Show 946: Comfort Noise by Iru Ekpunobi for Wave Farm

“I have made a mark, and I do not know whether I am drawing or writing. I am thinking about marks and how they collect on a surface. I have accumulated marks, and I believe that this accumulation is at once a drawing, a text, and an archive.”. –Steffani Jemison

Writes Ekpunobi, “Comfort noise, or comfort tone, is synthetic background noise used in radio and wireless communications to fill the artificial silence in a transmission in which low volume levels are ignored by the transmitting device. In a system that disregards sound under a designated threshold, the absence of that sound must be reintroduced to ‘comfort’ the listening ear.

Drawing on Saidiya Hartman’s process of critical fabulation, comfort noise reintroduces speakers and practitioners of love, freedom, and memory in conversation with one another. In this sonic third space, audio samples originating from 1976 to 2023 not only coexist, but collaborate.”

playlist:
Free, Deniece Williams (1976)
Relation, Anaïs Maviel (2018)
Speaking Freely, bell hooks (2002)
welcome, i are u (2023)
Iru’s Introduction, Bongo Herman (2022)
I Love Myself When I’m Laughing…And Then Again When I’m Looking Mean and Impressive (Zora Neale Hurston Tribute), Imani Uzuri (2016)
DNA Activation, Witch Prophet (2022)
Neptune Frost Q&A: Techno-Spiritual Overtones, Neema Githere + Saul Williams (2022)
Creative Matriarchy, Shantrelle P. Lewis (2022)
Slow tv, Thomas Hellum [Invisibilia Podcast, Season 7 Episode 5] (2021)
Hvnli, KeiyaA (2020)
Theater of the Black Church, Serpentwithfeet [reinventing gospel with complex visions of gay black love] (2018)
Neptune Frost Q&A: Encryption, Saul Williams + Anisia Uzeyman (2022)
How do you preserve freedom?, Anisia Uzeyman (2022)
blessings mantra, iru ekpunobi (2023)
Happy Birthday EmmaB, KillMovesNate (2016)
Othership 23, KMNate + MC Maggley + Aleon + Angel (2023)
Grandma E’s Wishes, Esther Igboko (2019)
Can I Hold The Mic (interlude) + Stay Flo, Solange (2019)
The Phone is a Confessional, Miss Cleo (2022)
Are We African Gods or African American Gods?, Jordan Gallimore + Kristin Dodson [Flatbush Misdemeanors, Season 2 Episode 4] (2022)
Gladys is With Me Right Now, Shantrelle P. Lewis [In Our Mother’s Gardens] (2021)
Grandma E’s Wishes: Remixed, Esther Igboko (2019)
We Wear The Mask / That Survival Apparatus, Maya Angelou (1988)
HAHA, Charlotte Adigéry + Bolis Pupul (2022)

Iru Ekpunobi is Wave Farm’s spring 2023 Radio Art Fellow, a deep listener, DJ, and audiofuturist. A recent graduate of New York University, Ekpunobi began their journey in FM radio as an DJ and show host at WNYU 89.1-FM, where they synthesized Black musicology, revolutionary history, and futurist transmission on a weekly, 90-minute broadcast. Culminating in their undergraduate thesis, Ekpunobi launched Third Space Radio, a digital media project and community radio station exploring sonic transmission as a ‘third place’ where community, education, and love can persist.