The Residing Air by Cormac Faulkner

My grandfather owned a radio repair and sales shop in Cookstown, Co. Tyrone, Ireland in the 1940s through to the 60s. As well as repairing radios, my grandfather charged batteries for his customers (until electricity became more widespread). The wet batteries were picked up from customers by bread delivery men, and returned when charged. He built and adapted radios for people in the town and in 1956, when my father went to boarding school, he built a radio for him, using parts from a Pye Q4 transistor radio.

My grandmother gave me the radio after my grandfather died, and this piece was created and performed using the radio as a single sound source. I decided not to use any instrumentation and to work wholly with the radio. The composition is structured in waves and is inspired by the “music” of tuning a radio.

The piece embodies the changing technology of my grandfather’s life; from large wooden radios to small transistors, long wave/medium wave to FM (which may soon be phased out in preference for a digital signal). This sound collage emphasises the space left by all this passing, as well as the “dead air” in between broadcast signals – the air which is of course the conducting material for radio waves.

The title of the work, and the piece I quote in the recording, come from a poem, written by Nick Laird, which was written for my grandfather’s funeral. The quote is:

And though now there is a hollow space,

an eternal emptiness where you once were,

It is not filled, nor the empty place

occupied by anything but the residing air

Here, this work is submitted as a completed composition, created using a combination of three live takes. However, it can also be performed live, and will of course be different every time it is performed as it relies on local radio transmissions. The performance of the piece uses one prerecorded track and live manipulation of the radio with effects.

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