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Tale from the Echobox 022

  • Tales From The Echobox

Tale from the Echobox 022

Interview by Joe Leonard-Walters | Edited by Passion Dzenga

Launching in 2021, Echobox has been steadily building a reputation as one of the most exciting voices in community radio, spotlighting the characters, crate diggers, selectors, and sonic explorers that make up its unique broadcast universe. 

Since its inception in late 2020, Polychrome Audio has quietly carved out a space of its own in Amsterdam’s electronic music landscape. More than just a record label, Polychrome is a collective of five close friends driven by a shared commitment to open-minded curation, deep collaboration, and community-rooted creativity. With projects spanning event production, a growing label catalogue, and a freshly launched podcast series on Echobox Radio, Polychrome functions as both a launchpad for emerging talent and a gathering point for kindred spirits across disciplines. In this conversation, the team shares the story behind their collective vision, the importance of community in shaping their path, and what’s on the horizon - from upcoming releases to cross-cultural club nights pushing sonic boundaries.

Tell us a little about Polychrome: What do you do? What is your mission? Who are the main characters?

Polychrome Audio is primarily a record label. Founded as a collective project at the end of 2020, our mission is to provide a supportive platform for electronic music. Our vision is guided by an open approach to curation, rooted in our diverse musical backgrounds and inspired by artists, music, and the stories that connect them. Anchored in Amsterdam's nightlife, Polychrome has been organizing events from the beginning, with its Polychrome Nacht concept and collaborations with other collectives. Through Polychrome Radio—our podcast series that joined the Echobox program in January 2024—we showcase the incredible talent of artists within our community across a broad spectrum of sounds. We are a team of five friends—Jonathan, Tom, Jeremy, Bea, and Hervé—and part of a growing ecosystem that includes many artists and music creatives.

You host many guests, and community seems to be a central part of everything you do. Why is this so important?

We could never have developed our vision without the support of our friends and the great energy of the collectives and communities around us. It's through experiencing life and embracing new initiatives and ideas that we discover talent and get creative. Our story is a collection of lives interconnected by a shared passion for music and its related cultures. We draw a lot of energy and support from the people around us, and we do our best to give back by providing talented artists with a platform to express their art through our label.

Are there any people, projects, or places in your community you'd like to shout out?

So many! First, we would like to thank Echobox for the genuine space and care offered by the whole team. We want to thank all the artists who trust us with their music—it's never taken for granted. A big shoutout to Gerard "Geri" Musquera, who has been skillfully crafting our visual identity for many years. Photography is very important to us, and we'd like to highlight the lenses capturing Polychrome: Marius Renard, Stefan Daniels, Leopoldo Chumaceiro, and Camilla Colognori. Special thanks to the RPU and Etape communities, with whom we've created truly memorable moments, as well as our Noord Space crew and family, where magic happens, and to Alex and Sol Systems, who tirelessly work to deliver the best sound on our dance floors. Lastly, we would like to showcase appreciation to our distribution partner One Eye Witness, who early on trusted us in their rich catalogue  and help our records reach audiences worldwide.

What do you have planned for the next few months?

We have lots coming up! First, Rotterdam producer Mata Disk returns to Polychrome with the LFH-Proxy EP, set to be released on Friday, June 27th. The EP features two original club tracks and interpretations by producers Eversines and Jopie, showcasing a wide spectrum—from bassy breaks to IDM and tech house. On the events side, we're launching a new cross-cultural club concept called Interfering Grounds in collaboration with RPU and Etape. The debut night is scheduled for Saturday, June 28th, and will feature Australian record label Pure Space for a sonic exchange in both a club and listening room at our favorite venue, Club Raum. We're excited to present not only DJ performances but also spoken word, dance performances, and custom sound by Sol Systems, complemented by innovative designs from our creative team.

For Loma Doom, radio isn’t just a medium - it’s a vessel for memory, activism, and sonic experimentation. Her Echobox show Left of the Dial explores the poetic tension between sound and archive, weaving together recordings, field material, and hidden audio gems into hour-long broadcasts that feel both intimate and expansive. Informed by the work of artists, archivists and activist networks past and present, Loma uses the show as a space to question what it means to preserve, reframe and listen. Drawing inspiration from experimental practices and pirate radio culture, Left of the Dial becomes an ever-evolving soundscape - where history echoes into the now, and radio transforms into an archive of its own. In this interview, Loma reflects on her deep love for archives, her fascination with forgotten frequencies and the thrill of stumbling across the unexpected.

How does your Echobox show relate to your practice outside of the station?

I’ve always had a strong interest in archives and how archives hold the tools for present day activism. Inspired and informed by the practices of friends like Experimental Jetset, Mariana Lanari & Remco van Bladel,  De Appel Arts centre and Jacob Dwyer, I have tried to bring my sonic practice into archives and archives into my sonic practice. My show Left of The Dial tries to build an hour long sonic landscape of archives I have stumbled upon or that were brought to my attention. So Echobox has given me a platform to experiment with how an archive can sound outside of their own container.

Where did your love of radios and the archive come from?

As said the interest and love for archives is based on how we can look at movements from the past that can be re-used to create new tools or tell a story that has not been told before through the archival material. It also allows me to go on a treasure hunt, filing through boxes or digital realms and discovering what I think are gems that need to be shared. Radio is the perfect medium for that, as its a container of its own that creates an intimate moment between me and my silent listeners. Radio also has this amazing quality to act as a platform for experimentation through sound and sound alone. Again when looking back into the past; there were these (and there are still a few of those around) amazing radio stations that allowed artists to use the radio as a medium for performance - Wave Farm for instance has an entire archive of artist run shows that were made in the 80’s an 90’s on New American Radio (NAR) - and I would like to think I’m following in their footsteps. And of course radio will always have this activist element for me where radio pirates would broadcast illegally to get their message across (like for instance Radio De Vrije Keyser - a station run by squatters in the ‘80s). And of course the radio broadcast then become an archive in themselves as well again.

Do you have any favourite field or archive recording that you've worked with in your show? What was so special about it?

Oof… That’s a hard one as they are all very special. Whether it was remixing the archive of student led radio Mushroom radio or sampling the great wok of radio and Fluxus artist Willem de Ridder, they all have their own qualities that then inform my show. My last show was really great to do as I was using this shortwave receiver build by the amateur radio club ETGD of the Math Faculty at the University of Twente to create this crazy noisy landscape. That was so much fun! At one point my dear friend and Echobox cofounder Chalice ran into to see where all the weird noises were coming from!

Do you have any memorable snippets from within our own archive?

Actually for someone who works with archives I have a really bad memory and I always find it hard to come up with memorable snippets or funny anecdotes. Let’s just say I like to live in the moment of the broadcast.

Tune in to Echobox - broadcasting from below sea level every week, Wednesday until Saturday.

 

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