The campaigners want to stop BBC plans to make sever funding cuts and take the two stations off the airwaves because, as station controllers state, “they need to reach more listeners”. In the D/B interview, Dave explains why he decided to get involved with the protest and gives an insight into why niche music is relevant.

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Can you describe in a few sentences why it’s important to keep 6Music going?

6Music does so many things for UK music. From plugging so many new musicians, through to reminding the listeners of the great music that have been. And it does this in a way that is unique to everything else that’s around.

What are your favourite shows & presenters on 6Music?

That’s such a hard question because it all depends on what mood I’m in. I love nearly everything on there and it is probably easier to say what I don’t like, which is The Freak Zone with Stuart Maconie (but that’s just my personal choice).

Would the BBC funding cuts, if given the go-ahead, be a severe set back for alternative music in the UK / worldwide? If so, why?

If the cuts go ahead I don’t think there will be a sudden drop in ‘good’ music straight away. However, its in the long term that’s what we should be thinking about. I understand that people have to move with the times and change the way we consume our media/music but without sounding sentimental the BBC has always been a good discovering ground for music, both on radio and television.

Shutting 6Music and the Asian Network will close of an easy route in to a vast array of music that doesn’t get mainstream coverage, music that influences and shapes future musicians.

What can people do to support the campaign?

The most important thing to do is to fill in the BBC Strategy Review (on the BBC Trust website) this is the ‘direct line’ to the BBC trust that will get your voice heard by the right people.

Then there is the petition, which has 60,000+ signatures and is a good way to express your dismay at the planed cuts.

There are Facebook groups, Twitter, blogs, demonstrations and movements happening all over about the issue. It seems to have grabbed the passion of many people.

Which bands and musicians have got involved with your campaign?

Many DJs from both stations have spoken out about the plans and support the campaign, but their hands are tied to fully get involved.

There has been support from Lily Allen, David Bowie, Coldplay, U2, Stereophonics as well as many of the bands and artists that are played on both stations.

Many ‘celebrities’ have come out backing the campaign as well, such as Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Phil Jupitus, Stephen Fry and more.

Anything else you would like to say?

The BBC needs to admit that it is a mistake to cut theses stations and remember their original remit slogan which is that the BBC output is to ‘Inform, educate and entertain’.

38 Degrees | Stop the BBC cuts – email the BBC now

Facebook | Save BBC 6Music

BBC-6 Music website

Description: OSCulator is a software that links your controllers to your music and video software. For example, with OSCulator, your Nintendo Wiimote or iPhone can talk to major MIDI sequencers or your favorite console emulator or even the Kyma sound design workstation.

Try it out here.

Madeira Dig will feature this year the first retrospective exhibition and multimedia installations on Madeira Video artist Carlos Caires, live performances by Cluster, Oval, Scanner, Ryoichi Kurokawa, Philip Jeck and Portuguese artists Nuno Rebelo, Vitor Joaquim & Hugo Olim, and also music workshops for young artists, besides other activities.

Madeira Dig was created in 2004, filling a gap in Madeira’s cultural events in the field of multimedia and digital arts. The Festival aimed to bring to Madeira international top level artists from music, film, video, computer art and photography and also to motivate Madeiran artists to create new works in these fields.

Since 2004, artists like Fennesz, Gustav Deutsch, Marius Watz, Alog, Rafael Toral, Mocky, Jamie Lidell, Burnt Friedman, Vladislav Delay, AGF, Lia, Radian, Kevin Blechdom, Frank Bretschneider, were invited to present their works at the festival.

Tickets can be reserved using a simple email to mmarques@almasud.com indicating name, email, number of tickets and dates. All reservations must be cleared 1 hour before the venue. Each ticket costs 10 euros but there is available a global 3-day ticket for all venues only for 15 euros. Tickets for youngsters, students and adults over 65 will be 5 euros per day, 10 euros for a 3-day ticket.

http://www.madeiradig.net

This year the Design Hotel Estalagem da Ponta do Sol is a main sponsor of the Madeira DIG, and, as such, is hosting the afterhours sessions during the event which mixes public and artists in a relaxed and party atmosphere. Check www.designhotels.com/madeiradig for special rates for arrivals from 4 through 7 December.

ESTALAGEM DA PONTA DO SOL | Quinta da Rochinha | 9360 Ponta do Sol

The Artists in Madeira Dig 2008

SCANNER [UK]
British artist Robin Rimbaud traverses the experimental terrain between sound, space, image and form, creating absorbing, multi-layered sound pieces that twist technology in unconventional ways. From his early controversial work using found mobile phone conversations, through to his focus on trawling the hidden noise of the modern metropolis as the symbol of the place where hidden meanings and missed contacts emerge, his restless explorations of the experimental terrain have won him international admiration from amongst others, Bjork, Aphex Twin and Stockhausen. www.myspace.com/scanner

CLUSTER [DE]
The most important and consistently underrated space-rock unit of the ’70s Cluster (originally Kluster) was formed by Dieter Moebius, Hans-loachim Roedelius and Conrad Schnitzler as an improv group that used everything from synthesizers to alarm clocks and kitchen utensils in their performance. Continuing on as a duo, Moebius and Roedelius eventually recorded many landmark albums – separately, as a duo, and with all manner of guest artists from Brian Eno to Conny Plank to Neu’s Michael Rother – in the field of German space music often termed kosmische. www.myspace.com/theonlyclusterthatmatters

OVAL [DE]
Oval is Markus Popp, one of the most prolific and influential producers in contemporary electronic music, a laptop legend, a pioneer, visionary, trailblazer of the radical & beautiful – ready to reaffirm his relevance for the digital music of today. His groundbreaking, now legendary ‘Oval’ releases sent shockwaves through the electronic music landscape and laid the foundations for an entire new class of digital sound aesthetics. By boldly thinking outside the box and with an undeniable instinct for the drastic and dreamy, Popp single-handedly explored “glitch”, “clicks & cuts” and “microsound” years before the fad, spawning legions of soundalikes worldwide, who rarely reached the level of intensity and sophistication of Popp’s original compositions. www.myspace.com/markuspopp

RYOICHI KUROKAWA [JP]
Japanese audiovisual artist. His works take on multiple forms such as screening works, recordings, installation and live performance. Kurokawa composes time based sculpture with digital generated materials and field recorded sources, and the minimal and the complexities coexist there. Kurokawa accepts sound and imagery as a unit not as separately, and constructs very exquisite and precise computer based works with the audiovisual language.

PHILIP JECK [UK]
Philip Jeck works with old records and record players salvaged from junk shops turning them to his own purposes. He really does play them as musical instruments, creating an intensely personal language that evolves with each added part of a record. Philip Jeck makes geniunely moving and transfixing music, where we hear the art not the gimmick.

NUNO REBELO & VITOR JOAQUIM [PT]
Nuno Rebelo is a Portuguese guitar player, sound explorer, improviser and composer. Coming from a background of playing in pop-rock bands in the 80′s (he was the leader of Mler ife Dada, one of the most innovative portuguese bands of that time), he has composed a lot of music for contemporary dance, theatre, cinema, etc, since the 90′s.

Vitor Joaquim, laptop experimentalist, sound and visual artist, studied sound and direction for film. He started performing improvised music in 1982 and got involved in composing for dance in 1989 with Mark Haim at the CDLisbon and Coogan Dancers in Munich. Since then, he composed for dance, theatre, cinema, video, installations and multimedia, having worked with a  large number of collectives and individual creators.

D/B Recommended! Introducing Spanish artist dot tape dot (previously knowns as .tape.) might not sounds as the most urgent matter for us, as spa.RK released his delightful “Paintings” (sp11cd) late 2005. But we’ll do it, of course, as he’s right noe one of the most interesting Spanish artists working in the area of electronic music via-laptop-folk-via-postpop. He also has a wide international projection, as he just released “Tomavistas” album on US label Other Electricities. And because this lovely cd that you have on your hands is not exactly a new album by the most charming freaky artist we know but… http://www.myspace.com/repainted

VIA www.sparkreleases.com

A remixes album at this point of the game? We couldn’t refuse to the temptation of leaving some of dot tape dot favorite artists (Japanese Sora and Shugo Tokumaru, or French master Sebastien Roux) mess and reconfigure his magic loops made with toy guitars, colorful plastic xylophones and different gadgets. But then other friends subscribed also the idea and this is how the most playful electronica (ISAN, Bradien), the kings of Brit-folk (Tunng), the local delegation (Eedl, Do) and the most delicate euroelectronic artists (Bichi, Rumpistol, The Village Orchestra) joined the party.

It’s not by chance that most of these artists have a folk treatment of electronica in their work. Some of them might be considered as part of the laptop folk scene, a common and deeper link that goes beyond the current electronica scene adorned with folky reminiscences. But the original compositions by dot tape dot are used here as a platform to take us to a world full of precious melodies, electronic waltzes, Japanese exotismo and delicate rhythms.
It is pretty obvious that this cd is a whim, so , so to keep high that feeling we are also releasing another gorgeous item, a 7” with two exclusive remixes: ex-Piano Magic Arbol, remixing “The Projectionist” as a new and magnificent piece of his well-known savoir faire on the A-side, baked with spa.RK honcho Fibla remix of “You’ve Bought a Minicity…”. A fair example of what’s happening right now in Spanish scene in a lovely collectors item.
While we wait for forthcoming news (a new dot tape dot album is scheduled for next year, and also his collaboration with Spanish folk star Aroah in Acuarela records) we need to wait patiently with this delicious work that establishes new bows with the work of dot tape dot. A wait that is worth it.

Here you have what some media has said about .tape. in the past:

“…undeniably beautiful and delicate.” (Autres Directions. France)

“.tape. operate in a world of micro ideas, fragments and mini-songs…brushed vigorously with cut and paste pyrotechnics…” (BBC. UK)

“Warm and crystal-clear electronic lullabies… a richly coloured canvas of tiny noises, bubbly loops, and luminous toy melodies.” (Textura. Canada)

“No es Pascal Comelade ni The Microphones. No es Gastr del Sol ni Nobukazu Takemura, aunque bebe de todos ellos” (Avantfolk. Spain)

.tape. @ Ateneo de Madrid

Written between 1971 and 1974, Music In Twelve Parts has been declared by Glass himself to contain “many of the structural and harmonic ideas that would be fleshed out in my later works.” This music can be viewed as a modular entity, effectively cataloguing the various repetitive strategies that made up Glass’ minimalist armoury up to that point in his career. Music In Twelve Parts remains the lengthiest concert piece in the Philip Glass Ensemble’s repertoire – an exhausting experience for listener and musician alike, testing endurance over the course of protracted, real time loops that evolve and mutate with a bewildering complexity. At times these recordings sound machine-like rather than in any way attributable to human beings. Buy it here

Entitled Of Air and Ear, the six-hour performance is part of Deloitte Ignite, a three-day programme of special events curated by Wayne McGregor. Scanner will combine his distinctive sound design with a spectacular “playable light sculpture” by visual artist Sophie Clements, complemented by live percussion from Peter Lockett. The event runs from 8pm through until 2am, allowing punters to be drawn deep into the hypnotic, unexpected dialogue set up between colour, music, texture and light.

Scanner remains best known in electronica circles for his self-titled debut album of 1993, which saw him investigate the ethics of surveillance culture by constructing tracks from fragments of tapped mobile phone conversations. Via FactMagazine

Tour Dates:
13.Sep.2008      20:00
Paul Hamlyn Hall Royal Opera House
London and South East

16.Sep.2008     20:00
CAT- Contemporary Art Tower Vienna

18.Sep.2008     20:00
Kunsthøgskolen Bergen National Academy of Arts

02.Okt.2008     20:00
Blindscape: Maribor

11.Okt.2008     20:00
Ultima Festival Oslo

18.Okt.2008     20:00
Venice Biennale IT

26.Okt.2008     20:00
Kvitnu Fest Ukraine

29.Okt.2008     20:00
Githead: Arnofini Bristol

07.Nov.2008     20:00
GAIDA FESTIVAL Vilnius

18.Nov.2008     20:00
Virginia Commonwealth University

07.Mrz.2009     20:00
Royce Hall UCLA (with Manuel Gottsching) Los Angeles

New Album out now: order directly from the label-website

But Bersarin Quartett is more than just a head movie music. It bridges the gap between moody cinematic music and experimental chamber music. This album is bewitching! It’s a fantastic melancholic journey, but the mood it disperses won’t bring you down. Melancholy as a kind of positive lifesaver. The beauty of the soundscapes done by Thomas aka Bersarin Quartett are full of bittersweet promises. Promises of a world where the quiet moments and the beauty counts, not the profit, hectic and speed. This music could be written on a lonely island or onboard of a spaceship looking on our planet. Time becomes a new unit and feelings become more weight. This is a real great album that owns a special atmosphere and a nonesuch orchestral sound. Wonderful tracks with wonderful titles that leave the listener with a feeling of freedom and contentment. Source: www.cuemix-magazine.com

http://www.myspace.com/fulgeance

01 Bread Machine Bred (4:38) [Zombie Zombie Remix] *
02 Shipwreck Glue (6:07) [Kelpe Extraversion] *
03 Stop Parching Yourself (4:53) [Fulgeance Booty Call Remix] *
04 Shipwreck Glue (4:49) [Wes Coats Remix] *
05 Whirlwound (5:02) [Kelpe Stormy Version] **
06 Shipwreck Glue (4:53) [Architeq Version] **
07 Colours Don’t Leak (4:05) [The Boats Remix] **
08 Cut It Upwards (6:02) [The Oscillation Sub-Aquatic Version] **
on 12″ the 6th of October on DC Recordings

http://www.myspace.com/blowfly

Blowfly is the stage name and alternate persona of Clarence Reid (b. February 14, 1945 in Cochran, Georgia) who was a songwriter for many hit R&B acts in the 1960s and 1970s. As Blowfly, he has recorded numerous albums, mostly of sex-based parodies of other songs as well as original raps themed around sex. His stage name originated from his grandmother, who overheard him as a child singing “Do the Twist” as “Suck My Dick”, and said “You is nastier than a blowfly.” An alternate spelling used for his name on some of his early recordings is Blow Fly.