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Them Bones

Jennifer Lucy Allan unearths musical skeletons from the closet with a selection of tracks made from, related to or inspired by bones, from traditional bone flutes to skull disco.

We’ve a bone to pick with you… Late Junction gets close to the bone in this episode, as Jennifer Lucy Allan unearths musical skeletons from the closet with a selection of tracks made from, related to or inspired by bones. Bones are said to be the second-oldest instrument in the world, after the human voice, and musical instruments made from bone have been discovered in excavations around the world.

There’ll be plenty of pieces played with bones, from traditional Māori flutes and Irish rhythm bones (Ireland’s oldest percussive folk instrument) to the latest album from British producer Matthew Herbert which centres around sounds extracted from the various parts of a horse skeleton. There’s Soviet era sounds of bootlegged records pressed on x-rays, heavy electronics from Bristol label Skull Disco, and Trinidadian calypso about skeletons.

Plus ambient spoken word from American poet Ellen Zweig reflecting on the beauty of collarbones, polyrhythmic spine-tingling electronics from Ugandan producer Authentically Plastic, and recordings from an MRI scanner reworked for the dancefloor. T’marrow’s sounds today!

Produced by Katie Callin
A Reduced Listening production for BBC Radio 3

2 hours

Last on

Fri 30 Jun 2023 23:00
BBC Radio 3

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Music Played

  • Rick Deitrick

    Waterwheel

    • Unguitarist Complete Works [disc 5].
    • Tompkins square.

  • Cora Fluker

    Dry Bones In The Valley

    • Look how the world made a change.
    • No Direction Home.

  • Natalie Sharp

    MRI spine scene 4

    • Bodyvice.

  • Flesh & the Dream

    Book Of Daniel Part 3 (The Image of Gold and The Blazing)

    • Choose Mortality.
    • Everything Forever.

  • J.C. Burris

    Bones blues

    • Blues Professor.
    • Arhoolie Records.

  • Matmos

    California Rhinoplasty

    • A Chance To Cut Is A Chance To Cure.
    • Matador.

  • BIPED

    What Will I Pay For Today (Google Search)

    • Large Fruit Still Uneaten.

  • Svitlaina Nano & Tom James Scott

    Embers

    • Eye Of The Sea.
    • Skire.

  • Syenite

    And phosphenes

    • Ly Trang.

  • Arthur Russell

    Let's Go Swimming

    • World Of Echo.
    • Upside Records.

  • Peter Brötzmann

    Nr. 14: Tenor-Sax

    • 14 Love Poems Plus 10 More.
    • FMP.

  • Lord Executor

    Seven Skeletons Found In The Yard

    • Various: Seven Skeletons Found In The Yard : Trinidad Calypsos 1928-1947.
    • Mississippi Records.

  • Appleblim

    Fear

    • Skull Disco.

  • Roman Norfleet and Be Present Art Group

    Cosmic Forces

    • Roman Norfleet and Be Present Art Group.
    • Mississippi Records.

  • Ale Hop & Laura Robles

    Calato

    • Agua Dulce.
    • Buh Records.

  • The Chieftains

    Kerry Slides

    • Chieftains 5.
    • Claddagh Records.

  • Matthew Herbert & London Contemporary Orchestra

    The Horse's Bones Are Flutes

    • The Horse.
    • BMG.

  • Ellen Zweig

    Sensitive Bones

    • Fiction of the Physical.
    • Phantom Limb.

  • Pyotr Leshchenko

    Black Eyes

    • X-Ray Audio.

  • Ella Fitzgerald

    Birdland Lullaby

    • X-ray Audio.

  • Authentically Plastic

    Spine Jolt

    • Raw Space.
    • HAKUNA KULALA.

  • Sunik Kim

    Morning Star

    • Potential.
    • Otoroku.

  • Anadol

    Tahta Sucuk (Wooden Sausage)

    • Hatıralar.
    • Inverted Spectrum Records.

  • Klein

    Shot In The Dark

  • Richard Nunns

    Koauau (Moa Bone Flute)

    • Maori.

  • Eiko Ishibashi

    The Dream My Bones Dream

    • The Dream My Bones Dream.
    • Felicity.

Broadcast

  • Fri 30 Jun 2023 23:00
    BBC Radio 3

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