Prior to the Internet, I grew up on a Scottish island, feeling deprived of many a thing. 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 the crackly but more reliable AM would be interrupted half-way through by a jolly male voice, repeating a warning that broadcasting on this frequency would, due to a government decision, be phased out altogether to be replaced by better, more modern FM. Night after night, I lay in contorted positions in my bed, holding onto a wire aerial so I could receive and cling onto a mangled FM signal, all in a desperate battle to preserve my grasp on the here and now of 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. Two separate pieces, each 27 minutes long, one no better than the other. They can be played simultaneously, or individually, depending on your listening circumstances at the time.

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.