An unlicensed radio station broadcasting from a converted caravan in the California desert has gone on air each evening at sunset. The station, called KHLZ, is the work of Los Angeles artist Ian James, who began nightly transmissions on 24 October, running from 5pm until 9am, after federal monitors have finished for the day.

James first conceived the project more than a decade ago, when he presented a New Age programme on the artist-run Los Angeles station KCHUNG from 2012. In 2019 he built a version of the station into a solo exhibition in Santa Monica, using pyramid-shaped sculptures that housed a transmitter and speakers. The desert caravan, given to his partner at the start of the pandemic, became the permanent home he had long planned, and he spent pandemic relief payments renovating it.

Inside, the caravan is lined with a marble-pattern laminate chosen to echo a glacial cave James once visited in Iceland, and it doubles as an archive. Its shelves hold every issue of a Michigan newsletter devoted to pyramid power, a run of typewritten newsletters about extraterrestrial contact, and cassettes once sold in massage parlours and spas. The playlist draws on performers such as Kat Epple, a collaborator of Robert Rauschenberg, and Iasos, who believed music communicated to him by otherworldly beings could help humanity ascend.

James describes the station as a benevolent presence and a counterpoint to corporate uses of spiritual imagery. It also streams online and may travel for occasional pop-up events. He imagines listeners tuning in while doing yoga, cooking, or simply drifting through the night, offering what he calls a meditative soundtrack for desert life.