Episode notes
Time unravels in this hypnotic audio journey... In this edition of Slow Radio, we tumble inside the delicate mechanism of the clock - our attempt to contain and mark the steady rush of time itself. Musical and rhythmic, this surreal audio composition moves between the meditative beat of a single timepiece through to a cacophonous eruption of melodious chimes and cuckoos. The Clock will air just after Big Ben's midnight chimes play out on the BBC, 100 years after London's most famous clock was first broadcast on New Year's Eve 1923. Featuring audio first recorded for the documentary Time…
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Slow Radio
BBC Radio 3 · Tech & Science · English
An antidote to today’s frenzied world. Step back, let go, immerse yourself: it’s time to go slow. Listen to the sounds of birds, mountain climbing, monks chatting as you go about your day. A lo-fi celebration of pure sound.
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25 Feb 2024 · 30 min
Sleeper Train
In 2017, audio producer Phil Smith travelled to Ukraine to attend his friend's wedding. There, somewhere between the cities of Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv and Odessa, he fell in love with the soundworld of the sleeper train: its steady hypnotic rhythms, the melody of hurtling through time and space, the calls of distant tannoy speakers drifting across platforms in the dead of night, the chorus of snores from sleeping passengers. Revisiting these recordings, seven years later, this Slow Radio journey offers echoes of a country in calmer times, when such trains were not a means of logistics…
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28 Jan 2024 · 31 min
Morocco Suite
From the medina of Marrakech to the palmeries in Zagora, join sound recordists Andrea Campisi and Silvia Malnati as they embark upon a roadtrip in sound, leaving the capital city to journey across southeast Morocco. Across four movements of contrasting energies, bound together by the motif of the muezzin’s call to prayer, we listen to an immersive musical suite comprising binaural field recordings and on-location sound. I. Allegro: In Marrakech medina we take a walk through a maze of streets and stalls before arriving out onto the iconic Jemaa el-Fnaa square. Here, we’re met with the…
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9 Jan 2024 · 28 min
Sounds of the Earth - husky howls and oystercatchers
Relax with a mix of music and natural sounds, recorded by Radio 3 Sunday Breakfast listeners. Three dawn choruses from across the UK, starring woodland, garden and sea birds, follow on from the very different dusk chorus from the remote Greeenland town of Ilulissat, which features hundreds of huskies. Recordings made by Julie Moody, Alice Smith, Ted Reed and Michael Bawtree.
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5 Nov 2023 · 30 min
Berlin's Hidden Soundscape
How does the Berlin urban landscape sound? Using a unique approach that combines field recordings and photographs translated into audio, the Uruguayan and Berlin-based artist Darío Dornel, aka Kirap, takes listeners on a captivating journey through the city's hidden soundscapes. Pictures of recognisable city places are translated into sound using audio software through Bitmap's code conversion. A wide range of sounds is generated using various sound design tools and techniques. These sounds are combined with field recordings from the same places, creating an immersive sound exploration trip.…
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13 Oct 2023 · 30 min
Sounds of the Earth - from the Himalayas to Dehli
Relax with a mix of music and natural sounds, recorded by Radio 3 Sunday Breakfast listeners. We start in the Himalayas and end in an urban forest in Dehli, getting there via Kardamyli beach in Greece and the Thames footpath in Oxfordshire. Recordings made by Naryndra Kumar, James Hadley, Kate Sandars and Michael Lidgley.
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1 Oct 2023 · 30 min
A Journey through Ramallah
YA Z AN, a Palestinian Berlin-based artist, travels around his hometown of Ramallah, located in the heart of the West Bank. During his journey, YA Z AN encounters sounds that comfort and remind him of home. He uses binaural technology to collect audio pieces from the verdant Palestinian landscape and sculpts them with sounds from everyday life to create a complete surround sound experience. Setting off with a ‘oud player singing folklore music during a post-wedding ceremony and followed by a walk to home where family is gathered at a dinner table chit-chatting about food and how it is…
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24 Sep 2023 · 31 min
Sounds of an ascent on foot to the summit of the imposing North Grigna mountain in Italy.
With its peak at 2410 metres in altitude, the North Grigna is an imposing quasi-mythical character in the local culture of the Lombardy region. Those who get to its top can take in a 360-degree view over the Alps, Lake Como and the plains around Milan. Celebrated by Leonardo Da Vinci in his Codex Atlanticus for its rocky ridges, the mountain is also the protagonist in an Italian Alpine folk song entitled The Legend of the Grigna. The lyrics speak of a beautiful female warrior who is turned into a dangerous mountain, divine punishment for her having asked a sentry to fire an arrow at her…
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20 Sep 2023 · 31 min
Sounds of the Earth - Rooks, Bats and Toads
Relax with a calming mix of music and natural sounds, from rooks on Orkney to a midwife toad chirruping in south-west France. Plus bats in Lancashire and nightingales in Sussex. Recordings by BBC Radio 3 Sunday Breakfast listeners Stephanie Fritchley, Aidan Semmens, Simon Tuck and Paul Richens.
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