As the number of recordings of new music increases exponentially, the number of radio broadcast outlets in the U.S. that will broadcast them has diminished with shocking rapidity. Not only in this country but also in major European cities, the coverage of contemporary, non-commercial music is on the skids. There is scarcely any way to find out what music is new and available anymore as a result.

Other Minds has set a new goal to counter that trend: launching a web radio station which will broadcast the sounds of 21st century music to every corner of the globe. The web station will tie in with our web site, which was one of the first launched by any avant-garde music organization in the country. Beginning with a few programs and samples in July 2002 and gradually building up to 24/7 programming, OM plans to use the Internet for the job it does the best—niche programming to hungry but selective audiences. In our case, that means listeners everywhere who have discovered the pleasures of Conlon Nancarrow and Laurie Anderson, Sofia Gubaidulina and Frank Zappa, Brian Eno and Anthony Braxton, not to mention the entire panoply of Difficult Music and its antecedents, from Joplin and Ives to Stravinsky and Spike Jones. In addition the station will encourage and commission the composition of new Internet audio works, and offer visual online galleries and text documentation on selected subjects. A huge content resource are the 6,000 tapes OM recently acquired from the Music Department archives of Berkeley’s KPFA Radio. Programming will be both live and archived, and available to any listeners who have access to a computer and modem.

Broadcasts will emanate from studios in the Bay Area and eventually, around the world, with volunteer hosts such as Sarah Cahill, Henry Kaiser, Richard Friedman, Dan Becker, Herman Gray, and Charles Amirkhanian (who was a longtime KPFA Music Director).

As technological innovations bring us modules that will receive Internet radio in our bedrooms, kitchens, and automobiles, Other Minds will be ready with an antidote to the wallpaper music stations which are certain to dominate offerings from here and abroad.
We may eventually have a facility to house all these dreams. OM will be looking for new home that would include permanent offices and a webcast studio for OM’s Internet radio station, which could broadcast live concerts from a theater in the complex. For further information, contact Charles Amirkhanian at Other Minds.