'And Then' by Ed Baxter and Michael Umney

‘And Then’ is a radio series by Ed Baxter and Michael Umney about their years of broadcasting and producing radio for Resonance FM. Featuring over fifty shows from the Resonance archive, each episode brings together conversation and reflections on their experiences of experimenting and stretching the boundaries of the radio medium over the years.

This research project was commissioned by ICRN and supported by Nordic Culture Point.

ICRN: How did you first meet, and how did your collaboration begin?

Ed: We met when Michael was a student in the city of Durham where he was part of a group of students organising an arts festival. Then in 2008 we collaborated on a couple of broadcasts at the AV08 media festival in Middlesbrough. When he left Durham, Michael moved to London to do a Masters degree in radio and also volunteer at Resonance. Later he joined the staff.

ICRN: Each episode in the series related to specific themes and topics – how did you choose these and what drew you to them?

Ed: They are simply the ideas that have rattled around in our heads for years. We then refined them for the programme titles: A second life around your life, About locale, Giving permission, Producing without thinking, etc.

ICRN: Why did you choose to feature these particular 50 radio shows from the Resonance archive? What was your selection process like and were they productions you had worked on together?

Ed: Most are those one or both of us found memorable. Mostly I did the selecting, due to pressures of time. Quite a few are programmes we worked on together. At one point (Lee Patterson's field recording) you can hear us at work together in a forest in Scotland. Michael gets on with felling trees, I stand around and watch.

ICRN: What is your relationship with radio? How did you first get involved in the field, and what has kept you connected to it?

Ed: Our relationship to radio (individual and collective) could best be described as experimental, interrogative, instrumental, socially and aesthetically creative. I got involved because a friend suggested it and I found I could resolve a lot of artistic problems via the medium. Michael had his own reasons.

About

Ed Baxter is co-founder (with Phil England) and for 22 years was CEO of London’s arts-focused community radio station Resonance FM. He has worked as a writer, publisher, editor, typesetter, book-seller, artist, academic, and new music curator and concert producer. He is currently an Associate Lecturer in Sound Arts and Music Production at London College of Communication. Ed’s latest creative project is an avant-garde big band, Statue of Liberty.

As a radio artist he has received commissions from BBC Radios 3 and 4, Esch2022 European Capital of Culture, Exeter University Arts & Culture, HearSay International Audio Arts Festival, Instal, Kill Your Timid Notion, London International Festival of Theatre, Radiophrenia, Radio Revolten Internationales Radiokunst-Festival, Rough for Opera, Sound & Music, and Whitechapel Gallery. He won a BASCA Composer of the Year Award for “No Such Object,” his composition with Chris Weaver which formed the audio component of NVA's son et lumière extravaganza “Speed Of Light” at the 2012 Edinburgh International Festival.

Ed typically works collaboratively on ambitious radiophonic artworks, concerned with bringing into equilibrium disparate materials within the acousmatic frame of radio-space. These textually dense, musically promiscuous, formally exploratory, site-specific broadcast artworks typically involve diverse creatives - including John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin; ambient composer Ben Neill; opera singer Rodney Earl Clarke; fine artist Luke Fowler; rock climber Jim Perrin; actor Tam Dean Burn; and an ensemble of 500 primary school pupils.

Michael Umney is a radio producer, site-specific broadcaster, documentary maker and sound recordist. His award winning creative audio documentaries can regularly be heard on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service. He has produced or facilitated numerous experimental, collaborative broadcast projects from unexpected places including HearSay International Audio Arts Festival (Ireland), the Museum of London, the Port Eliot Festival, Derry / Londonderry City of Culture, The South London Gallery, Remote Performances from Outlandia, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale and the Science Museum, London. He was formerly Projects and Production Manager of London community art radio station Resonance FM.