The Conet Project
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''The Conet Project: Recordings of Shortwave Numbers Stations'' is a four (later five) CD set of recordings of
numbers station A numbers station is a shortwave radio station characterized by broadcasts of formatted numbers, which are believed to be addressed to intelligence officers operating in foreign countries. Most identified stations use speech synthesis to vocal ...
s and noise stations released by Redial-Discs beginning in 1997. Numbers stations are shortwave radio stations believed to be operated by government agencies to communicate with deployed
spies Spies most commonly refers to people who engage in spying, espionage or clandestine operations. Spies or The Spies may also refer to: * Spies (surname), a German surname * Spies (band), a jazz fusion band * Spies (song), "Spies" (song), a song by ...
. The collection of recordings is primarily the work of Irdial-Discs founder Akin Fernandez, who began recording the transmissions of numbers stations in 1992. The original 4 CD set was released in 1997 and reissued in 2013 with an additional 5th CD. The recordings have been sampled in various artistic projects, most famously in the 2001 film ''
Vanilla Sky ''Vanilla Sky'' is a 2001 American science fiction thriller film directed, written, and co-produced by Cameron Crowe. It is an English-language remake of Alejandro Amenábar's 1997 Spanish film '' Open Your Eyes'', which was written by Amenábar ...
'' and Wilco’s 2001 album ''
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot ''Yankee Hotel Foxtrot'' is the fourth studio album by American rock band Wilco, first released on September 18, 2001. Recording sessions for the album began in late 2000. These sessions, which were documented for the film ''I Am Trying to Break ...
''. In keeping with its “free music” policy, the label made the entire collection available for free to download as a collection of
MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...
files (along with a PDF version of the included booklet). Redial-Discs has since discontinued the hosting of said files, but still provides links to alternative active hosts.


Legacy and sampling

Samples from the collection have been used in numerous films and albums, including
Cameron Crowe Cameron Bruce Crowe (born July 13, 1957) is an American journalist, author, writer, producer, director, actor, lyricist, and playwright. Before moving into the film industry, Crowe was a contributing editor at '' Rolling Stone'' magazine, for w ...
's 2001 film ''
Vanilla Sky ''Vanilla Sky'' is a 2001 American science fiction thriller film directed, written, and co-produced by Cameron Crowe. It is an English-language remake of Alejandro Amenábar's 1997 Spanish film '' Open Your Eyes'', which was written by Amenábar ...
'',
Porcupine Tree Porcupine Tree are an English rock band formed by musician Steven Wilson in 1987. During an initial career spanning more than twenty years, they earned critical acclaim from critics and fellow musicians, developed a cult following, and became ...
's album '' Stupid Dream'', J Church's album ''One Mississippi'', and
We Were Promised Jetpacks We Were Promised Jetpacks are a Scottish indie rock band originally from Edinburgh, formed in 2003. The band consists of Adam Thompson (vocals, guitar), Sean Smith (bass) and Darren Lackie (drums). Stuart McGachan (keyboards, guitar) was a mem ...
' album '' These Four Walls''.
The Besnard Lakes The Besnard Lakes ( ) are a Canadian indie rock band from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Formed in 2003 by the husband and wife team of Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas, the band also includes Kevin Laing (drums), Richard White (guitar), Sheenah Ko (keyboa ...
have also used recordings from numbers stations throughout their album, ''
The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse ''The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse'' (sometimes referred to as ''...Are the Dark Horse'') is the second studio album by the Canadian rock band The Besnard Lakes, released in 2007 (see 2007 in music). The album was The Besnard Lakes' first rel ...
'' and frontman Jace Lasek is said to be a fan of ''The Conet Project''. The post-hardcore band Silverstein sampled the recording "Czech Lady" in ''In A Place Of Solace'', a song released on their album ''
This Is How the Wind Shifts ''This Is How the Wind Shifts'' is the seventh studio album by Canadian post-hardcore band Silverstein, released on February 5, 2013 through Hopeless Records. It is also their last release under Hopeless. It is the first album to not feature l ...
''.
Kronos Quartet The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet based in San Francisco. It has been in existence with a rotating membership of musicians for almost 50 years. The quartet covers a very broad range of musical genres, including contemporary classic ...
incorporated live reception of the Conet numbers into "4Cast Unpredictable", a performed sound sculpture in collaboration with
Trimpin Trimpin (born Gerhard Trimpin)
FutureMusic.com, June 21, 2006. Accessed online 6 October 2007.
(born 195 ...
. Ten years in the making, the piece was performed once only, at
Montclair State University Montclair State University (MSU) is a public research university in Montclair, New Jersey, with parts of the campus extending into Little Falls. As of fall 2018, Montclair State was, by enrollment, the second largest public university in New ...
Performing Arts Center,
New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
, in 2007.


Copyright dispute

''
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot ''Yankee Hotel Foxtrot'' is the fourth studio album by American rock band Wilco, first released on September 18, 2001. Recording sessions for the album began in late 2000. These sessions, which were documented for the film ''I Am Trying to Break ...
'', a 2001 album released by the alternative rock band
Wilco Wilco is an American alternative rock band based in Chicago, Illinois. The band was formed in 1994 by the remaining members of alternative country group Uncle Tupelo following singer Jay Farrar's departure. Wilco's lineup changed frequently d ...
, was the subject of controversy after Irdial-Discs sued for copyright infringement. The track “Poor Places” samples track 4 of disc 1, “Phonetic Alphabet Nato” (the album’s title is also a reference to this recording) without the permission of founder Akin Fernandez. The lawsuit sparked a debate about the ownership of the recordings. Because Fernandez had recorded the track, he argued that the copyright belonged to him. Critics felt that merely recording the broadcast was not transformative enough to justify the suit. According to attorney Jason Schultz, : "Copyright requires some amount of creativity by an author ... Simply pressing the record button on your radio receiver hardly qualifies to me". Others doubted the basis for the lawsuit, because whether or not Fernandez actually recorded the track was in dispute. Simon Mason, who contributed recordings to the project, claimed that he had recorded the sampled transmission, but did not pursue legal action. Tweedy and Fernandez ultimately settled out of court in an agreement with undisclosed terms, other than that Irdial-Discs would receive a “share of the sound recording royalty” on “Poor Places”.


Five-disc release

''The Conet Project'' was rereleased in a five-disc 15th anniversary edition in April 2013 with a new booklet, featuring detailed photographs of a numbers station voice sample controller, a Sprach-Morse-Generator der HVA des MfS (Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung des Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit der DDR) and
one-time pad In cryptography, the one-time pad (OTP) is an encryption technique that cannot be cracked, but requires the use of a single-use pre-shared key that is not smaller than the message being sent. In this technique, a plaintext is paired with a ran ...
samples of the type used by the East German Stasi. These are the first pieces of numbers station equipment to find their way into public hands. The entire fifth disc contains recordings of "noise stations", which are not the result of naturally occurring radio phenomena.


Recordings


Disc one

# The Swedish Rhapsody (4:18) # Counting (3:34) # Counting 'Control' (2:01) # Phonetic Alphabet – NATO (4:36) # 5 Dashes (3:30) # The Lincolnshire Poacher (4:37) # Gong Station/Chimes (3:29) # DFD 21 (2:37) # Ready Ready 15728 (2:04) # Bugle (1:00) # 5 Note Version 'Czech Lady' (1:38) # Three Note Oddity (2:18) # New Star Broadcasting (6:32) # Counting Station (Spanish) (4:41) # English Lady / 00000 ending (3:31) # Attencion / 3 Finals (3:31) # 4 Note Rising Scale (3:14) # Ciocârlia (5:16) # Czech Lady (3:18) # 2 Letter 'YS' (1:47) # 2 Letter 'EL' (1:10) # 5 Dashes (1:40) # 2 Letter 'RK' (2:23)


Disc two

# NNN (2:56) # 'Strich' (0:36) # DFD21 / DFC37 (1:55) # Drums & Trumpets (2:51) # NNN (1:47) # English Lady – 00000 ending (2:10) # NNN (1:00) # The Russian Man ('D-va' Northern Russian Voice) (1:34) # Phonetic Alphabet – NATO (0:49) # Spanish Lady (1:07) # 'Strich' (0:30) # 2 Letter 'NU' (1:12) # 'Strich' (0:38) # YT (3:35) # 5 Dashes (1:40) # German Man (1:45) # English Man (4:58) # English Man + German Lady (1:36) # German Lady (1:43) # Chinese Numbers (1:14) # Spanish Lady (4:25) # 2 Letter 'MD' (1:38) # English Man (1:13) # German Lady (0:47) # Phonetic Alphabet – NATO (0:54) # Phonetic Alphabet – NATO (2:24) # Nancy Adam Susan (3:20) # Counting 'Control' (1:18) # Nancy Adam Susan (Male Voice) (2:44) # Cherry Ripe (1:34) # Russian Lady (1:57) # Russian Man (0:37) # NNN (1:54) # Frank Young Peter (0:59) # Cherta (1:05) # Russian Counting Man (0:58) # OLX (2:15) # 6 Tones (0:57) # High Pitch Polytone (2:02) # High Pitch Polytone (0:31) # High Pitch Polytone (1:17) # High Pitch Polytone (1:00) # Oriental Language (1:11)


Disc three

# Ready Ready (2:02) # Iran / Iraq Jamming Efficacy Testing (1:00) # English Lady (1:16) # English Lady (0:34) # English Man Version 1 (0:34) # English Man Version 3 (0:48) # English Man (0:58) #
Magnetic Fields A magnetic field is a vector field that describes the magnetic influence on moving electric charges, electric currents, and magnetic materials. A moving charge in a magnetic field experiences a force perpendicular to its own velocity and to ...
(3:49) # Magnetic Fields (1:30) # Oblique (1:24) # NNN (0:35) # 5 Dashes (4:17) # 2 Letter 'KG' (1:49) # 4 Figure Counting (10 Rough Tones) (2:36) # 2 Voices in one transmission (3:29) # Tyrolean Music Station (7:18) # 3 Note I.S. (0:46) # 10 Rough Tones (1:33) # Achtung! (0:29) # 'A' (1:23) # Voice Sample (1-10) (0:12) # Rapid Dots (0:59) # 'Strich' (1:06) # Hier ist DFC Seben und Dreizig (3:20) # 2 Letter 'PN' (2:34) # Sample Count (0:18) # 2 Letter 'VO' (2:10) # 2 Letter 'HK' (0:41) # 2 Letter 'DM' (4:01) # 8 Note Rising Scale (1:11) # Spruchnummer 1 (0:55) # Spruchnummer 4 (0:48) # Random Pop (1:05) # Nomer 101 (2:52) # Okno Okno Okno (0:35) # Nomer 198 (3:22) # 723 Papaqui (1:23) # 298 (1:54) # 815 (1:24) # 167 (1:53) # Moscow Coup Attempt (0:20)


Disc four

# Russian Man Complete (3:37) # YT Counting in Croatian/Serbian (2:50) # 555 Konec (0:33) # Preska (0:25) # Cherta (0:26) # Count in Russian (0:40) # Count in Russian (2:03) # 1-10 Announcement (1:03) # 1-10 Announcement (0:50) # Counting in Polish (1:12) # Konec Konec (2:43) # Pozor (0:48) # Russian Lady test count and message (2:15) # Russian Man (4:10) # Spanish Lady (2 Finals) (1:48) # Spanish Counting (0:22) # Spanish Counting (0:24) # Spanish Man (2:19) # Spanish Lady (1:17) # Spanish Lady (2:27) # Eastern Music Station (6:40) # Eastern Music Station (1:42) # Unidentified Chinese Station (0:42) # NNN (1:27) # NNN (0:59) # Whiskey Tango Viente Y Uno (6:14) # The Crackle (2:33) # The Backwards Music Station (2:30) # Faders (1:14) # Workshop (2:52) #
The Pip The Pip (a nickname given by radio listeners) is a shortwave radio station that broadcasts on the frequency 5448  kHz by day, and 3756 kHz during the night. It broadcasts short, repeated beeps at a rate of around 50 per minute, for 2 ...
(0:50) #
The Buzzer , russian: МДЖБ, label=none, russian: ЖУОЗ, label=none, russian: АНВФ, label=none , former_frequencies = 4625 kHz , owner = Russian Armed Forces , name = UVB-76 , area = Russia, Soviet Union (Former) , frequency = 4625 kHz shortw ...
(2:40) # M1 (197) (0:52) # M1b (463) (4:49) # M2 (712) (3:11) # M3 (0:33) # M3 (0:20) # M3 (0:27) # M3 (0:17) # M3 (0:15) # M3 (0:15) # M3a (0:22) # M3b (0:50)


Disc five

# Data Bursts 5.201 kHz (USB and AM) # Exotic Cipher 6.215 kHz AM October 5, 2008 1927 GMT # Descending Jammer 7969 kHz USB # Drone 17964 kHz # Odd Clacking 4.039 kHz (USB and AM) April 29, 1998 # Bizarre Data Noise # Chiming # Chopper # Coarse Rushing Air # Oscillating 5.178 kHz March 12, 1997 # 348-10-13-36-19-21 11.573 kHz 1917GMT # Creeping # Rapid Descending Tri-tone # Engine Room Drone # Pinking # Rushing Air Sound 11492 kHz # 'Snundering' # Down Up Tone # Choking # Galactic # Sweeping Noise 9330 kHz USB # Strange Echoing Pips 11216 kHz USB # Bubble Jammer # Deep Nuclear Drone # Drone B # Insane 7.074 kHz AM December 8, 1820 GMT


See also

*
Field recordings Field recording is the term used for an audio recording produced outside a recording studio, and the term applies to recordings of both natural and human-produced sounds. It also applies to sound recordings like electromagnetic fields or vibrat ...
*
Numbers station A numbers station is a shortwave radio station characterized by broadcasts of formatted numbers, which are believed to be addressed to intelligence officers operating in foreign countries. Most identified stations use speech synthesis to vocal ...
* Shortwave *
Lincolnshire Poacher (numbers station) The Lincolnshire Poacher was a powerful British shortwave numbers station that transmitted from Her Majesty’s Government Communications Centre in Gawcott near Buckinghamshire, England, and later Cyprus, from the mid-1960s to June 2008. The stat ...
*
UVB-76 , russian: МДЖБ, label=none, russian: ЖУОЗ, label=none, russian: АНВФ, label=none , former_frequencies = 4625 kHz , owner = Russian Armed Forces , name = UVB-76 , area = Russia, Soviet Union (Former) , frequency = 4625 kHz shor ...


Notes

The Tyrolean Music Station played several songs by Bavarian yodeler
Franzl Lang Franz "Franzl" Lang (28 December 1930 – 6 December 2015), known as the ''Yodel King'' (german: Jodlerkönig), was an alpine yodeller from Bavaria, Germany. Lang's genre is German folk music; he typically sang in the Bavarian dialect of the ru ...
followed by a Play-It-Yourself
Music box A music box (American English) or musical box (British English) is an automatic musical instrument in a box that produces musical notes by using a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder or disc to pluck the tuned teeth (or ''lamellae'' ...
playing
The Internationale "The Internationale" (french: "L'Internationale", italic=no, ) is an international anthem used by various communist and socialist groups; currently, it serves as the official anthem of the Communist Party of China. It has been a standard of t ...
, the first national anthem of the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
.


References


External links


The Conet Project: Recordings of Shortwave Numbers Stations Homepage
– The Conet Project Pages at Irdial-Discs (archived)
Irdial-Discs A212 Version 2
– Free and legal MP3 download of the entire four-disc collection
IRD059
– The Archive.org mirror of the same
The Conet Project
on
SoundCloud SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform and music sharing website that enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio. Founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud is one of the largest music streaming s ...
– The streaming and embeddable version of the project
Music by the 'Numbers Stations'
– NPR story about Akin Fernandez and the Conet Project * {{DEFAULTSORT:Conet Project, The 1997 albums Albums free for download by copyright owner Numbers stations Field recording