XMTR Radio Hour Ep29: Lowlines

Produced by Social Broadcasts (UK 2024)

60 min / Episode 29 of 29

This XMTR (Transmitter) Radio Hour is dedicated to Lowlines - a sonic scrapbook, a passport to roam, tuning in to the pulse of place, with 2 episodes from this series follows food entrepreneur & urban place-maker Petra Barran as she travels through the Americas, meeting people with profound connections to the places they’re from. We’ll join Petra as she travels from London to New Orleans immersing herself in a Second Line parade and then on to the Amtrak slow train from New Orleans to Arizona connecting with strangers along the way.

Featured: 

1. Lowlines Prologue
Petra Barran isa gatherer of people and food on the kerbs of London. She began as a food truck owner, cruising the UK, selling chocolate to any and everyone - and grew a whole multi-pronged street food organisation from there. But as her business took off and gave way to more and more meetings in glass buildings, the energy and genuine, spontaneous human connection that she thrived on started to fade away..


2. Episode 1: Second Line Footwork in New Orleans (excerpt)
New Orleans - the most human city Petra Knows know has to be the first stop on her pull to tune into the pulse of place. It’s the most magnetic of places. Here it feels like the air is thicker, the light has currents in it and the ground is …bouncy. And bubbling up from those streets is the second line, a rolling block party, a neighbourhood parade, a high-voltage current coursing through the city’s veins every Sunday with music, community, freedom and culture. For many Black New Orleanians it’s the day when you own the streets, so you better bring that FOOTWORK

The series kicks off with Petra getting her feet back on the ground at the Ole & Nu Style Fellas parade in the 6th Ward.


3. Episode 3: Trainline: Slow Train to Tucson
The Sunset Limited, Westbound - Fly or take the Amtrak? The journey or the destination? Taking the slow train to Tucson just felt right. You know when your whole body craves a more gentle, almost human tempo to carry you onto the next place? So, whilst keen to get to the wide open desert, the opportunity to stretch out the journey, savour the changing landscape through Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, and have time to meet my fellow passengers was too much of a pull.  

In Episode 3 we follow the lowlines of the train tracks and the hiss, groan and gentle gyrations of the 36 hour journey as I talk off-grid living, denture cream woes, magic mushrooms and marrying the same man three times with a raft of fellow travellers - all while trying to get a decent bite to eat and a bit of shut eye.

Narrated by Petra Barran
Produced by Lucia Scazzocchio (Social Broadcasts) and Lina Prestwood (Scenery Studios)
Original score by Hannah Marshal
Mastering by Jobina Tinnemans

XMTR Radio Hour Produced by Lucia Scazzocchio

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Time & Again: Mike

Jack Suddaby (UK 2022)

14 min

How does it feel to come of age in some of the UK’s most disadvantaged neighbourhoods? What really drives inner city crime? What’s it like being sent to jail at a young age and released with nothing? We hear a lot about the issues of gangs, youth crime and county lines, but we hardly ever hear from the people with the best insight of all: young prison leavers themselves.

This is Mike's story - how he makes ends meet with fake money, goes inside and then learns to make coffee.

Produced by Jack Suddaby (Beautiful Strangers)

All men in this series have been supported by award-winning rehabilitation charity Switchback.

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We are all Palestinian

Soveks Lo (UK 2024)

18 min,

A ceasefire protest event and vigil in Enfield, North London last December, local people get togther in peace to end ceasefire in Palestine.

Producer - Soveks Lo
Maroon Community Media

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Promenade - Meadh

Andy Gaffney (IE 2023)

14 min

Promenade is a collection of stories from around the world dealing with memory and the stories they trigger from the sound of the sea reminding you of an old romance, the smell of a perfume in Paris making you yearn for home or a bar of soap reminding you of a loved one - memories can be triggered by the oddest of things

In Paris, a perfume maker ponders what scents she would use to create the fragrance of her own life.

Produced by Andy Gaffney
Written and Performed by Meabh McCurtin
Music used in this episode: Stephen Keech - Watermark Shimmer - Grace

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What do Sounds Want: Bodies & Spaces

ALMARE and Radio Papesse (IT 2024)

25 min

WHAT DO SOUNDS WANT is a 5-episode podcast about sound and about listening through a series of questions and intuitions Radio Papesse and ALMARE have shared while they working together on Life Chronicles of Dorothea Ïesj S.P.U., a sci-fi film & audio novel written and directed by ALMARE.

EPISODE 1 | Bodies & Spaces The sci-fi audio novel Life Chronicles of Dorothea Ïesj S.P.U. follows the story of researcher Dorothea Ïesj as she extracts and smuggles sound finds from the past. The world she lives in is inspired by pseudo-scientific theories such as archaeoacoustics (developed in the 19th century at the same time as the invention and development of recording technologies) which suggested the possibility of tracing acoustic phenomena of the past that remained “engraved” in matter. In our world, extracting sounds is currently impossible, but plausible and this hypothesis prompts reflection on its consequences in terms of social control and monitoring and these reflections bring to the surface questions about the political dimension of sound in public space.

The first episode of this podcast reflects on some of those questions and on how listening practices may be used as tools for critical thinking and for the tuning and re-tuning of power dynamics.

This is a fascinating audio essay and an excellent introduction for anyone wanting to engage in sound studies and theory behind sound and listening.

Narrated by Carola Haupt
Produced by ALMARE and Radio Papesse
Featuring the voices of Reem Shadid, Juliette Volcler, Giada Dalla Bontà and Brandon LaBelle

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All My Friends Are Turning Into Stars

Amber Devereux (UK 2023)

9 min

Originally commissioned for BBC Radio 4's Short Cuts, All My Friends Are Turning Into Stars is an exploration of chrononormativity, the idea that we all follow the same timeline, and what it means to live in opposition to it. It is a journey through space and time by way of Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, the existential angst of turning 30, an astronomer in Chile, and a slightly unnerving 1950s public information film about how to be a person.

Produced by Amber Devereux
Featuring Dr Matthew Temple, Research Fellow, Universidad Diego Portales, additional voices by Lou Sutcliffe and Alessa Catterall, featuring quotes from De Profundus by Oscar Wilde, Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf and In A Queer Time And Place by Jack Halberstam.

With thanks to Axel Kacoutie

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Landed - The Family Farm

Farmerama / Col Gordon and Katie Revell (UK 2021)

30 min

What if we’ve been getting this wrong?” Col Gordon is a farmer’s son from the Scottish Highlands. After a decade away, he’s finally returned to the place that he loves: his family farm. Now, he’s eager to start realising his vision for an agroecological future: a future in which rural areas are alive with culture, many more people work on the land, farms operate in sympathy with nature, and nutritious food is available to everyone in society. But now that he’s back, Col’s starting to wonder whether this vision can be achieved within the existing family farm model. Increasingly, it seems the odds are stacked against farms like his.

Many are struggling to survive, let alone to employ people and deliver good food affordably to local communities. As older farmers retire without succession plans, and their land is amalgamated into large industrial operations, the future of the small family farm looks pretty bleak. As he wrangles with all of this, Col stumbles across something that throws his vision – and his very understanding of farming – into doubt. What does it mean to say that “The family farm is a colonial concept”? And might this jarring idea be the key to understanding the problem – as well as its potential solutions?

Produced by Col Gordon and Katie Revell
Executive Producer Abby Rose
Music by Dagger Gordon and Col Gordon

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XMTR Radio Hour Ep28: A swimming event, A Requiem, Toilets, Silence and Salt Beef

Produced by Social Broadcasts (UK 2024)

60 min / Episode 28 of 28

This XMTR (Transmitter) Radio Hour celebrates works that have been submitted to xmtr.fm over the past year with an episode from Bristol based radio project Limbo Tapes' new podcast Limbo Calling, an exercise in mischief and the mundane from New York based Icelandic composer/sound designer Andrea Kristindottir, Berlin based photographer and audio story teller Miri Berlin takes on a haunting journey from intensive care unit to crematorium and musician and sound engineer Ivan Eastley contemplates silence. 

Works featured: 

1. Limbo Calling: Fear Swim
Pete Hazel (UK 2024)
https://limbotapes.podbean.com

2. Requiem for a Mother
Miri Berlin (DE 2023)


3. The Peephole
Andrea Kristinsdottir (US/ISL 2023)


4. Silence
Ivan Eastley (UK 2023)


5. Salt Beef and Carrots
Lucia Scazzocchio / Social Broadcasts (UK 2018)
https://soundcloud.com/socialbroadcasts/sets/cherrytree-chronicles

Produced by Lucia Scazzocchio

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Over Westside

Emile Klein (US 2023)

27 min

Over Westside is a meditation on psychogeography and relationship.

Musicians Carly Ptak and Twig Harper, known as Nautical Almanac, are long time residents of West Baltimore. The American noise music scene evolved within their home, T-Hill. West Baltimore is also where, in 2015, police officers killed Freddie Gray. Protests expanded from this point.

These recordings take place after the streets emptied back into homes. But a departed flame leaves a different heat in the walls. Thanks to contributors: Carly Ptak, Twig Harper, Davy Rothbart, Chiara Giovando, Andrew WK, Liz Armstrong, Xander marrow, Brian Chippendale, Max Eisenberg, WFMU, the people of West Baltimore, and all others who shared time.

Produced by Emile Klein

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All-American Ruins: Sober

Blake Pfeil (US 2023)

15 min

A multimedia travelogue where Blake Pfeil recounts experiences exploring abandoned spaces across the United States and reimagines them through multimodal storytelling.

The cornerstone piece of the project is abandoned: The All-American Ruins Podcast, an award-winning audio series which guides listeners through immersive sonic fantasies, recreating experiences exploring abandoned spaces across the United States and around the world. Along the way, the show asks critical questions about American history and culture, community, capitalism and economics, the environment, and mental health while encouraging folks to activate their imaginations as a tool for healing.

The show was recently featured as an Official Select at On Air Fest in Los Angeles, California. The finale for season two is the most personal journal yet. In the episode, which takes place at an abandoned brewery in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Blake reflects on his journey to sobriety, and how his spiritual connection to abandoned places pulled him through the darkest time in his life

Produced by Blake Pfeil
Music by Indigo Days, Lotus, Joseph Beg, Lama House, and Brett Gregory
Featuring Isabel Wilder, Nik Magill

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