“Jose Macabra Presents” was a boundary-pushing radio series created for Resonance Extra, where I invited experimental artists to open up their archives, share their processes, and delve into the deeper layers of their sonic practices. Blending interviews, archival exploration, and curated sound mixes, each episode became a space of artistic freedom where noise, memory, and storytelling collided. A testament to sonic rebellion and radical listening.
Jose Macabra Presents #1 – Jon Weinel
Monday 27th May 2019 20:00 – 22:00 BST
More copy here…
Jose Macabra Presents #2 – Jose Macabra Retrospective
Monday 24th June 2019 20:00 – 22:00 BST
More copy here…
Jose Macabra Presents #3 – Nuno Veiga
Monday 22nd July 2019 20:00 – 22:00 BST
More copy here…
Jose Macabra Presents #4 – Azra vs Macabra
Monday 26th August 2019 20:00 – 22:00 BST
Jose Macabra presents solo work and other collaborations.
Back to back Possession & Trance Themed DJ Set
Jose Macabra Presents #5 – Gunther Iscariot Retrospective
Monday 23rd September 2019 20:00 – 22:00 BST
In this episode, he presents a retrospective of Gunther Iscariot, who specialises in dotwork, from geometrical to psychedelic, from patterns to organic.
His work designing abstract visual and audio shapes for the underground music scene collided with his work as a body piercer in the early days of geometrical tattooing and since then that obsession keeps on driving. His abstract explorations now find a home on the skin.
Jose Macabra Presents #6 – Guy Harries
A live mix by Jose Macabra containing solo and collaborative work of Guy Harries.
Some of Guy’s sonic collaborators:
Airlie Scott, Anna Levenstein, Arnon Zlotnik, Louise Miller, Hilary Jeffery, Alfredo Genovesi, DJ DNA, Tate Ensemble, Mervi Kinnarinen, Tom Tlalim and the vocal ensemble from Institute of Sonology, Royal Conservatoire, The Hague 2003.
Guy Harries is a #composer, #soundartist and #performer, working with #electronics, #acoustic #instruments, #voice and #multimedia. He explores the use of #live electronics in #music with a focus on #dramaturgy, the #performative and #audience #participation.
His music releases include solo work and collaborations with the POW Ensemble plays STEIN, MeiraAsher and Yumi Hara on the labels X-OR, SubRosa, Migro. His latest album titled Fault Line was released on the label Sombre Soniks.
He also composes #socio-#politically engaged #opera including Jasser (tour throughout the Netherlands in 2006/07) and Two Caravans (Flourish New Opera Prize winner 2012), and also runs a #community opera devising #workshop at Theatre Delicatessen – Deli Studios. He also works as a #singer-#songwriter under the moniker Guy XY and recently released the album Turing Cabaret inspired by the life of Alan Turing.
Guy completed his PhD in #Electroacoustic Music at City University and teaches at the University Of East London and Trinity Laban Conservatoire Of Music and Dance.
Jose Macabra Presents #7- Cindytalk
Scotland’s Cindytalk attempts difficult pathways – arcane footsteps leading to both the Ring of Brodgar and the exploration of long evacuated space stations.
Jose Macabra Presents #8 – Institution D.O.L
NSTITUTION D.O.L. was founded in 1998 by Barbie B.(Matthias Beisl), who sees and describes the work as Industrial Music, as an ultimate soundtrack for visualising all aspects of life. And this can be from quiet, ambient tracks to rolling and rhythmic patterns and harsh sounds.
Jose Macabra Presents #9- Christian Duka
Christian Duka is a sound artist/designer, academic, curator and researcher working primarily in immersive settings, focusing on audience involvement and participation.
Following his residency at MONOM 4D Sound in Berlin in 2018, Christian continued his work with 3D audio at Aures London in Waterloo, where he curated the immersive interdisciplinary performance “UR: Human Presence” and “Amoenus”, a series of immersive events featuring local artists and organisations.
His interest is that of creating dreamlike experiences in waking life – extremely emotionally charged situations that make no logical sense whatsoever, hence becoming open to individual interpretation. He thinks that getting closer to the rawness of human emotions can be an antidote for the depressing condition of our modern times. He is convinced that the key to such emotional rawness lies in the way we experience our dreams.
It is with these feelings that he has produced experimental music, both as a solo artist and in collaboration with others (DVKA, MARMO, w/ F.ITCH etc). His music is mostly improvised, directly expressing complex feelings felt in the present moment. He uses improvisation as a way to deeply connect with the collaborators he makes music with and to investigate his own psyche.
Jose Macabra Presents #10 – Jose Macabra’s The Eye Of The Beholder.
Suspended in time and space, a mega-city of 9 million human-beings converge on the edge of a new age.
This project is a collaborative work of academic investigation, photography and sound design. It was undertaken in September 2019 – March 2020 by Jose Macabra (Sound Design), Yis Kid (Photography) and Lupus (Words).
A systematic process was followed in which areas of interest were highlighted for their polarising economic, social and cultural make-up.
Research on the shifting landscape in these regions was undertaken via the use of academic publications, online journalism, newspaper articles and interviews.
Jose Macabra Presents #11 A.C.L.
Jose Macabra presents solo work and other collaborations. In this episode, Antichildleague (UK).
“The indestructible and hyperactive Gaya Donadio, also known as Hagshadow/Hinoeuma, demonstrates the project named ACL as another mutation of the famous Antichildleague. The anti-music of ACL began in 1997 as a post-punk experiment, soon taking the shape of completely radical and unrestricted performances applying all possible media. Gaia’s personality hates rest: uncompromising and productive for more than 20 years, totally active on the London industrial scene.
As a performer, she has participated in an infinite number of projects and collaborations (e.g. with Partick Leagas of Sixth Comm and Martine Bowes of Attrition). As a solo artist, she recorded a series of albums, including’The Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit’.
ACL’s ingredients are elements of sub-genres such as harsh noise, power electronics industrial, rhythm noise, and ritual dark ambient.ACL is a solo instrument of fight and determination, whose each live-action is a display of uncontrollable rage and readiness for confrontation. Attention needed.”
Jose Macabra Presents#12 – S.T.A.B. Electronics Retrospective
S.T.A.B. is Keith G Finnan:
The project was born from the ashes of Einheit 731, which was a darker, more ambient outfit. Initially, S.T.A.B. was meant to be a one-off project, a tribute to Marco Corbelli of Atrax Morgue, who I was in dialogue with before he committed suicide. S.T.A.B. seemed to resonate with people and I was encouraged by Unrest Productions (who I’ve worked with ever since) to carry on the moniker. So I decided to shelve Einheit 731 and continue as S.T.A.B.
Jose Macabra Presents #13 – Vagina Dentata Organ Retrospective
Vagina Dentata Organ is an art and noise music project by Jordi Valls. Valls is from Catalonia, Spain, and cites the influence of the surrealists, especially Salvador Dali, on his work. His albums could be classed as especially bleak field recordings, dealing with subject matter such as sex, death and violence.
Valls’ work is also concerned with the fetishism of art in general, record collecting particularly, with his own records being released in very limited edition.
Vagina Dentata Organ has provoked outrage on a number of occasions, namely by releasing the infamous recording of The Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana. Their performance in 1984 on Spanish TV programme La Edad de Oro TV caused a public outcry as it included the destruction of three paintings.
A video documentary on the first three Vagina Dentata Organ albums was made by Julian Alvarez and won first prize in the 26th Semana de Cinema in Barcelona. In 1997, the arts and culture magazine Life Without Sex dedicated a whole issue to Vagina Dentata Organ. More recently, Jordi Valls has concentrated on painting rather than recording, producing a large number of portraits of supermodels with his own blood.
Jose Macabra Presents #14 Wajid Yaseen Retrospective
Wajid Yaseen is a Manchester-born, London-based artist whose work draws on an inter-disciplinary approach to develop sound-based works encompassing installations, live performances, acousmatic music, graphic scores, and sound sculptures.
He is the director of the sound art research cooperative Modus Arts, the co-founder of the destructivist Scrapclub project, and director of the Ear Cinema project. His early career as a music producer led him to be signed to Mute Records, Planet Mu and Ad Noiseam, paving the way for collaborations with i.a. Lydia Lunch, Alan Vega, Dälek, Terry Edwards, and Franko B. Delving into inter-disciplinary practices, he has worked with a number of contemporary dance groups and choreographers such as Candoco, Athina Vahla, and Mara Castilho.
He holds an MA in Arts and Design with a focus on Sonic Arts, and his work has been exhibited and performed at the ICA Gallery, Arnolfini, Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Whitechapel Gallery, Laban, and the Freud Museum.
Jose Macabra Presents #15 – Hermann Kopp Retrospective
Hermann Kopp, a German-born composer and musician based in Barcelona, began his sound explorations in the late 70s, encouraged by the punk ethos. The early 80s saw his first vinyl releases, partly with the electro-industrial band Keine Ahnung, and later that decade he acquired a reputation for providing soundtracks to Nekromantik and Der Todesking by Berlin-based film director Jörg Buttgereit.
He left Germany in the 90s, first to France, then to Spain, putting his musical activities on hiatus. In the early years of the new century, the label Vinyl-on-demand spotted the artist in Barcelona and released two pieces of vinyl with him, giving way to further records on Red Stream, Galakthorrö a.o. as well as tapes on diverse labels.
Collaborations include the Italian noise artist Lorenzo Abattoir with whom he records under the name of Psicopompo, Am Not aka Tamon Miyakita from London, and the British doomcore act Fifth Era. A new split with Bathory Legion from Rome is being prepared. Hermann’s music comprises seemingly contradictory elements such as contemporary or classical-influenced compositions, strange song structures, violin drones and analogue electronics, all of them performed in his idiosyncratic manner.