Radio Art Foundation

About

1974 spirals into 1986. The Radio Art Foundation emerges, an auditory enclave within Manhattan's bustling expanse. Thirty-one releases, thirty cassettes, forming a sculptural archive of sound — each spool a world unto itself. The assemblage is the work of Willem De Ridder, whose name echoes throughout the catalog like a spectral refrain. His voice, at times in solo soliloquy, at others entwined with Elsa Del Puerto, Hans Claessen, and a rotating ensemble of sonic conspirators, crafts delicate yet brazen tape-based soundscapes. The label's ethos? Interdisciplinary, liminal, process-driven. Each cassette a conceptual audio project, a collaborative dialogue that transcends the mere mechanical hum of the tape recorder. "Il Pozzo Canta" by Cora & The WCs, and "Kerstvertelling" by De Ridder himself, stand as fractal narratives, each layer revealing another dimension, another story. The singular magazine release — the 1984 Radio Art Foundation Newsletter — connects these sounds to the material world, a paper bridge in an ocean of magnetic tape. The foundation's output is site-specific, deeply embedded in the urban labyrinth of Manhattan, yet eternally exploratory. It is a sonic map for the curious, the intrepid, the avant-garde cartographer of sound.