Wired For Sound

Wired for Sound is an innovative mobile recording studio that aims to create opportunities for young artists to record and collaborate with more established musicians and explore local youth culture through musical expression. The appreciation of culture and stories of the everyday are unravelled through music and are documented through interviews, radio debates and radio documentaries.

The project is the brainchild of Simon Attwell, founding member of South African band Freshlyground, and radio producer Kim Winter in collaboration with Freshlyground guitarist Julio Sigauque. Wired for Sound in association with the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) assembled a mobile 4x4 recording studio, capable of exploring even the most isolated regions of the project’s 2013 destination, Mozambique. The mobile studio is configured to run off a solar panel and battery system, allowing the team unrestricted access to musicians who are not able to travel. Recording locations are then chosen according to acoustic quality, aesthetic appeal and cultural relevance. Wired for Sound’s ambitions extend further than simply collaborating with artists to produce music. The project’s long-term goal is to help develop recording infrastructure for local musicians. The final product is an album, a radio documentary, a video promo and a selection of photo essays.

The pilot project has already given rise to international exchanges with The John Issa Band being invited to Denmark on a two week, all expenses paid, musical and cultural exchange. This will be the first time the band will have left Mozambique. Wired for Sound has attracted the interest of a number of organisational and cultural departments around the world to set up similar exchanges. These partnerships are life-changing opportunities for young musicians, and there will be a focus on expanding these relationships as Wired for Sound progresses.