Valiska - Numbers (2019)

At regular intervals each day strange voices sound out over narrow bands of shortwave radio. Encoded and untraceable transmissions broadcast from somewhere unknown, to someone unknown.

These broadcasts, first discovered after the First World War, have become known as Numbers stations. They came to the attention of Valiska over a decade ago, but it was not until recently that he began to work with them, and they became the foundation for this new album.

“Numbers stations are are out there, ignored or unbeknownst to most. Even those who are aware of the broadcasts don't know what they’ll actually be able to decipher from them. My goal when making these tracks was different to previous work as there wasn’t as much of a personal connection or story that I was trying to express - I wanted the samples to guide the composition.”

Numbers stations remain a mystery to this day, but in a world of constant exchanges where meaning and ideas are easily lost in background noise, this is a pertinent and pointed exploration of communication.