MUSIC: (Short sequence of musical beeps) (Pacy baseline) (Two-step drum beat)
Alright, welcome to Cassette Tape Radio. It’s me, Talia Randall. How you doing?
I probably sound different to you this week, that’s because I am not in the corner of our home studio talking into a much better quality microphone. I’m currently sat at my kitchen table starting at a pile of washing up that I haven’t done . and that is because these past two weeks my brain has gone into a total dyslexic meltdown. I don’t know if you get those but apparently I do.
Its like my brain has gone on strike. And because I’m a socialist I’m obviously supporting the striking workers, or worker as it were. And yeh the idea of sitting in a darkened room right now fills me with dread, so I’m starting at some washing up I haven’t done instead and that’s why I don’t sound as good this week but you can be part of the socialist revolution that is happening in my mind.
Anyway, on with today’s show. Today’s episode I’ve got a special little treat for you, it’s something by another artist called Oberon White.
Oberon White is a queer, Welsh performance artist, sonic artist, musician and vocalist, as well as a cabaret performer and host. They describe themselves as feral child of different arts practices. You might see them dancing with Block 9 at Glastonbury, performing at major venues like the Roundhouse or doing an interactive performance in a gallery space. They’re fixture of London’s underground queer performance scene.
Last year I worked with Oberon on a show called winegod. This show is like a performance ritual and it traces the ancientness of queer identity and sort of grapples with the erasure of queer identity that’s happened throughout history. The show has live sound a music, there was a big juicy mess on stage with milk and honey and candles and a bull’s head and there was also some stunning writing.
You’re going to hear an excerpt of the show now, its about 5 minutes long and it’s a piece called Prophylaxis. I always, always struggle saying that word – Prophylaxis. This moment in the show was really still and kind of reverent and very moving so I hope you enjoy the excerpt.
Content Warning: the piece you’re about to hear does deal with heavy themes around death and hospitals, listener discretion is advised. You can always go back and choose another episode of Cassette Tape Radio if you like. Remember, this is an audio sketch book so every episode is completely different to the next.
Anyway, enough from me, here is Prophylaxis by Oberon White.
***
[A quiet bed of sung notes, like a gentle drone, plays throughout]
What is queer space?
When is queer time?
This halfway house between night and day.
The residual pain in my left arm,
blood given freely, just a sharp scratch.
The momentary pain of penetration.
Turning your face away, eyes resting on a bin for medical waste.
The biohazard symbol,
Behind my eyes I trace the meaning of this sign,
sigil, fetish, mark
The meanings are overflowing
– ‘Do not fill above this line’.
The tipping points of death and desire.
That giant ‘80s coffin
casting a shadow all the way to yesterday’s bedroom.
There’s a heaviness to things,
even as I give myself to gravity,
even as I fall forward past my own tipping point…
When I arrived,
somehow I found myself at the back of the hospital.
The bins,
delivery bay,
giant silo of liquid oxygen,
the things not meant to be seen.
Somehow fitting.
My family don’t do the things I do,
they live a different life.
Again I find myself, awake at a strange time,
in a strange place.
We’ve pathologised desire.
Mythologised pathology.
I was made with the heart of a broken bull.
Hack it from me Tin Woodsman,
you’ve earned it.
It bears repeating:
we lost a generation.
Lovers, leaders, teachers,
‘lost’ as if just waiting in the last place you’d look
– not left to turn to air and ash.
Deliberate indecision and callous turning away,
from eyes above
who don’t care to look.
This awkward space is crowded,
people without homes
filling the waiting room benches and floors.
It’s cold out,
the season finally having turned,
disturbingly late,
after the summer:
disturbingly hot.
We all need
a little escape now and then,
a little taste of something,
a little hot under the collar.
The things that draw us in:
chemical, bodily, algorithmic.
And this is who we are,
in this moment,
in this moment,
in this moment.
The need to hold and be held,
to share in and share with,
to be between two fixed points,
so that I am lying in my bed,
sitting in a hospital,
writing out these words
and somewhere else entirely,
different time, different date, different place.
The fullness of possibility and the
sharp
point
of what may never be.
So of course I’ll read and follow the instructions,
two of these and one of these.
It’s a sad comfort to have something to focus on
as the globe spins towards something unfathomable.
I trace the vines of my arteries,
feel milk and honey pooling in my skull.
Breathe me deep.
Hold me tight.
Keep your eyes open.
Don’t look back.
***
There we go, Prophylaxis by Oberon White.
If you want to hear more about Oberon and their work I recorded an interview with them recently, we talk more about the show winegod, the inspiration behind the show and why its an important show to make. That’s gonna be released as a bonus episode coming soon.
I’ve you’ve listened to this show before you know the drill by now, each episode is different to the next, its an experimental…thing that I’m doing, something from my kitchen table. Sometimes you’ll hear poetry, sometimes you’ll hear comedy, or performance art or interviews. If you’re new here, welcome to the family.
Here is a snippet of some previous episodes that you can listen back to, thanks for choosing us today. See ya.
***
(sound of pressing play on a tape) (tight rhythm synth + 4/4 funk beat)
(fax machine noise – sounds like internet dial up tone)
(climbing chords in a 1980s electro pop synth style + fax machine noise)
#I wanna, I wanna (wanna) fax you
#I wanna, I wanna (wanna) fax you
#Baby relax lets fax to the max
Cassette Tape Radio is a mixtape style podcast each episode totally different to the next – poetry, comedy and original music like this:
#What’s your number? What’s your name?
#Push my buttons and scan my page.
#Lets make a date, to modulate.
#Fax me up I’m not engaged.
#Speak to me in audio frequency
#Tones, screech on the telephone
(Sound of fast forward on a tape)
and this:
(Medieval lute)
#ElectroKrud, a new musical genre
(Sings in autotune: ElectroKrud)
#Imagine that the entire youth population of the Home Counties are all on acid and all of them are sharing one cigarette, in a yurt on the Sunday morning of a festival.
(Sings in autotune: ElectroKrud)
(Sound of fast forward on a tape)
So make sure you subscribe, share it with a friend, leave us a review and carry on listening
(Sound of pressing stop on a tape)
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