Prophets of Shortwave
I spent a year immersed in the fascinating subculture of shortwave radio, eavesdropping on the electromagnetic spectrum via a network of web-based "software-defined radios" (WebSDRs) located in different parts of the globe. It was a journey through a reality that is largely invisible in an age of social media, but still very real in places that social media doesn't reach.
Over the course of my open-ended exploration, I occasionally stumbled across broadcasts from charismatic preachers, religious cult figures, self-declared prophets, and other fringe spiritual leaders addressing their unseen (or imagined?) congregations. These broadcasts soon became the focus of my research, and the "Prophets of Shortwave" project was born.
The work opens and closes with a recording of the godfather of religious cult broadcasters, Brother Stair, whose global shortwave media empire boasted over a hundred stations and five satellites at its peak. His cult survived his death in 2021 and continues broadcasting recordings of their prophet to this day, albeit at a smaller scale. These could appear anywhere across the spectrum and followed no discernible schedule or pattern; I could randomly hear Brother Stair's voice piercing the ghostly static on SDRs in any part of the world at any time of day. But I was rarely lucky enough to catch a full program, and he became something of a white whale in my adventure, appearing by chance and captured only by serendipity.
This is a documentary project. I edited the content of the broadcasts, provided a tonal and textural musical foundation, and brought my own editorial bias, but I did my best to preserve each broadcaster's unique voice and did not manipulate or alter the sentiment of any of their words. My intention is not to ridicule or blaspheme, but rather to shine a light on an otherwise invisible world of spiritual outsiders rippling through the ether. As Brother Stair admonished, "Do not mock that."
This was not a fun or merely distracting project. I became heavily emotionally invested, oscillating between deep fascination and profound discomfort. I spent hours with a recorder going, scanning across the radio dial one narrow frequency band at a time. I became somewhat obsessive about chasing down elusive broadcasts. I wasn't able to maintain the distance and detachment of an objective observer. Rather, I kept experiencing flashbacks to my childhood in the southern United States, an odd kid from an irreligious family growing up in a tiny town deep in the Bible Belt. It was easy to imagine faces for the voices. And it was terrifying wondering what kind of place someone like me, queer, trans, haunted, might occupy in their reality.
Features plundered shortwave radio broadcasts, tuner performances, spectral sonic artifacts, manipulated audio, live guitar and bass, and synthesizer.
"Prophets of Shortwave" is available on Bandcamp, on Mirlo, or free and federated on bandwagon.fm.