Bruce Russell, Access to Evil [Thank You For Talkin' to Me, Amerika]

This 2003 radiophonic work by the New Zealand sound artist Bruce Russell is a response to the recent invasion of Iraq by the United States-led forces.

It consists of interview recordings made in 2002, in which ordinary Californians talk about their opposition to the 'War on Terrorism', their disillusionment with their government and their disengagement from the media consequent on the almost universal self-censoring of oppositional voices after 11 September 2001. Mixed with these are recordings from US public radio news, an electronic soundscape by Russell and French artist Jean-Jacques Palix recorded in Paris in February 2003 at the time of the giant anti-war rally in that city, and quotations from the 1991 electro-acoustic piece 'Gloire a...' recorded by Jerome Noetinger in protest against the first Gulf War.

It is an artistic contribution to the growing debate on the US government's unilateralism and disregard of international law, which is at once personal and political. By ventilating the views of ordinary Americans opposed to what their government claims to be doing in their name, Access to Evil tries to redress the impression of American unanimity presented by the major media.

• Read the rest
  
• Download as mp3