In The Dark What’s New: Friends of the Wall

Evan Green (UK 2024)

13 min

Every Friday, a small group of volunteers paint red hearts on the National Covid Memorial Wall, in the heart of Westminster. As the world moves on, why do they keep coming back?

Producer - Evan Green

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In The Dark What’s New: The Sounding Bell

Garling Wu and Jessie Leov (NZ 2024)

6 min

A composition of field recordings, voice, piano and cello, made in response to the climate crisis. "The Sounding Bell" shifts freely between the concrete and abstract, moving from the real to the imagined to the surreal. Many sounds were recorded in Toyama, an urban city in Japan surrounded by mountains, rivers, rice fields and the sea.

Composed by Garling Wu and Jessie Leov

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Things You Don’t Hear at a Podcast Conference

Produced by Lina Prestwood (UK 2024)

55 min

Is it an alternative keynote? A lament? A provocation? Or an incitement to revolt? You decide.

With more than a whiff of the corporate in an industry that appears to champion and bolster the indie spirit, some audio conferences can feel like deeply incongruent spaces. Keynotes are usually about markets, ad revenue and content buckets from men (and it is usually men) who appear to have been born in the boardroom -  and the big story they tell is of the exciting growth! growth! GROWTH! of the audio space. They value our small shows and our brilliant creativity, they tell us. Bring us your best ideas, they say.

Yet, that’s often not what it feels like for many of  the producers in that very audience. Right now, being an audio producer has never been harder, more volatile or more exhausting. And if your show doesn’t come with a dead body or celebrity at the centre of it, it can feel nigh-on impossible to get away.

So, with that incongruence in mind, for the inaugural XMTR audio festival, Scenery Studios asked a selection of producers and creative audio champions to share how they’re really, truly navigating being creative producers in the podcast industry in September 2024. 

And that’s EXACTLY what we got - and way, way more - from:

Talia Augustidis  // Jasmin Bauomy  // Benbrick // Davy Gardner // Sarah Geis // Axel Kakoutié // Starlee Kine  // Anna Sinfield // Julie Shapiro // Shreya Sharma // Deborah Shorindè // Ross Sutherland

Just like the live audience at the XMTR festival,  follow along with this handout  - it shares the questionnaire they responded to, their biogs, the two questions we asked the audience after  – and the responses we gathered from a brainstorm about how we might start to  better advocate for the creative health of our podcast industry. 

It will live here for three weeks on the XMTR Listen Page / Player until 5th November

Transcript available here.

Producer: Lina Prestwood (Scenery Studios) @scenerystudiosltd

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Bin Juice

Emma Tindall (UK 2024)

48 min Episode 1 of 10

BIN JUICE is a fresh take on the traditional British sitcom, but make it ‘Millennial’ and for your ears... In the first of its kind ‘scripted audio comedy/drama podcast mash-up... we follow the lives of four unlikely friends from different walks of life across the UK, attempting to navigate early adulthood together.

BJ: A middle class ‘mess’ navigating the dating scene for the first time and slowly realising that a degree in ‘fine art’ probably isn’t going to get her all that far in the real world.

GABRIEL: First generation immigrant originally from India, working as a nurse for the NHS. In a long-term monogamous relationship with his childhood sweetheart, Cameron.

RACHEL: Half Irish, half African corporate queen with a sassy spiritual side… Trying to navigate her sexual orientation while burying the multi generational trauma of growing up in the troubles.

JACK: Working class northerner, a literal ‘jack-the-lad’. He’s the guy you warn all your female friends about, but really he’s just a trundling mess of insecurities, rejection and undiagnosed mental health issues.

Every week, one housemate at 37 Bellenden Road takes the bins out, only to find an item amongst the rubbish which sparks the story for that particular episode… from a mouldy chicken carcass to a giant pink dildo, they give us the ‘juice’ of the week through recollecting the chaos, carnage and often cripplingly cringey events of the week.

Think ‘Fleabag’ meets ‘The Archers’ with a dabble of ‘Fresh Meat’ sprinkled over for good measure.

This is the pilot episode from what is designed to be a 10-part series.

Written, Produced and Directed: Emma Tindall
Co-written by Scott Longwell​

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Where is my Mind?

Molly-Rose Crossley (UK, 2024)

MRC Audio · WHERE IS MY MIND

11 min

What is it like to living with a condition which turns your mind against you? Having thoughts that go against your morals, ethics and heart? This condition is called POCD, which stands for Pure-OCD. It’s the sibling of the more popularly known OCD and comes with its own unique set of struggles and traits which can be incredibly distressing for those who have it. We have spoken to someone who has lived with this condition all their life. Most recently the obsessions made her believe she had killed her best friend, who passed away from cancer. How has she overcome this and what does the future hold when your mind can be your worst enemy?

Produced by Molly-Rose Crossley

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The Magic of Waves

Eve Marie Bouche (FR, 2023)

3min

“I discovered that I had magical powers, the powers to transform the world's soundtrack, to make it a better place to live...”

The magic of waves is an English adaptation of "La magie des ondes" (1rst prize - Short forms category - Grand Prix Nova Romania 2023, 3rd prize - UK International Radio Drama Festival 2023).

Produced by Eve Marie Bouche

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Originally From Another Cross

Ben Gaunt (UK 2024)

8min

This is a sonic art piece, featuring some spoken word. The Leeds Cross stands in Leeds Minster.

A sign in the minster itself describes the cross: “The pieces making up the cross were found built into the medieval structure during demolition of the church in 1838. The cross would originally have stood outside the church, together with other crosses, and may have served as a grave marker. It dates to the tenth century A.D., and is carved in the Anglian style. The wheel-head originally belonged to another cross, although the shaft would have had a similar top. All the crosses from Leeds appear to have been produced in one workshop, and also have artistic links with other pieces from Wharfedale, such as the Collingham, Otley and Ilkley crosses. The upper tiers show several probably Christian figures, the angel and patron possibly copied from Irish manuscript art. At the bottom of the main faces are figures from Germanic mythology. One panel shows Weland the Smith, who was captured by Nithad, hamstrung, and forced to work as a smith. In revenge Weland murdered Nithad’s two sons and made their skulls into cups which he presented to their father, and then made Nithad’s daughter, Beaduhild, pregnant. Weland escaped by means of a flying machine, which is here shown strapped around him. He is shown surrounded by the tools of his trade and reaching up to seize a female figure, possibly Beaduhild or a Valkyrie, by the hair and skirt. The juxtaposition of Christian and pagan iconography indicates the mixed nature of tenth-century society, although the figure of Weland was sometimes employed to represent Elijah who ascended to heaven in a fiery chariot.

Ben recorded violinist and composer, James Gerrard, playing On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at. This Yorkshire folk song is based upon the hymn Cranbook; just like the Leeds Cross, it is simultaneously Christian and non-Christian. Ben also recorded James reading a sign describing the various sections of the cross, and combined these with recordings of bells, birds, and footsteps, all captured either in the minster itself or directly outside. Ben has attempted to replicate the cross’s beautiful, confusing, fragmentary character, and was inspired by its iconography, both Christian and non-Christian.

Produced by Ben Gaunt
Music by Ben Gaunt
Violin/Speaking by James Gerrard

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All-American Ruins: Sunset Town

Blake Pfeil (US 2024)

6 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 Jakob Ahlbom, Anna Dager, Hanna Ekström, Sarah, the Illstrumentalist

Follow the series

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Dimetapp

Olga Gonithellis (US 2023)

Olga Gonithellis Composer & Songwriter · Scoring for Podcast Story Score: "Dimetapp"

2 min

A young child can't resist the sweet grape flavor of Dimetapp cold medicine, and nearly overdoses. This autobiographical short story, written by Janet Lawrence, is revisited through a comedic lens, and told through the perspective of the young child.

Produced by Olga Gonithellis
Music written by Olga Gonithellis

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Crush Tango

Eloïse Bertil (UK, 2024)

4 min

A story about a crush at a rooftop bar during a solo trip. This short audio piece explores romantic body language cues, examining the intricate choreography of a girl-meets-boy scenario and its translatability across cultures. Blending personal experiences with fictional elements, the narrative contemplates flirting as a universal language, where every gesture (or move) carries significant meaning—or at least, one hopes it does.

Produced by Eloïse Bertil around a field recording from the Cities & Memory sound database for their Spring Project.

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