11.21.19 by Ryan Masteller

Hey, are you even allowed to do this? I’m not sure if there isn’t a squad car on the way to my house right now just because I’m listening to Brigitte Bardon’t’s “Radio Songs,” and it’s not because the real Brigitte Bardot suddenly awoke from a nap in St. Tropez and sicc’d the fuzz on me. Although that would be quite interesting, and the chase even may take on some sort of international espionage or action film overtones where I’m the debonair rogue in possession of illicit goods on the run from multiple factions. I mean, beyond what’s going on in my normal everyday life, of course. Gotta dodge them international spies and whatnot!

No, what I’m talking about here is the deliberate manipulation of songs on the radio. Brigitte Bardon’t – which I’m now under the impression is a pseudonym – flitted about to a bunch of different cities (in the United States, Canada, Italy, … Canada) and recorded the radio, manipulating the recordings into this glob of a mixtape where static and tunes and collide like they’re in a gladiator arena and fighting to the death. Static always wins by the way – there’s some sort of scientific property that governs sound and its eventual decay. I wanna say entropy? Let’s go with that.

“Radio Songs” is a fascinating collage that documents specific moments in time, and regardless of whether or not you’re actually familiar with any of the broadcasts – there’s a lot of banter and processing into incomprehensibility, and I’m honestly not hip to a lot of these tunes – the result still feels like its own weird thing. That’s the magic of Brigitte Bardon’t. That’s why I’m tossing this tape on the passenger seat of my Aston Martin and pulling on my driving gloves and getting ready to peel the heck out from the parking lot of this remote hotel as sirens sound in the distance. It’s because I believe in it, its realness, its standalone identity.

Do what I tell you. This exists in an edition of 100 from Already Dead. Check it out, man.