Someone’s trying to reach you. Composer and broadcaster Stephen Adams is on the air, and he’s trying to reach you – to inform, excite, bemuse; to channel, transport and accompany, maybe, but not to explain.

He’s positioned in the centre of the audience, only a metre or so away, but he can only really be heard via distorted proxy, through a collection of small radios positioned around the venue, sitting on tables or held by roaming members of new music ensemble The Music Box Project (TMBP). His warm voice spills in through crackling speakers. He’s here, but he might be more so there – this strange space which we can only hear, not see.

Stephen Adams in Imaginary Radio Station. Photo © Jared Underwood

In Imaginary Radio Station, both Adams and TMBP layer together a series of beautifully-crafted sonic, virtual and physical worlds, which unfurl in segments tied together by Adams as host.

Like a radio signal, the boundaries of these worlds are undefined and permeable – some bleed into our own, others drift further and further out of reach. Adams’ radios are peepholes into them; all eerie, surreal and exciting. In one segment, Adams makes contact with a mystery caller reporting back to 21 Shepherd Street Studio from “outside”. The two joke about planes as a real one roars overhead and through the broadcast (courtesy of the Marrickville flight path), before other sounds, larger than life, begin to creep into the broadcast.

Imaginary Radio Station is an incredibly thoughtful work, which explores the conceptual and sonic allure of radio with thrilling results.

Remixed by Adams live, pre-recorded sound is spectacularly embedded in Imaginary Radio Station. They mingle so well with the live performance it’s hard to discern which ones are a part of our reality and which ones aren’t.

The Music Box Project in Imaginary Radio Station. Photo © Jared Underwood

Over a web of bird sounds, TMBP members spin their own threads of beeping birds with radios, and scuffle around a microphone as they showcase how feedback acts on each device. Some is screechy, some silvery, some like a big fuzz pedal; shifting in colour as the radios are moved, tuned and levelled throughout the space. The broadcast is so ‘hyper-local’ that even the venue shapes the sonic outcome.

Adams called TMBP “ideal collaborators“, and there’s really no ensemble better placed to carry it out. They share a musical curiosity, a love of the strange and a sense of humour – all qualities which make Imaginary Radio Station fun, as well as interesting.

Members play throw and catch around the room with short bursts of static, improvise over their own voices and create a musical narrative over flautist Naomi Johnson, who recounts her kayaking adventures. A moment where they build a drone together on their instruments (particularly, on Elizabeth Jigalin’s accordion) is beautiful.

Adams, too, is a charming host. With a perfect radio manner, he guides the audience through these worlds, and seems to harbour some kind of deeper knowledge about them. He doesn’t elaborate; he lets the sounds speak for themselves – and, at the end of the work, silence sounds just as loud as the static before it.

The Music Box Project performs at Sydney Microfest on 5 July.