On My Radio: Siglo 21 and RNE3

"Hola. ¿Qué pasa?"

At midday, six days a week, these are the words which greet you to a radio show. It's called "Siglo Veintiuno". Twenty-first century. The words are spoken by Tomás Fernando Flores. The show is on the national station RNE3. Flores, to use an overworked word, is something of a doyen of the Spanish music scene, both on radio and in the press.

His show, one that specializes in electronic, experimental and dance music, is extraordinary in the extent to which it is at the cutting-edge and extraordinary in that it should go out at the time that it does. But it is not so extraordinary when you consider just how unusual, how eclectic and avant-garde and how downright different RNE3 is. There is little to which it can be compared. The BBC's 6 Music maybe, but that is on the margins of the BBC's network; it isn't mainstream. RNE3 is the main music channel on Spain's national broadcast network, but its output is, for the most part, anything but in the mainstream.

On RNE3 you can hear just about any form of music you care to think of that conforms to "popular" music in its broadest sense. The big exception is classical; RNE has its own classical station. Otherwise the music ranges from rock to jazz to flamenco to world to hip-hop to folk to experimental and dance. And there is even some pop. Nothing that unusual in this coverage, but RNE3's style is far from usual.

Flores is an institution. Fifty next year, he has been broadcasting with RNE3 since the early '80s. His style, like others on the station, is reserved mixed with a certain authority. There is little that is flippant about his presenting. He's deadly serious about his music, and it is the music that matters. One of the most peculiar aspects of his show is that it airs at midday. It is the sort of programme you might expect to occupy a late-evening slot on Radio 1. But this peculiarity tells you all you need to know about RNE3. It doesn't compromise. Flores' natural audience might not be listening at midday, mainly because it's not awake, but it can of course catch up via internet playback.

I caught the RNE3 bug some years ago. One thing that did it was tuning in at eight in the morning and sitting captivated by a track that went on for a good ten minutes. It was electronic, ethereal with a children's choir. The announcer said it was by Catherine Denby, but I have never managed to find any mention of her subsequently, just emphasizing how left-field RNE3 can be. I hadn't misheard the name, though mishearing is not difficult. Spanish pronunciations can confuse. Who were "Ire" I once wondered, before realizing they were the French electronic dance duo Air. The former Stone Roses' singer Ian Brown is no longer Ian on RNE3. He is Iron Brown.

But that ethereal track at the eight in the morning, soothing though it was, was not exactly the sort of thing you'd find Chris Moyles or Chris Evans playing. It is the very weirdness of RNE3 that says much about how it, as a national broadcaster, differs from the BBC. Ratings seem immaterial. If they were, then Flores would be shunted off to midnight, and midday would be packed with something altogether more frothy and lightweight. The station doesn't seem to wish to compete with all the more "poppy" stations or overtly dance stations, such as Flaix, that are available. One wonders if there isn't perhaps a lesson for the BBC in this, it being that the Spanish take their culture seriously to the point of being almost perverse.

Flores though is not some remote, professorial type. He has been a DJ for instance at the Benicàssim music festival that is staged annually north of Valencia. The other day he was doing his bit for next year's festival in 2011, including having Bobby Gillespie, sounding as off his head as he looks on stage, reciting the "Siglo Veintiuno" slogan. Primal Scream will be headlining at Benicàssim along with the Arctic Monkeys and The Strokes this coming July. (A note here perhaps for Mallorca. Why is it that Benicàssim, a town of some 18,000 - the rough equivalent in population terms therefore of the likes of Alcúdia or Pollensa - can stage such a festival, given also that it is some 90 kilometres from the nearest airport?)

I don't know if RNE3 or indeed Flores have ever won an international award. Looking down the list of gold, silver and bronze winners at the 2010 New York Festivals radio programme and promotion awards, there was no mention. But mentions would be deserved.

"Hola. ¿Qué pasa?" Listening to the radio. "Siglo 21".


* RNE3 is on 92.3FM (south of the island) and 97.4FM (north). Also at http://www.rtve.es/radio/radio3/. For "Siglo 21", click "Electrónica" for more information, to download or to play back.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.