The Conet Project - Recordings of Shortwave Numbers Stations (1997)

Irdial Discs is (was) een erg speciaal label als het om elektronische muziek gaat. Avant Gardistisch tot in de puntjes.
Dit is ook op zen minst een merkwaardig project.

Even wat informatie in verband met dit album;


For more than 30 years the Shortwave radio spectrum has been used by the worlds intelligence agencies to transmit secret messages. These messages are transmitted by hundreds of “Numbers Stations”.
Shortwave Numbers Stations are a perfect method of anonymous, one way communication. Spies located anywhere in the world can be communicated to by their masters via small, locally available, and unmodified Shortwave receivers. The encryption system used by Numbers Stations, known as a “one time pad” is unbreakable. Combine this with the fact that it is almost impossible to track down the message recipients once they are inserted into the enemy country, it becomes clear just how powerful the Numbers Station system is.
These stations use very rigid schedules, and transmit in many different languages, employing male and female voices repeating strings of numbers or phonetic letters day and night, all year round.
The voices are of varying pitches and intonation; there is even a German station (The Swedish Rhapsody) that transmits a female child's voice!
One might think that these espionage activities should have wound down considerably since the official “end of the cold war”, but nothing could be further from the truth. Numbers Stations (and by inference, spies) are as busy as ever, with many new and bizarre stations appearing since the fall of the Berlin wall.
Why is it that in over 30 years, the phenomenon of Numbers Stations has gone almost totally unreported? What are the agencies behind the Numbers Stations, and why are the eastern European stations still on the air? Why does the Czech republic operate a Numbers Station 24 hours a day? How is it that Numbers Stations are allowed to interfere with essential radio services like air traffic control and shipping without having to answer to anybody? Why does the “Swedish Rhapsody” Numbers Station use a small girls voice?
These are just some of the questions that remain unanswered.
Now you will be able to hear this unique and extraordinary phenomenon for yourself, as Irdial-Discs releases THE CONET PROJECT: the first comprehensive collection of Numbers Stations recordings released to the public.
This Quadruple CD is an important historical reference work for research into this hitherto unreported and unknown field of espionage. The CDs contain 150 recordings spanning the last twenty years; taken from the private archives of dedicated shortwave radio listeners from around the world.

Erg cool idee vind ik dit. Spijtig genoeg nog niet kunnen beluisteren. Het moet een hels avontuur zijn om allerlei onderschepte kortegolfgesprekken te beluisteren.

Ik heb dit een keer alleen in het donker geluisterd en dat was heel eng. Samples hiervan zijn gebruikt in nummers van oa Stereolab, Wilco en qrio's Blue Turning Brown

Klopt zijn heel veel gebruikt door verschillende groepen. Het meeste heb ik er ondertussen ook van beluisterd.
Heb het onlangs als voorbeeld gegeven als werkmateriaal voor een vriendin die een ontwerp-project maakt rond het Ministerium für Staatssicherheit in de DDR. Het is echt het afluisteren van personen dat hier het geval is. Het gaat hier niet alleen over het afluisteren van telefoons maar gewoonweg binnendringen in het leven van anderen. Indrukwekkende ervaring vind ik.