“Could we create in a community rather than an industry? Could we truly be free, where we are liberated from content production, deadlines and profit margins? Could we rewild audio making, where we no longer produce a dominant crop but symphonies that are good for you?”
“As a young man in Birmingham, dealing with the violent, racist and oppressive realities not only of the UK government but also the National Front, he refused to turn the other cheek. Instead he declared that ‘self-defence is no offence’ – a slogan made popular during the fight against the Front in the early 1980s – in his reggae album Back to Roots (1995). This moral and philosophical clarity enabled him to embody a political rage that didn’t fade with age.”
Artists and writers remember ‘the people’s poet’, whose prolific career foregrounded the power of the pen in engaging meaningful social commentary
A psychological and spiritual withdrawal from the toxic workplace culture founded on white supremacy.
Original image by Irene Tønnessen
From the Fugitive Episode. Series 34
Curated by Axel Kacoutié, Eleanor McDowall and Andrea Rangecroft
Produced by Axel Kacoutié
Executive Producer: Alan Hall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
It’s not always in a romantic relationship where a heart can break.
How do we grieve in a culture that champions one love over the rest?
Axel Kacoutié attempts to language loss after reuniting with the person who inspired this documentary. Guided by the thoughts and wisdom of friends and an end-of-life practitioner, we hear what happens when we let grief speak.
Featuring the voices of Claire Galligan, Ivor Williams, JN Benjamin, Tej Adeleye, Weyland McKenzie-Witter and Zachary Cayenne-Elliott.
Special thanks to End of Life Doula UK, Tony Phillips, Natasha McAnea-Hill, Jeff Monteen and Maz Ebtehaj
Artwork: Erin Tse
Development Producer: Eleanor McDowall
Sound Design, Music and Mixing Production: Axel Kacoutié
Produced by Axel Kacoutié
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
A memoryscape of fatherhood woven between three generations.
From the Fatherhood Episode. Series 33.
Curated by Axel Kacoutié, Eleanor McDowall and Andrea Rangecroft
Produced and mixed by Axel Kacoutié
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
“Somewhere between the narrow entry of Who I am and What I seem to be, lies a vast and nameless place.”
In this transmission, Axel Kacoutié discovers a new sense of self in the cosmologies, concepts and realities of queer and indigenous folks. What are the links between gender expression and our relationship with the Earth? How does it destabilise colonial and capitalist imaginations of what we’re told a gender binary is meant to be?
Featuring the voices of:
Opaskwayak Cree Nation Professor at the University of Saskatchewan, Dr Alex Wilson
Artist Buitumelo Kotekwa
Afro-Taino Two-Spirit change-maker Cleopatra Tatabele
Scholar and Research Assistant Karyn De Freitas
Transmasculine, non-binary scholar and Founder of the Free Black University, Melz Owusu.
Artwork by Erin Tse
Development Producer: Eleanor McDowall
Assistant Producer: CA Davis
Additional Recording: Heidi Chang and Israel Ramjohn
Sound Design, Music and Mixing Production: Axel Kacoutié
Produced by Axel Kacoutié
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
making the invisble, visble by conjuring thought forms about the practice of magic and what it can mean for all of us and especially artists.
Interludes is a collaboration between Shade Podcast and Axel Kacoutié featuring six contemporary artists: Amy Sherald, Ming Smith, Phoebe Boswell, Rahima Gambo, Nnena Kalu and Cassi Namoda.
Framed by the question “What does healing sound like?”, these podcasts offer a visceral connection with the artists’ work. In each episode we weave the artists’ reflections through Axel’s original soundscapes, as a collaborative exploration of their creative experience.
Interludes opens an alternative space. The aim is to soften our tendency to intellectualise artwork, and instead create a sonic texture that is more intimate in its connection with the artist.
Concept & Production by Lou Mensah
Created by Axel Kacoutié
Supported by Hauser & Wirth
Artwork by Erin Tse
Animated by Luke Dye-Montefiore
Supported by Frieze Membership
Ilya Kaminsky, I See a Silence
Ukrainian/American poet Ilya Kaminsky’s work Deaf Republic was heralded as one of the most original books of 2019.
I See a Silence, his new lyric work for Artangel, combined poetry and prose to form the centrepiece of a soundscape for walking the Ness, produced by acclaimed audio designer Axel Kacoutié with the voices of Neil Brennan, Ilya Kaminsky and Zakia Sewell.
Drawn to the singular ecology of the landscape and the flora and fauna that both preceded and survived decades of weapons research, Kaminsky’s ‘poetry of place’ uncannily evoked a landscape of the imagination. The journey began at the Bomb Ballistics building, where a panoramic viewing platform looks out across the vast shingle stretching towards the sea.
Visitors were able to experience I See a Silence whilst wearing headphones and walking between the different buildings on Orford Ness.
A three-part series featuring Axel Kacoutié’s inner world on The Heart
Featured Works: How to Remember, Paradise, A Sound Poem
