Issue 2025, 4: Listening to alternative histories through independent sound media in Ukraine
This essay, based on broader research on independent radio stations from Kyiv, Gasoline Radio and 20ft Radio, and an independent label, Shukai, looks at how these sound media can engage with cultural history and offer different ways to think about archiving. Through applying Diana Taylor’s use of repertoire to three specific sound examples (a radio show, an installation, and a record), I argue that these alternative sound media formats allow an open and dynamic reading of cultural works of the past. The role practitioners seem to take up is to look for and fill gaps they see in mainstream public discourse in relation to Ukrainian music, culture, and sound media history. Listening for the missing knowledge from the past allows the audience to attune it with imaginations of the future.