Mouthy!

Late Junction gets mouthy! Verity Sharp presents a little taste of the rich and delicious world of mouth music, as we focus on the oldest instrument of all - the human voice. There’ll be trills, yodels, hums, screams, ululations, vocal games, machine-made voices and a human jukebox.

Our oral fixation this week was inspired by the work of French poet and music enthusiast Fanny Chiarello and Italian percussionist Valentina Magaletti, who recently collaborated on a book titled Basta Now - a massive (self-admittedly non-definitive and ever-growing) overview of women, trans and non-binary musicians working in the experimental sound realms. The book was created to address the imbalance in representation of genders across music genres, stating in the introduction: 'This book has nothing against men, it’s just not about them.'

For Late Junction, Fanny has magicked her chapter on mouths into a mixtape - featuring the works of Irish composer Jennifer Walshe, Canadian Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq, Australian machine-voice improviser Gail Priest and Swedish soprano Sofia Jernberg.

Produced by Kit Callin
A Reduced Listening production for BBC Radio 3