“The sounds that I am listening to every night at first appear to be human voices conversing back and forth in a language I cannot understand. I find it difficult to imagine that I am actually hearing real voices from people not of this planet. There must be a more simple explanation that has so far eluded me.”

Nikola Tesla wrote this passage in his diary during his early experiments with electromagnetic waves, unaware that he was on the verge of a discovery that would have profound consequences for human existence. His eventual patent on the technology was titled “Method of Signaling”. This recording is based on the very foundations of the radiophonic medium: a copy of Tesla’s original radio antenna (the sole audio source in the recording) and the process of modulation that enables communication via radio waves. Primordial sounds, created by phenomena in distant space such as pulsars and solar storms, and natural sources closer to us, including electrical storms and auroras borealis, take the role of the carrier wave, increasingly modulated by sounds from human-made sources, radiated by the countless devices that emit electromagnetic radiation in our modern world (the electromagnetic-traces, invisible yet ubiquitous, of our lives and relationships), and, over the duration of the piece, filtered out, revealing the sound of the world of connections between us.
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Silvia Teixeira López is a telecommunications engineer specialized in radiofrequency and antennas. She has held research positions in this field at the European Space Agency and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), among others. She currently is the coordinator of citizen science programs at Media-Lab Prado, Madrid. Other collaborations include cultural organizations like the Cerezales Foundation, where she has presented educational scientific workshops. She was a founder of the Observatorio Festival for independent music and art, where she was responsible for cultural programming and artistic residencies organized in collaboration with the Association of Electro-acoustic Music of Spain (AMEE), with the goal of supporting the research and creation of sound-art in rural areas, related to their unique environments and cultures.
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Guitarist Elliot Simpson has given premieres of works by such iconic figures as Sofia Gubaidulina, Alvin Lucier, Michael Finnissy, Walter Zimmermann, and Larry Polansky, and has worked closely with many other prominent young composers in the creation of new pieces. He has appeared in many of the arts capitals of the world, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, Mexico City, Santiago de Chile, Buenos Aires, São Paulo, London, Amsterdam, Cologne, Berlin, Salzburg, and Shanghai, in master classes, workshops, and performances ranging from early music to free improvisation. His recordings can be found on the ECM, Microfest, New World, Brilliant Classics, Infrequent Seams, Soundset and Hermes record labels.