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Fungi Power with Merlin and Cosmo Sheldrake

During COP26, Verity Sharp considers how fungi can impact climate health with her guests, mycologist and writer Merlin Sheldrake and musician and composer Cosmo Sheldrake.

In the week of the COP26 Climate Conference, Verity Sharp explores both the sonic properties and the carbon emission fighting power of fungi with her guests: the mycologist Merlin Sheldrake and musician Cosmo Sheldrake.

As well as a special performance of an interspecies collaboration between Cosmo and some mushrooms, they both join Verity to discuss the relationships between fungi and climate health, with particular focus on the differing sound properties, polyphony and network structures found within the fungus kingdom.

Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and writer, and the author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures. His main interest is in mycology and fungi, including research explorations into mycelial networks, resonance and polyphony, as well as relationships between humans and non-human organisms.

Cosmo Sheldrake is a multi-instrumentalist and composer with a passion for the natural world. His latest album Wake Up Calls uses field recordings of birdsong, mostly from endangered British birds, in order to draw people’s attention to the polyphonic soundworlds that surround us, as a reminder not to take any of these creatures and the music that they make for granted.

Elsewhere in the programme, Verity continues to play that fungi music - with tracks inspired by, related to and created from mushrooms. They will be dispersed amongst artistic representations of climate crises from fire to species loss, deforestation, melting icebergs and a track that highlights the temporal overhang of it all, from the Dutch pianist Louis Andriessen.

Produced by Rachel Byrne
A Reduced Listening Production for Â鶹Éç Radio 3

2 hours

Last on

Fri 5 Nov 2021 23:00

Clip

Music Played

  • Puce Mary

    Red Desert

    • The Drought.
    • Pan.
  • Cosmo Sheldrake

    Dawn Chorus

    • Wake Up Calls.
  • John Cage

    A Valentine Out Of Season

    Performer: Stephen Drury.
    • In A Landscape.
    • Catalyst.
  • Mr Mibbler & Anja Garbarek

    Anja Garbarek meets Mr Mibbler

    • Leave Your Thoughts Here.
    • NXN Recordings.
  • Stuart Chalmers

    Fire

    • The Heart Of Nature.
    • Opal Tapes.
  • Balraj Singh Samrai & Farah Ahmad Khan

    ±Ê±ô²¹²Ô±ð³Ù​-​P±ð´Ç±è±ô±ð​-​P´Ç·É±ð°ù

    • Balraj Singh Samrai & Farah Ahmad Khan present....
  • °¿°Â·¡¸éÃ

    Xondaro Ka´aguy Reguá

  • Icebreaker

    De Snelheid

    • Terminal Velocity.
    • Argo.
  • Pamela Z

    Echolocation

    • Echolocation.
    • Freedom To Spend.
  • Thomas Tallis

    Spem In Alium

    Choir: Tallis Scholars. Director: Peter Phillips.
    • Spem In Alium.
    • Gimell.
  • Babenzele Pygmies

    Women Gathering Mushrooms

    • The Book of Music and Nature: An Anthology of Sounds, Words, Thoughts.
  • Nick Lyon

    Painted Wolves Singing Ritual

  • Albert Ayler

    Wizard

    • Prophecy.
    • Base Record.
  • Cosmo Sheldrake

    Chthonic

  • Ben Chasny

    Water Dragon

    • The Intimate Landscape.
    • Drag City.
  • Joni Mitchell

    Big Yellow Taxi

    • Ladies Of The Canyon.
    • Reprise Records.
  • Dreamcrusher

    FEVER

  • Galya Bisengalieva & Moor Mother

    Kantubek (Moor Mother Remix)

    • Aralkum Aralas.
    • One Little Independent.
  • The 1975 & Greta Thunberg

    The 1975

    • Notes On A Conditional Form.
    • Dirty Hit.
  • Mira Calix

    a mark of resistance

    • a̶b̶s̶e̶n̶t̶ origin.
    • Warp Records.
  • Australian Art Orchestra

    Nunguryu Nunguryu (feat. Daniel Wilfred, Aviva Endean & Peter Knight)

    • Hand to Earth.
    • AAO Recordings.

Broadcast

  • Fri 5 Nov 2021 23:00

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