Poets on the Radio

Dennis Gaens (NL 2026)

Samplekanon · 260121-PoetsOnTheRadio

27 min

Poets on the radio is an audio-essay exploring the conncections between poetry and radio - historical, contemporary and speculative. It draws on various historical works and on interviews with radio producers (and poets) Sean Cole, Ross Sutherland and Pejk Malinovski to map where radio becomes poetry. In times where celebrity chatcasts and AI generated shows are crowding the podcast charts, it is also a plea for more sound forward, experimental and borderless radio storytelling. It ends on the belief that radio can be a meeting place for all kinds of imagination, a door to an expanded consciousness.

Produced by Dennis Gaens
Edited by Femke Zwiep & Ka(a)te Dejonckheere

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Fly Safe, Mom

Milena Soci (IT/US, 2026)

5 min

A journey through the personal growth of a daughter as a young woman and the echoes of a mother’s past lives, once young herself, between the constraints of the Castro dictatorship and the longing for a better future.

Produced and Edited by Milena Soci

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Low Vines - Pulled Down In Peru

Petra Barran, Lucia Scazzocchio, Lina Prestwood (UK 2024)

45 min

Lowlines is a sonic scrapbook and a passport to roam. Following one woman’s pull to tune into the pulse of place - befriending strangers along the way. Feeling pranged out by the London business hustle, food entrepreneur Petra Barran brought an audio recorder and set off with no itinerary, guided simply by a hunger to get lower and closer to the ground. The series is a holiday for the ears, taking us to the heartbeat of New Orleans, the low-slTw

Two weeks at a plant medicine centre in the Peruvian Amazon - Petra thought this would be a good thorough deep dive and that I might get wiser and closer to the plants, but she soon discovers that two weeks is nothing and that she knows nothing. Everything at Aya Madre is a challenge to what you think you understand and who you think you are. An assault on the senses, a take-down of the ego, an all-out reckoning with not even the release of a firm conclusion.

This final episode of the first season of Lowlines is the anti-conclusion episode. Give it up to the twisting, knotted vines and the soaring, deafening jungle chorus. Just go with it. Petra tried to…!ung wetlands of South Louisiana, the slow gyrations of the Amtrak to Tucson. Down to the brittle rasp of the Sonoran desert, the rich, volcanic soil of Mexico City’s Aztec allotments and further, to the soaring jungle chorus of the Peruvian Amazon.

Produced by Lucia Scazzocchio of Social Broadcasts,
Executive-Produced by Lina Prestwood of Scenery Studios
Mixing & Mastering: Jobina Tinnemans
Music by Hannah Marshall and icoros sung by Maestra Estela, Maestra Yaca, Maestro Nestor and Maestro Daniel

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Instrumental Romance

Kim David Bots (NL 2025)

45 min

In 2023, while walking with his dog friend Miemel, Kim found a CD in the river Maas near Maastricht. The CD was clearly unplayable, but its title still readable; Instrumental Romance. It felt like a question from a not so distant past. What is romance as an instrument? Romance instrumentalized? At the same time he was experimenting with text to speech voices and recognized something that you could call an instrumentalized form of romance. These voices 'work' because they use pauses, timbres and intonation your ear recognizes as human. At the same time they can’t convince completely. In them exists a sort of auditory uncanny valley. From the idea of the uncanny and romantic in sound/music/story he started experimenting and writing and out of it came 'Instrumental Romance’. It consists of a chain of 11 narrative, musical vignettes (some more narrative then others).

Produced and composed by Kim David Bots

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XMTR Radio Hour #40: Shorts 2025

Produced by Social Broadcasts (UK 202)

60 min / Episode 40 of 40

This XMTR Radio Hour is a compilation of short audio works that have been submitted to xmtr.fm over the past year. XMTR is an online portal championing and  showcasing sonic storytelling in its many forms and genres. These short audio works represent the variety and scope of audio craft from both new and more seasoned audio makers from all over the world. No theme, just interesting uses of sound. 

Works featured: 

• The Box by Oliver Morris

• Slag Speaks by Emily Candela

• Echo Charmer by Xelis Del Toro

• Live or Dye by MariaConterno

• Offleash by Terry Halbert

• Are We Only Dreaming by Lily Sloan and Zara Zimbardo

• 1001 Stabs by Fari Al Meghari and Lina Prestwood

• The Well, The Bay, The Sea by Suzi Lamb

• The Graves in the Ocean Are Burning by Per Wilhelm Wahlroos. 

XMTR Radio Hour Produced by Lucia Scazzocchio

Follow the series

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Finding The Extraordinary in the Ordinary

Patrick McNameeKing (US 2025)

3 min

Laurie Gordon MacKenzie began teaching social studies in Concord New Hampshire in 1987 --the year after the Challenger Shuttle Disaster when Concord High teacher Christa McAuliffe was lost. One of the courses that Laurie started teaching that year was American Women's History, which was a course developed and taught by McAuliffe. As part of New Hampshire Public Radio's series ""Remembering Christa" Laurie Gordon MacKenzie reflects on teaching that class, and the lessons we can still learn from Christa McAuliffe.

Produced by Patrick McNameeKing
Music from Epidemic Sound

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39 Alpha, 39 Bravo - The Sound Of Detention’s Economies

Earrational Measures  (IT 2025)

10 min

9 Alpha, 39 Bravo tells the story of profit and exploitation within a specific immigration removal centre throughout 1 day, through data sonification.

It is an uncanny journey through the 24 hours of Campsfield House Immigration Removal Centre (near Oxford, UK) in 2016, from the perspective of Pilo Moreno, the co-producer of this track and expert by experience. Pilo guides the listeners through a whole day in Campsfield House, retracing a generic day, a recurring and repeating sequence throughout the 5 months he spent there.

In the background, and as part of the track’s rhythmical backbone, you will hear how much three different characters earned in one day back in 2016: the director of the private corporation managing the removal Centre, the custody officer working in the facility, and a detainee who is employed by the centre for menial duties. All the sounds associated with the incomes of these three social actors were chosen by Pilo.

Through the juxtaposition of data-sonification, haunting sounds and first account narration, the listeners delve into the brutal economies of detention - characterised by extreme exploitation built on processes of dehumanisation which are woven into the daily practices and restrictions of UK Immigration Removal Centres.

The title - "39 Alpha, 39 Bravo"- is an explicit reference to the numbers of the bed Pilo and his cell mate were called by during their time in detention.

Produced by Anna De Mutiis
Music by Pilo Moreno,, Arturo Moreno and Anna De Mutiis:

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What Would Sophie Calle Do?

Marcia Sandee (NL 2025)

2 min

Marcia got a letter and made it her own. Inspired by the work 'take care of yourself' by artist Sophie Calle

Produced by Marcia Sandee
Music by Camiel Jansen,
Sundd design by Marcia Sandee

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2025 Selects: Drops from Heaven

Patrick McNameeKing (US 2025)

7 min

Alesia shares how she began communicating with the deceased, and the impact of her career as a medium.

Produced by Patrick McNameeKing
Music by Patrick McNameeKing

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2025 Selects: Marsification: A Tale of Planetary Grief

Lily Sloane (US 2024)

Marsification · Marsification: A tale of planetary grief

49 min

Today we are being increasingly bombarded by the idea that humanity can and should expand to Mars. Coined in 2020 by the art collective Bureau of Linguistical Reality, the neologism Marsification critiques the idea that we can reset civilization by escaping to “Planet B”.

Marsification: A tale of planetary grief is a concept album audio artwork that unsettles seductive astro-colonial fantasies of leaving a damaged Earth for an uninhabited Mars. These 16 vignettes are designed for individual experiences and community dialogues as we process this interplanetary moment in all of its dissonance. Marsification:

A tale of planetary grief weaves together textured soundscapes, spoken dialogue, satire, hyper pop, whimsy, humor and heartache, non-fiction and science fiction, science and poetry, fantasy and history, with travels into inner and outer space. How can we examine assumptions about the future? And how do we listen properly to the ghosts that haunt the present?

Written and created by Lily Sloane and Zara Zimbardo
Narration and voice acting by Lily Sloane, Zara Zimbardo, and Chelsea Kigano
Audio production, music and sound design by Lily Sloane
Editorial support from Keisha TK Dutes;
Sound consultation from Adriene Lilly

Marsfication.com

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