Sustain.fm

Metamorphosis with Xayide

So much about sustainability is about change. Looking at where we are and where we want to go. But often sustainability planning feels like binary choices about technologies, policies, and projects. What if there might be a different way to think about that? Today we explore a different kind of metaphor – metamorphosis. Xayide, the alter ego of musician Aura Danielle Muñoz Barragán, has described how metamorphosis implies potential, that “the blueprint for transformation is always there”. We talk about how those ideas of potential and transformation are part of music, sounds, and “the fluidity of life”.
 
 
Links and bio
 
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/xayidemusic/
Chrysalis https://renatura.bandcamp.com/album/chrysalis
Label re:natura https://www.instagram.com/label.re.natura/
 

There is no separation with drusnoise

A special live edition of sustain.fm featuring drusnoise performing the composition ‘There is no separation’. drusnoise explores the sociomaterial world through light, plants, radio, electromagnetic radiation, heartbeats, and carbon dioxide concentration data. The improvised composition and performance questions the story that we are separate from nature. That nature is separate from us. That nature is for us to control. But we are a part of nature. Nature is part of us. There is no separation. drusnoise performs with modular synthesizers, samplers, sensors, electro-acoustic instruments, climate data and poetic explanations of the performance element with vocals by Erbse followed by an artist talk and Q&A.
Recorded live at RBL.LAB Berlin 22.01.2025
Many thanks to Dario and the RBL team for technical support for the performance and live broadcast
 
Bio
drusnoise integrates analog modular synthesizers with digital FX and organic samples to create a style that flows from lush ambient tones to gritty techno.  Known in the outside world as Dr. Steve Williams, his academic work includes conducting and publishing research on sustainable energy transition, sound, and energy justice in Canada, Germany, Sweden, and Norway. He brings plants, heartbeats, light sensors, sonified climate change data, quantum physics concepts, and air quality data to create sustainable live techno and sound art sets. drusnoise is a live, electronic music producer, sound artist, co-founder of Berlin Modular Society, curator of sustain.fm showcasing sound, music, and sustainabiility through live events and workshops, and the host of the Radio Banda Larga show ‘sustain’. 
https://rbl.media/en/programs/sustain/
https://instagram.com/drusnoise
https://sustain.fm
 
Steve Williams’ researcher profile
https://www.sv.uio.no/iss/english/people/aca/stephegw/index.html
https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=mHq_ZhEAAAAJ

2024 Sound, Music & Sustainability Compilation

Welcome to the end of 2024 episode of sustain.fm radio. I can’t believe how fast the year has gone by and it was a nice treat to put this episode together. It gave me a chance to reflect on the incredible variety of artistic approaches to sound, music, and sustainability. I am so grateful to all of the artists who shared their time and sounds with me over the year, and I hope you enjoy their sounds.
For this episode, we only have music, no interviews this time. You will hear sounds from all of the artists I interviewed this year ranging from archival sound pieces to techno to sound art compositions to meditations and trash music. Thanks so much to Veronica Mota, Veerle Pennock and Etta Harbor as Parallel Problems, Felipe Vareschi, Monica Sand, Priscilla Haring-Kuipers from This is Not Rocket Science, Melissa Ingaruca Moreno, Juan C. Duarte Regino, Gina Lo, Luis Fernando Amaya for sharing their sounds. And there are some sounds from me – drusnoise – in there too.
We have an exciting 2025 coming up with some great guests already on deck, live events planned in Berlin, Oslo, and Lisbon, and some cool research projects starting up soon too. Get in touch with us through sustain.fm or info@drusnoise. We would love to hear your thoughts on our shows, ideas or suggestions for future shows, or if you want to bring a sustain.fm event to your town. Have a great rest of 2024 and will see you next year. For now, enjoy the sounds.
Track listing
Monica Sand – Elegi
Luis Fernando Amaya – Bestiario @luisongolilongo
Melissa Ingaruca Moreno & drusnoise – Endarken @mel_ingaruca
Gina Lo – Live at Berlin Modular Society @ginalololo
drusnoise – Future Soundscapes -  Live in Gothenburg @drusnoise
Juan Carlos Duarte Regino – Soundgifts @j.c_d.r
Felipe Vareschi – Noise Mapping @frmvar
Veronica Mota – Utopie und Widerstand
drusnoise – We are but dust and shadows – Live in Graz
This is not Rocket Science – Live at Clubsynth @rocket_not
Parallel Problems – Live at Voltage Control Amsterdam @elektortek @ettaharbar

Imaginary Animals with Luis Fernando Amaya

In many ways, music is all about relationships. Relationships between musicians, between artists and audiences, between artists and their instruments, even the relationships between sounds and notes in a scale. But we can also think of these relationships inside a wider web of connections. What would it be like to compose and perform music that embeds relationship between humans and non-humans such as plants, animals, or environments? What might that do to how we compose, perform, and listen to music? Today we dive into these questions with Luis Fernando Amaya, a composer and percussionist based in Oslo. Luis Fernando’s music has been performed throughout the Americas and Europe and themes of collective memory and relationships between humans and non-humans are often present in his work.
 
Bio and Links
Born in Aguascalientes, México, Luis Fernando Amaya is a composer and percussionist based in Oslo. Topics such as collective memory and the relationship between humans and non-humans (such as plants, animals, or environments) are commonly present in his work. He studied composition and music theory at the Centro de Investigación y Estudios Musicales (CIEM) and holds a Ph.D. in composition and music technology from Northwestern University.
 
Amaya's music has been performed throughout the Americas and Europe by performers such as the CEPROMUSIC (México), Arditti Quartet (UK), Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (Switzerland), Ensemble Dal Niente, Fonema Consort, Yarn/Wire (USA), Oslo Domkor (Choir of the Cathedral of Oslo, Norway), amongst others. He is the recipient of awards and fellowships such as the Residency PRIX CIME (International Electroacoustic Music Competition 2023), a Presidential Fellowship (NU), and representing México in the 61st International Rostrum of Composers of the UNESCO in Helsinki, Finland. As a performer, Amaya is a member of the collective composition and free improvisation trio Fat Pigeon.
His scores are published by BabelScores.
His monographic album Cortahojas was recently released by Protomaterial Records.
https://www.luisfernandoamaya.com
Instagram @luisongolilongo
Bandcamp 
Studies for "Bestiario: seis" 
En esta línea contengo un bosque (2018) 
Eddie Ortíz-González poetry 
PhD Dissertation: Music Composition as a Means to Connect With the More-Than-Human: A Dialogue Between the Works of Walter Kitundu, Liza Lim, and Luis Fernando Amaya
 
Photo credit  Ana María Bermúdez

Fluid Boundaries with Gina Lo

Most of the time we think of humans and non-humans as separate things. We experience and live in different worlds. Humans may love nature but are separate from nature. What if that is a wrong – or at least limiting – way to think about it? What would it mean to break down that separation? How might that change our experiences of sound and life with non-humans and nature? I’m your host Steve Williams and today we explore these questions with Gina Lo. We have lots to talk about so be sure to check out the show notes for links to the sounds and get in touch to info@drusnoise.com with your questions and comments.
Notes and Links
Bio
Gina Lo is a Taiwanese-born sound artist, field recordist, and performer based in Berlin. Their work revolves around the creation of immersive sonic environments that explore the fluid boundaries between human and non-human experiences, harmoniously merging the organic with the synthetic. Through live performances and sound installations, Gina employs a blend of electroacoustic instrumentation, field recordings, and custom-designed synthesizers. With a strong emphasis on attentive listening, their improvisational sets transform spaces into ever-evolving atmospheric landscapes.
Gina’s connection to nature is rooted in their upbringing on a subtropical island and extensive time spent off the grid throughout East and Southeast Asia, where they immersed themselves in the rhythms of the natural world and the intricate behaviors of wildlife. These encounters form the core of their sonic research, fostering a deep engagement with the elemental forces of nature as a lens for exploring the human condition. Gina’s work invites listeners into a meditative state, where the boundaries between self and environment blur, creating space for deeper reflection and a reconnection with the primal, transformative aspects of the psyche.
https://ginalosound.wixsite.com/work/about
https://www.instagram.com/ginalololo/
EROOO0oo00​(​O​)​oO​.​0o0​.​oo​.​.​sion - Æther compilation (re:natura, digital)
Intuitive Dialogues @ginalolo and @frmvar
Harkening Critters https://f-o-m.bandcamp.com/album/harkening-critters
Cowie Bay https://f-o-m.bandcamp.com/track/cowie-bay
Bornean https://f-o-m.bandcamp.com/track/bornean-anura
Signals Festival Sound Installation https://catalyst-berlin.com/about/signals-festival-2021-installations
Berlin Modular Society 44 Live performance https://youtu.be/okHrEpze4wc

Creating Future Soundscapes with drusnoise

When people are asked what kind of neighbourhood they want to live in they often say they want a quiet neighbourhood. But by quiet, they do not mean silent! People want to hear the sounds of children playing, birds in the trees, and glasses clinking at cafés but may not want to hear sounds of traffic, construction, or planes overhead. They may want to preserve the sounds of the past or hear something completely different. The Future Soundscapes project connects with local residents to record (on their phones) sounds they want to hear more of and sounds they want to hear less of. The sounds are collected, categorized, and a soundscape of the future neighbourhood co-created with the collaborative inputs of local residents. The project has happened in Gothenburg Sweden and most recently in Utrecht Netherlands. Coming soon to Berlin and Oslo Norway. Today we dive into the why and how of Future Soundscapes and get to hear what happened in Gothenburg and Utrecht.
 
I’m your host Steve Williams, also known as drusnoise, and today’s episode will be a bit different. Usually I am interviewing an artist about their approach to sound, music, and sustainability. Today I will be talking about my Future Soundscapes project and sharing some excerpts from Gothenburg and Utrecht. I think it is a fascinating approach to futures and I hope you find it interesting too. Definitely send me a DM and let me know in the comments too. My email is info@drusnoise.com
Links and references
Future Soundscapes https://sustain.fm/fss
drusnoise https://drusnoise.com
Academic paper on Future Soundscapes 
Listen – R. Murray Schafer documentary by National Film Board of Canada https://www.nfb.ca/film/listen/
Jordan Lacey. Sonic Rupture https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/sonic-rupture-9781501338571/
Centre for Sustainable Urban Futures https://urbanfutures.se/en

Attunement – Environment, perception, weather and more with Juan Carlos Duarate Regino

What does it mean to give voice to nature? To the weather? How can we connect with ecological systems through sound and performance? And what does it mean to attune to nature? Today I am excited to explore these questions – and more.  Juan C. Duarte Regino is an artist-researcher, currently a Ph.D. candidate at Aalto University. Central to his investigation is the relation between the atmosphere, the act of listening, and the profound concept of attunement. His background is in New Media, Design & Production, and Audiovisual Communication. His mission looks beyond conventional, extractive, or deterministic approaches to understanding the relationship between nature and technology. Instead, it ventures into ancient and indigenous knowledge that harmonizes with ecological perspectives on our weather systems, giving voice to the natural agencies at play within the realm of weather. So as you can imagine, Juan is a perfect fit for this show.
 
Bio
Juan C. Duarte Regino is an artist-researcher, currently a Ph.D. candidateat Aalto University. Central to his investigation is the relation between the atmosphere, the act of listening, and the profound concept of attunement. His background is in New Media, Design & Production, and Audiovisual Communication. His artistic endeavors over the last decade have gained recognition and have been showcased at prestigious eventsand venues internationally.His mission looks beyond conventional, extractive, or deterministic approaches to understanding the relationship between nature and technology. Instead, it ventures into ancient and indigenous knowledge that harmonizes with ecological perspectives on our weather systems, giving voice to the natural agencies at play within the realm of weather.His research revolves around the exploration of the symbiotic relationship between nature and technology through environmental sound. His work presents artifacts to resonate with atmospheric energies. In his approach, he proposes diversified technologies for attuning to nature. By doing so, Duarte Regino pushes the boundaries of artistic expression and enables a deeper understanding of our environment and its intricate interplay with technology.
 
 
Links
www.juanduarteregino.comhttps://juanduarte.bandcamp.com/
 
Hildegard Westerkamp - Kits Beachhttps://www.hildegardwesterkamp.ca/sound/comp/3/kitsbeach/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg96nU6ltLkSterne, J. (2019). Multimodal scholarship in world soundscape project composition: Toward a different media-theoretical legacy (or: The WSP as OG DH). Sound, Media, Ecology, 85-109.John Durham Peters - The Marvelous CloudsToward a Philosophy of Elemental Mediahttps://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo20069392.htmlAugury:https://juanduarteregino.com/Augury

Darkness and Sound with Melissa Ingaruca Moreno

Sound is one of our most powerful senses. But it is just one of our senses. Sight, touch, smell, and taste are powerful too. And even more powerful when they are combined with sound. Today we talk with Melissa Ingaruca Moreno about her work with light, fungi, meditation, and sound. Melissa is an award-winning futurist and researcher in multispecies design based in Berlin. Her project ‘Endarken’ integrates fungal bioluminescence and sonification of nature with glimpses of darker futures. This is a future of designed light-darkness for multispecies cohabitation with a focus on healing and I am excited to chat with Melissa about how all of these ideas – and senses – fit together.
Bio
Melissa Ingaruca Moreno  is an award-winning futurist and researcher in multispecies design. Endarken is a research-through-design project of Melissa Ingaruca Moreno´s PhD “Multispecies Cities and Emerging Technologies”, that re-imagines the future of nocturnal urban light for more-than-human wellbeing in Berlin via a series of participatory design workshops.
 
Links and references
Endarken Futures: Darkness as Healing https://melissa-ingaruca.medium.com/healing-in-darkness-endarken-futures-part-i-0d680189ea55
Endarken project overview https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lU7Elq6W2ZzZJMHAKe_IJvEYliCPB0Y4/view
Instagram @endarken_cities
Floating University https://floating-berlin.org/
 
Falchi, F. et al. The new world atlas of artificial night sky brightness. Sci Adv 2, (2016).
Dunn, N. Dark Design: A New Framework for Advocacy and Creativity for the Nocturnal Commons. International Journal of Design in Society 10, 9–23 (2016).
Falchi, F., Cinzano, P., Elvidge, C., Keith, D. & Haim, A. Limiting the impact of light pollution on human health, environment and stellar visibility. J Environ Manage 92, 2714–2722 (2011).
Falcón, J. et al. Exposure to Artificial Light at Night and the Consequences for Flora, Fauna, and Ecosystems. Frontiers in Neuroscience vol. 14 Preprint at https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2020.602796 (2020).
Yang, L., Xiao, L., Guo, Y. & Yan, Y. A review of the effects of artificial light at night in urban areas on the ecosystem level and the remedial measures. (2022).
Gallan, B. & Gibson, C. New dawn or new dusk? Beyond the binary of day and night. Environment and Planning 43, 2509–2515 (2011).
Zielinska-Dabkowska, K. M. & Xavia, K. Protect our right to light. Nature 568, 451–453 (2019).
Pollastri, S. et al. More-Than-Human Future Cities. in ACM International Conference Proceeding Series 23–30 (Association for Computing Machinery, 2021). doi:10.1145/3469410.3469413.

From ethereal to material with Priscilla Haring-Kuipers

Sound and music are in many ways ethereal and, quite literally, float through the air with no environmental impact. But, especially in the electronic music world, the gear that makes sound, transmits sound, records sound, and drives the dance floor does have an environmental impact. What does that mean for a sustainable electronic music scene? Today we talk with Priscilla Haring-Kuipers of This is Not Rocket Science in Amsterdam about all this and more. Together with her husband Stijn, they design, make, sell and perform with modular synthesizers. Her background is in marketing, social sciences, media psychology and game-based-learning. I have had the chance to talk with Priscilla over the years about their company’s approach to sustainability and I’m excited to go deeper with that conversation today.
Bio
Priscilla Haring-Kuipers of This is Not Rocket Science in Amsterdam. Together with my husband Stijn we design, make, sell and perform with modular synthesizers. My background is in marketing, social sciences, media psychology and game-based-learning. Will sing.
Links
TINRS https://www.thisisnotrocketscience.nl/this-is-not-rocket-science/
TINR Sustainability https://www.thisisnotrocketscience.nl/sustainability/
Mastadon https://priscillaharing.info/
Articles at Elektor Magazine https://www.elektormagazine.de/authors/167432/priscilla-haring-kuipers
Vocal pack https://thisisnotrocketscience.bandcamp.com/album/vocal-pack-boom-link-to-zip
Club Synth https://www.thisisnotrocketscience.nl/clubsynth
sustain.fm https://sustain.fm
Contact info@drusnoise.com

Sound, memory, buildings, and bodies with Monica Sand

Sound is an interesting thing. Sounds can evoke emotions like happiness, anxiety, hope, and calmness. But what I find most interesting is how sound can evoke memories. One of my first memories of sound is my Mum playing the organ at church, laying down on the wooden pew and feeling bass in my whole body. Strong memories of family, connection and childhood – all from sound. In the latest episode of sustain, we are talking with Monica Sand – an artist and researcher based in Stockholm and Gothenburg. Monica has a long history of working with sounds and space. And most recently a project in Gothenburg exploring art, buildings, and human bodies as carriers of cultural memory. Today we chat about sound, memory, art, science, buildings, and bodies.
 
Bio
Monica Sand, artist and researcher with a PhD in artistic research, from the School of Architecture, KTH, Stockholm. Sand holds a position as Research Adviser at the Artistic Faculty, and affiliated researcher at the Academy of Music and Drama, at Gothenburg University. From 2011 until 2019 she was coordinating research at ArkDes, Stockholm. At KTH and during a postdoc at Konstfack (University College of Arts Crafts andDesign, Stockholm) she produced courses, walk-shops and lectures based on art and artistic research projects with a focus on collective actions in public space. Earlier art work took place in collaborations with different physics laboratories in Sweden and at CERN, the largest particle laboratory in Europe, Geneva: In between art and science and Acting Physics
 
 
Links
Playing the Space https://playingthespace.wordpress.com/
Matter Matters – Art, Buildings and Human Bodies as Carriers of Cultural Memory
https://playingthespace.wordpress.com/2023/12/18/en-bage-genom-tiden/
Matter Matters Sound Archive by Louisa Palmi https://palmi.org/The-Sound-Archive
Important message to the public, VMA: https://soundcloud.com/lur_arkdes/sarafranceschi-elegi-short
Forest Improvisations in the Uppsala Cathedral:
https://vimeo.com/55853657
City Experiments with students in an exhibition hall: Färgfabriken
https://vimeo.com/149003424?from=outro-embed