, it’s a very exciting thing to know that there is, as they say, one Estonian in every port.

And this is a sixteen-minute work — I’d go so far as to call it a rite — such a sacral and likewise mythological one; as in the previous work, a mythological sensibility is present here as well. And I wish to warn the listeners that this work uses certain recognizable, audible sounds — how shall I put it — errors or glitches, the kind you can sometimes hear when an electrical device is placed close to a speaker and it starts to buzz in a very specific way. That has been used in this track too; it’s a conceptual part of the work, and there isn’t so much of it, but still — so that no one thinks it’s a technical fault — consider yourselves warned. This use of the ‘error’ has a clear intention behind it, and I think the attentive listener will understand where this intention comes from, why it is there. In any case, the message is very clear. And so, let us listen to this sorcery. Elika Ostrov, ‘God Is Everything You Are Not.’ My name is Hendrik Kaljujärv. You’ve been listening to Fantaasia, and in ten minutes it will be midnight and the first of September begins. Thank you.”

With gratitude to Hendrik Kaljujärv, Klassikaraadio, Fort Evil Fruit, and to everyone who has given this record a place.

The radio episode in full is available for listening below.