Welcome to The Listening Post, where each week we get an insight into the radio listening habits of a guest contributor. Once each person has made their picks, we ask them to nominate someone for the following week's Listening Post...
Last week, after being nominated by Mair Bosworth, an Assistant Producer at BBC Radio 4, Dennis Funk, Producer of the Third Coast International Audio Festival chose his selections. They included 'PMR Remix' and 'Third Ear'.
Dennis also selected BBC Radio 4's 'Short Cuts', a brilliant programme, produced by Dennis' nominee for this week's post Eleanor McDowall, a Senior Producer at Falling Tree Productions. Eleanor is an award-winning producer, who alongside working on 'Short Cuts', has produced documentaries for international networks including ABC and KCRW.
Check out her selections below...
Read moreAuditory Hallucination...
1. CSI Whale
"Rather than the cold audio autopsy a name like CSI Whale might suggest, this was a poetic deep dive into the belly of the beast. Hoare’s narration, enveloped in Tim Dee’s eerie soundscapes, transformed an encounter with rotting, beached whale meat into a moment of wonder."
"Documentaries like this transcend the flesh and bones of their stories, moving beyond simple information or news into a shared auditory hallucination. I feel something approaching patriotism when I hear the continuity announcer on BBC Radio 4 utter sentences like, '…and now Phillip Hoare attends the necropsy of a porpoise'. It’s hard to make a case for audio art amidst the clinical, commercial language of the BBC Charter Renewal consultation but I think my heart would break if the radio that transforms our most banal acts into vast, imaginative oceans was lost."
>> Listen here
Unreality Radio...
2. Miranda July
"I consistently return to the unreality radio of Miranda July’s old audio essays. There’s a small archive hidden online in which she’ll break your heart and invite you to confront your own mortality through imagined dry-land swimming lessons, an unknown man’s footsteps resounding in her stairwell or her trip to a ‘school of romance’: 'You will never be a part of the world. Humans each make their own world in the area in front of their face. Why do you think we’re the only animal that kisses?' ”
Australian Audio Art...
3. ABC Radio National ‘Creative Audio Unit’
"I recently fell in love with this composed feature built out of ‘firsts’ – first breath, first kiss, first time your heart breaks. It’s a delicate, musical ‘collective biography’ which takes you from 0 to 100 years old in 30 minutes. It emerged from a new Australian hub for audio art - the ABC Radio National ‘Creative Audio Unit’ – whose podcasts are well worth your time. Both Soundproof and Radiotonic offer a home for adventurous, otherworldly stories and sounds."
>> Listen here
The Sound Of Joy...
4. Jazz Dis-Junction
"Serendipitous sounds, audio oddities and an impassioned opening monologue about the life-affirming qualities contained within Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, Phil Smith’s Jazz Dis-junction is an unfailingly rich, joyful listen. A musician and a presenter, he also makes excellent short documentaries like this delicate dip into the lost art of one-to-one conversation."
Radio For A Darkened Room...
5. Jeff Bridge's Sleep Tapes
"Turn off the lights and let Jeff Bridges whisper stories of late night adventures with owls in your ear. Although, be warned, the sleep tapes are essentially a beautiful and ridiculous advert for Squarespace. On a less commercial but similarly ludicrous and enjoyable note, try standing in a darkened room late at night and letting the choreographer Hofesh Schechter tell you what to do."
Next Week on The Listening Post
"I’d like to nominate Michael Umney from the arts radio station Resonance FM. He’s a great producer who recently made this delightful doc on anarchic performance and musical spontaneity for BBC Radio 4."
Check back next Friday to see what Michael has selected...
