Luisteren met Ard Bit & Radboudmens


Fluister presents a special column on our website: ‘Luisteren met’ (“Listening with”)… While ‘Fluisteren met’ (“Whispering with”) features in-depth conversations with artists, ‘Luisteren met’ invites them to share five songs that have inspired or moved them.

This time, we asked Ard Bit and Radboud Mens to reveal the five tracks that shaped their creative world. Both are well-known figures in the electronic scene. Last year, they collaborated for the first time on Marking A Boundary With The Turning Point—a hypnotic exploration of drones, field recordings, and delicate electro-acoustic textures.

On October 12, they will bring these immersive and subtle sound experiments to the Fluister stage.

Luisteren met Ard Bit

Note from Ard Bit: Choosing just five influential tracks turned out to be harder than I thought.
So much music has played a role in my life. In the end I picked pieces that either hit me the moment I first heard them or that defined a certain period.


1. Aphex Twin – On (1993)
I was fifteen and watched a lot of MTV when this track came on. The music was amazing and the video too.
It grabbed me right away: different and exciting.

2. Carl Craig – At Les (1997)
The soundtrack of my club years in Amsterdam, especially in the Roxy.
As an introverted kid from Venray I took the train almost every Thursday night and came back in the morning straight to school.
The melancholy of this track touched me in the middle of that buzzing, eccentric world.

3. John Cage – 4ʹ33ʺ (1952)
During my third year at Sonology my teacher Richard Barrett played us 4′33″: four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence in which the surrounding sounds become the composition. That was the first time I realized the world around us is always making music. In the original performance, Cage simply sat at the piano. For this list I chose the version by William Marx, which captures that attentive silence in a beautifully, theatrical way.

4. Tim Hecker – The Piano Drop (2011)
My first Hecker album was Ravedeath, 1972, and this monumental opening track hit me hard.
Layered, massive, immersive, an experience that has kept shaping my own sound.

5. Ryuichi Sakamoto – 20211130 (2023)
Written in the last year of his life, almost like a diary. Pure and without ego; every note breathes stillness. The serene atmosphere of this album influenced how I put together my most recent Field Recordings release

Luisteren met Radboudmens

Note from Radboud: I cant mention a single trrack, for me it’s more about the entire album — but I’ve tried to pick the most defining track from each one.

1. Esplendor Geometrico – El Acero Del Partido (Part 1)
From the album ‘Acero Del Partido’ (1982)
When this album first came out, most of the electronic music I’d heard up until then was melodic and poppy. This album had a harder and more experimental sound. I really liked the noisy metallic textures on top of the tight, minimalist and machine-like rhythms. And they used political speeches as vocals.

2. Severed Heads – Exploring the Secrets of Treating Deaf Mutes
from the album ‘Since The Accident’ (1982) )
When I first heard this album, I couldn’t understand it, so I had to have it. Severed Heads combine experimental techniques like tape loops, manipulated samples and harsh noise with melodic and rhythmic elements. Their tracks are mystifying, atmospheric sound collages.

3. SPK – Slogun
from the album ‘Auto-Da-Fé'(1983)
This track is an industrial commercial for the band itself. SPK SPK SPK!! OK!! Pure energy.

4. Merzbow – Untitled
from the album ‘Rainbow Electronics’ (1990)
Merzbow – Rainbow Electronics from 1990 is an hour and 15 minutes extreme harsh noise and no pause. Merzbow’s noise sandblasts you and clears your head. He once told me that just because you can put it on a CD, it doesn’t mean it’s music!

5. David Cunningham – The Listening Room
from the compilation CD Silence that was compiled by Ryoji Ikeda.
David Cunningham is the producer from the The Flying Lizards. But he is also great sound-artist. The Listening Room is a feedback installation. The feedback is triggered by sounds coming from outside the room and controlled by a system of gate. Beautiful ambient music and an art-piece at the same time!