Justin Patrick Moore published his first full-length novel, The Radio Phonics Laboratory, in June of this year. In it, Moore takes readers on a deep dive into the timeline of electronic music and speech synthesis, examining the historical figures and inventions that have paved the way for technology to be where it is today through the scope of music and telecommunications.
“It explores my lifelong fascination with radio, the telephone system and how these two things interacted to create the first forms of electronic music, starting all the way back in the 1800s,” Moore shared. Divided into three sections — Telemusik, The Synthesis of Speech and We Also Have Sound-Houses — the book provides insight into the beginnings of speech compression, the influence of the arts on engineering, early electronic music studios and more.
Aside from his work as an author and radio host, Moore’s day job includes cataloging for the Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library. His access to the library’s music selection, specifically the avant-garde composers in the classical section, aided in his research for the book. “I feel very lucky in that respect, because there’s a lot of stuff there that’s not necessarily very popular, but might have a niche audience. I was able to find those things and get excited about them, and otherwise, I don’t know if I would have found them at a regular record store,” Moore acknowledged.
Moore’s hours of research, reading, writing and listening are reflected in the well-rounded knowledge demonstrated throughout the book. The many technical aspects that went into creating The Radio Phonics Laboratory were not entirely easy to grasp, either. As Moore stated, “Some of those sections were the hardest to work on. I just had to wrap my own head around that first before I could communicate it clearly to a reader.”
Working at the library, participating in shortwave listening and having a “ham,” or amateur radio license, exposed Moore to the technical side of his book. “Getting into shortwave listening and amateur radio activities exposed me to the more technical side of it, so that prepared me to look into and understand the science behind how the instruments and things themselves work,” he added. Covering topics like the beginnings of the telegraph and the telephone, the invention of the vocoder and the vast history behind Bell Laboratories as a research and development company, Moore had his work cut out for him throughout the writing process.
“I’ve done radio shows on WAIF Cincinnati 88.3 FM, and I got my foot in the door there in 2001 on the ‘Art Damage’ show. Some people invited me to be a part of that program, which has a long history with experimental music,” Moore explained. Since then, his growing experience in radio from 19 years old to now played a vital role in the long process of writing and publishing The Radio Phonics Laboratory.
“I started writing [the book] in 2016, but I had written a bunch of articles by 2020, and I thought I could write a book about this topic. At that point, I started getting serious about it and put more of my energy into it,” he said. Nearly 10 years later, Moore’s first book was published by Velocity Press, the London-based independent publisher of electronic music and club culture books. After all this time, it has become a dream come true for the first-time author. The dream, which started when Moore was just a kid, found some of its roots in unexpected places. Moore talks about Doctor Who, the famous BBC sci-fi series that the author got hooked on when he was just 10 years old, both in and outside of the novel.
“I was at my great-grandparent’s house one night, and all the adults were just talking and playing Scrabble in the other room,” Moore recalled. “I was left to myself, so I was flipping through the TV in the den and I came across Doctor Who. I just got glued to it.” In his book, Moore incorporates Doctor Who by telling the stories of people like Delia Derbyshire and Ron Grainer, who created the theme music for Doctor Who, which was one of the first TV themes first to be created entirely with electronics. In this way, Moore was able to utilize the show that had captured his attention all those years ago as context for his book. This kind of full-circle moment was one of the many ways that The Radio Phonics Laboratory proved to be a deeply meaningful project to Moore.
Moore talks about certain “synchronicities” that came about during his creative flow of ideas for the book. One instance, in particular, stood out as a seemingly predestined moment. “The name of the first speech recognition program was nicknamed Audrey, and that’s the name of my wife,” Moore beamed. “Then, I found out one of these synthesizers was nicknamed Victor. That’s the name of my father. These different things that would pop up that would have a personal meaning to me followed me throughout the process of writing this book.” Moore dedicated the book to both his wife and his father. “The most important people in my life,” he shared.
“Some people, it seems when they get older, they stop listening to new music. They aren’t seeing what is new out there. But I’ve tried to always just keep finding new stuff,” Moore said. This natural curiosity to discover new forms of music is weaved throughout The Radio Phonics Laboratory, especially when it comes to the origins of things like artificial intelligence (AI) and its role in creating new and innovative sounds in music. Moore discusses the history of scientists and inventors working toward AI for longer than some may have thought.
“People have been thinking about ways to do this since the ‘50s, where they could just go in and push some buttons and generate this piece of music,” Moore reported. In the book, the author discusses the importance of exercising a sense of discernment when using powerful technology for speech and music synthesis. In addition to this, he responded, “Using electricity to make music opens up new sounds and worlds, but at the same time, if you’re not intentional about your use of the technology, you can end up making music that sounds similar to a lot of other electronic music because everything’s built-in and pre-programmed.”
With The Radio Phonics Laboratory comes a deeper understanding of the innovation and evolution behind speech synthesis and electronic music and, moreover, the interconnectedness of the two and the names of the scientists and composers behind them. Moore’s recounting of this extensive history is something to be appreciated by those both new and accustomed to the world of electronic music today.
The launch party for The Radio Phonics Laboratory takes place at 6 p.m. on Dec. 7 at The Kaleidoscope Center at The New School Montessori. More info: velocitypress.uk.
This story is featured in CityBeat’s Nov. 27 print edition.
This article appears in Nov 27 – Dec 10, 2024.
