Emiddio Vasquez
21s​

Radio piece

Busy street corner at night with a brightly lit bar named "Ambassaden" and many people outside.

Photo: Emiddio Vasquez

DJ Emiddio Vasquez explores the multifaceted connections between club culture and militarism in Cyprus. Vasquez’s multilayered sonic world—which has unfolded in Ayia Napa in southern Cyprus (once hailed as the epicenter of UK garage) since the late 1990s—draws on local sources: ELF (extremely low frequency) radio recordings near two British military bases, field recordings from the alleys of Ayia Napa, and bat calls that serve as metaphors for radio transmissions. These are blended with studio recordings of fictional drum breaks, played by Stelios Antoniou, and radio spots reminiscent of Kiss FM—whose production the artist outsources to online freelance platforms—as well as samples from the UK garage label Nice ’N’ Ripe.

The piece 21s, which focuses on the psychogeography of the geopolitically sensitive island, takes resonant circuits—used to generate frequencies—as its starting point and highlights the inevitability of “unwanted” noise and interference during transmission.

21s was created as part of the CTM Radio Lab, a collaboration of Deutschlandfunk Kultur, CTM Festival, and ORF.