Jim Haynes Shortwave Radio Recordings on MiniDisc (2001-2012) The Wire by Spenser Tomson February 2021 Jim Haynes has been releasing records for over 20 years and the influence of shortwave radio on his work is clear. From 2019's Inconclusive, a record that is bathed in off-frequency crackle, to the distant vocal chatter of 2003's Magnetic North, Haynes has created a body of work – not just for his own Helen Scarsdale Agency label, but for Editions Mego and Audio. Visual. Atmosphere among others – that reveals a considerable passion for and understanding of this elusive medium. Shortwave Radio Recordings On MiniDisc (2001–2012) documents his exploration of these eclectic sound fields; aesthetically, these pieces – full track descriptions, rather than titles, are available on The Tapeworm's website – form a kind of collage of his movements through the shortwave band. But examined in terms of from where and when they appear to emanate, the pieces become a kind of sonic way marker, orientating his position at any given time. And while it's true that all of these recordings – regardless of his geographical location – include global waves washing across his local soundscape, the bedrock of the recordings plant him firmly on America's Pacific coast. Because alongside the captured fragments of Romanian language lessons and the benevolent chimes of Radio Vatican, the emotive heart of these captured recordings comes from the radio preachers warbling just below hysteria, the phone-in conspiracy theorists indulging their hyperbolic rhetoric and the local pirate radio stations drifting in and out of clarity. However, their most revealing aspect is not the place or time that they were captured, but Haynes, a Wire contributor, himself, whose discerning influence is apparent throughout. At one point, he slowly trawls through ionised buzz and white noise fuzz, passing through the chatter of Spanish and German stations. It's an action that feels very much like he is surveying the radio terrain. This sets the agenda for the sounds that follow, having made it clear that from wherever these sounds come, it's his hand on the dial directing us to the next signal. And he's not averse to using it to display a subtle wit. When a BBC World Service programme discusses the future of (now almost defunct) payphones and the expert declares that "the sun will shine on payphones for a while yet, definitely" Haynes changes the station (turning the attention of his own now almost defunct technology to something new), undercutting the authority of the expert with his deftness of touch. These recordings are at their most affecting when, nestled against unidentifiable utility signals and harsh telemetry, eccentric voices are captured in full and unfathomable flow. A reader decants a quasi-religious piece of science fiction in a tone that registers somewhere between Saturday morning cartoon and Sunday school parable. "You will be quite safe in airless space", says the narrator above a layer of new age ambience and several layers of interference, "after many difficulties and failures, I managed to instil in it a certain potency by which to supply sufficient oxygen for your needs distributed through the bloodstream. It also irradiates a certain amount of heat which will keep you warm in the sub-zero temperatures of space. This is goodbye, then. We shall never see each other again." His utterances are disorientating and strange and, especially when juxtaposed against the unhinged snippets of right wing chat shows and mysterious coded messages grabbed from Air Force frequencies, it's a mixture that is otherworldly and sinister. Aesthetically, the sounds often recall Robin Rimbaud's work as Scanner or even some of Vicki Bennett's People Like Us radio collages, but Haynes achieves something quite different. Rather than pose questions about intimacy and privacy, or present these shortwave snippets through a surrealist filter, he makes himself the filter. A caller to Alex Jones's radio phone-in begins to lament the fact that website location bars no longer default to the US, forcing them to scroll all the way through to U. Before the caller can finish his mildly ridiculous point, Haynes whips the dial and buries the disgruntled caller in harsh shortwave snow.