Talkback Burnback

first broadcast: Deutschlandfunk Kultur, 2021 — commissioned by Deutschlandradio Kultur, with additional support from Create NSW, Bundanon Trust and the National Trust NSW — CB radio voices: members of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service (NSW RFS) / pedal steel guitar: Graham Griffith / children’s voices: Agnes / bird: ‘Albert’, the long-billed corella / synthesizers, electronics and realisation: Thomas Meadowcroft / sound engineer: Thomas Monnnerjahn / producer: Marcus Gammel —  duration 25′ / 2021

“No dramas. We’ll just see how we go.“

Talkback Burnback is part of a series of works for radio which explore cultural memory in early twenty-first century regional Australia. Here, citizens band radio’ (CB radio) recordings of firefighters engaged in fighting the Australian ‘Black Summer’ bush fires of 2019/20 were made at night during the fires. These recordings were then edited and compiled into different themes — waiting, radio breakdowns, finishing work, observing flames etc. — and make up a narrative of multiple voices in the piece. (TM)

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