(Übersetzung folgt) Last week, it took me three hours of travel across the city in order to purchase a heavyweight black lump labeled transformer. The result was – finally – a flawless rendering of our microphones in use. I hope you noticed! In case you haven’t because your didn’t listen to Datscha Radio’s second broadcast from Taipei, here comes a quick summary.

Wu Tsan Cheng must be inevitably known as soon as you click on aporee’s sound map of Taiwan. And it is not by the sheer number of recordings uploaded there that would be a phenomenon by itself, even more exciting is the artful quality of his field recordings. I was lucky enough to have him as my first guest and our talk dealt with his extensive work, the „semi-natural“ intricacies of field recording and introduced some (not enough!) of his pieces.

In preparation of this second show I had spent two nights in the city of Yilan, an hour of bus ride away from Taipei, to meet the artist and farmer Yang Hauyu. We went to his family’s farm and had a long talk about the ways in which organic farming (which is not so usual in Taiwan) and artistic work can convene. An excerpt of this talk was broadcast and the subsequent degustation of homemade rice wine led to reading of a (truly spirit-induced) rice wine poem written by my neighboring resident Rewat Panpipat.

This formed a felicitous transition to the next live guest, Pi Erny. Erny is the son of Cassandra, one of the micro-loft artists here, and he is specialized – despite his young age – in the manufacturing of fruit wines. His favorite is wine made from the dragon fruit (Pitaya). It has a deep red color and a very sweet and slightly tangy taste. He also brought some plum wine to savor: Best I ever tasted so far!

Absolutely noteworthy in all these talks with Taiwanese artists and guests is the translation support rendered by Charlotte/Ming Chun of the THAV’s office who generously helped out with her proficiency whenever words went missing! Thank you, Charlotte!

A prerecorded talk with enchantingly lively Mr. Hu, the eldest inhabitant of the village, followed. 50 years ago, Mr Hu came over from the mainland as a soldier to stay here with the much more peaceful mission of building his own house, starting a family and dedicating himself to studies of ancient Chinese history and song lore. This very special occasion had been facilitated by Ms Catherine Lee, director of TAV, who also translated for me.

Meeting Mr. Hu occurred within the frame of the villager’s feast that same evening, on the 26th of January. Every two months, the THAV staff, the artists and the local residents meet for a festivity that involves plenty of food and plenty of Karaoke singing. Consequently (since I recorded some of this), the remaining time of the broadcast was filled with the tunes of popular Taiwanese songs.

(Übersetzung folgt) This upcoming Wednesday, Datscha Radio will focus on issues of field recording, farming and life in the village. The sound mapping artist Wu Tsan Cheng will be my studio guest and will present a selection of some of his finest field recordings.

A trip to Yilan sprouted a talk and/or audio walk with the performance artist and gardener Yang Hauyu. And we will explore life in the village a bit further, featuring fruit wine recipes and a guided walk introducing some of the historical trees in Treasure Hill. Last but certainly one of the highlights will be a talk with the villages’s oldest inhabitant, Mr. Hu – first photo above – , who is also a passionate singer. Translations by Catherine Lee, director of Treasure Hill Village.
And we’ll close the show with a vocal bouquet of Karaoke songs, recorded on the 26th of January.

Time: 3 pm (Taipei time); 8am (Berlin time)
Date: 30th of Janurary
Location: Treasure Hill Artist Village, Studio 4-4

All of this is still in the making, so changes in the schedule might occur.

The day started with an expedition into the audio equipment world of Taipei: A broadcast-compatible second microphone was missing. To cut a long story short: Hero of my day was a young man called Wu Weida who led me from one Hi-Fi shop to another and finally to a stand in a market hall where I happily acquired the item.

Here come come pictures from our broadcast. The day was overcast and slightly fresh, therefore I decided not to move onto the terrace but stay inside my living room. Radios were tucked to nearby trees and marquees, and the scent of the freshly bought tuberoses wafted through the air.

Mabel Wang’s and Eli Liang’s musical inserts were a highlight. Both are trained musicians and the pieces they played belonged to the lore of traditional Taiwanese music. I still feel honored.

THAV’s managing officer Charlotte explained in her talk how the village of Treasure Hill evolved. The artist village has hosted more than 500 artists since 2002. Meanwhile different people flock in and out of the studio: THAV’s new interns and artist’s friends mostly.

The Italian ethnographer and artist Gabriele came with Ping, a puppeteer. She brought a youtube list of Taiwanese flower songs, some from the early 40ies, some more like 80ies. The flower in the culture here is always always a symbol for the female… many songs speak of flowers “in the rain”, “at night”, falling petals, or the other way around, of coming to bloom.

Ping’s DJ-set was followed by another concert by Mabel and Eli, and the recording of an interview with the Thai poet Rewat Panpipat who lives next door and is the only other artist resident from abroad in this village. All the time I was glad to find that our little radios outside picked up perfectly the transmitter signals. And evidently also the streaming radio worked :)
The broadcast closed with the give-away of the “radio carrots” to the artists and a sip (or two) of fine whiskey. Which makes me think of the fruit wines being manufactured by Cassandra, one of the local artists next door. But that’s already for the next broadcast.

More pictures will follow here, bear with me,

Große Hilfe erfuhr ich gestern für das Einsprechen der neuen Jingle:)
(Die Schrift im Bild, “Hua yuan dian tai“, bedeutet übrigens „Radio im Garten“.)

Mein Dank geht hier (v. r nach l.) an Yi-Chun Liu/Lily, Mabel Wang, Ming-Chun Cheng/Charlotte und Alice, die gemeinsam eingesprochen haben. Und selbstverständlich an Catherine Lee, Leiterin des Künstlerresidenzprogramms Treasure Hill Village, für ihre wundervolle Unterstützung. Catherine erklärte auch, dass „Datscha“ im Chinesischen ziemlich genau so klingt wie „Los geht’s“. Eine zusätzliche Aufnahme verschaffte uns der Manager für die Logistik, Yi-Wei Tsai, der “Datscha Radio Taipei” mit einem beeindruckendem Lacher einleitete…

Tracks sind sehr bald online!