XMTR Festival Selects: County Lines | Episode 1 | Their World

Phoebe Mcindoe (UK 2024)

41 min

This powerful and highly personal series investigates how criminal networks systematically exploit vulnerable young people, transforming them from ordinary schoolchildren into drug dealers through manipulation, violence, and trauma. An estimated 50,000 children in Britain have been groomed into county lines drug trafficking, yet their stories remain largely hidden.

In this first episode, Phoebe McIndoe hears from those caught in the web of county lines. Between the promise of quick money and the reality of extreme violence, we reveal how Britain's drug trade is being built on the backs of traumatized children, and why the system often fails to protect them.

Presented by Phoebe McIndoe
Produced by Redzi Bernard and Phoebe McIndoe
With original music by Phoebe McIndoe
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4

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XMTR Festival Selects: Lightning Refuge

Kristina Loring (US 2025)

4 min

What are the gems that lie beneath the wounds? Ruha's family escaped violent riots in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in 1983, just three months before she was born.  They were targeted because they were Tamil, the minority. Their successful survival could be seen as a string of coincidences, the result of deep human connections. Or was it the result of supernatural intervention?

This piece was created for The Golden Tape project by Kristina Loring, a mixtape of human essence where artists share their secretive and beloved pleasures, grief, ritual, and desires that they want to keep hidden from AI commodification.   

Producer by: Kristina Loring
Voices: Ruha Devanesan and AJ Devanesan 

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XMTR Festival Selects: Majd’s Diary: 2 Years in the Life of a Saudi Girl

Sarah Kate Kramer (US 2016)

25 min

Majd Abdulghani is a young woman from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, who dreams of becoming a scientist — while her parents hope to arrange her marriage. Radio Diaries sent Abdulghani a recorder — and she ended up chronicling her world for over two years.

Produced by Sarah Kate Kramer and Joe Richman
Assisted by Nellie Gilles
Edited by Deborah George and Ben Shapiro

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XMTR Festival Selects: Three Rings of Sounds: San Antonio, TX

Radiophonic Institute (UK 2025)

10 min

This field recording project sprang out of the Soundscapes class offered in the Spring of 2025 at the University of Texas at San Antonio (taught by Justin Boyd

Assistant Professor, New Media and Sculpture, Art and Art History). As part of the curriculum students were asked to propose ideas around what San Antonio sounds like. Being a large city, they decided to split the recordings into three zones: The Outer Ring is based around Highway Loop 1604, The Middle Ring is based around Loop 410 and the Inner Ring is the downtown/near downtown area. The sounds you hear represent the students' travels within the city and provide a personal snapshot of San Antonio in the spring.

Produced by Louis Gillespie and Ilia Rogatchevski
Student field recordists: Kayla Byrd, Jaila Castro, Ruby Coker, Alma Cuellar Vazquez, Isabelle Davis, Sep Garcia, Elroy Kay, Nina Lemire, Bryce Mcgowan, Andrew Mendoza, Carmen Montoya, Alyssa Narvaez, Aniyah Nick, Aaron Olivarez, Noah Pitman, Kendell Price, A’Isha Walker, Laurel Westphal.
Instructor: Justin Boyd; assisted by Charlotte Irakunda
Mixed by: Justin Boyd and Charlotte Irakunda

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XMTR Festival Selects: Transition

Kalli Anderson (US, 2023)

10 min

A multi-voice, experimental documentary featuring excerpts from SIMULA, an 8.2-channel sound installation by apè Aliermo and mixed and mastered by Rose Bolton. This composition includes sound recorded during three anonymous births and electromagnetic sound recorded in a hospital during one of the births. The voices you hear speaking are Redzi Bernard, Becky Kenna, Amy Macfarlane and Andrea Gummo.

Produced by Kalli Anderson, apè Aliermo and Rose Bolton
Edited by Eleanor McDowall

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XMTR Festival Selects: The Spittal

Camilla Hannan (AU 2024)

10 min

Composition made from field recordings made in and around Glenshee and the Cairngorms National Park Scotland in July 2024

Produced and recorded by Camilla Hannan

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XMTR Festival Selects: Making Utopia

Mitra Kaboli (US 2025)

39 min

Making Utopia is an experimental oral history about Mount Lebanon in upstate New York. This story explores a single tract of land that has repeatedly drawn communities seeking to create their own perfect world.

The narrative weaves together the stories of five individuals from different eras and communities connected to this remarkable place. While Mount Lebanon is most famously known as the central ministry for The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, more commonly known as The Shakers, the mountain's story extends far beyond this well-documented chapter.

Through these interconnected histories, Making Utopia investigates a compelling question: What mysterious qualities draw idealistic communities to this particular place, generation after generation?

Producer & Reporter:  Mitra Kaboli
Production Manager & Editor: Jess Shane
Additional Editorial Support: Jackson Roach, Liza Yeager, and Signal Hill
Singers: Annabel Lee, Fiona Feng, Jacqui Cornetta, Kira Josefsson, Rider Alsop, Carly Richman, Savannah Strenz, Hanna Johansson, Sanna Samuelsson

Archival Audio Courtesy of Soundings Mindful Media archive, by Dean & Dudley Evenson.
Making Utopia is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

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XMTR Festival Selects: In A Cowshell

Miri Berlin (DE 2025)

9 min

The electroacoustic composition „In A Cowshell“ is based on field recordings that capture the sonic microcosm of a cowshed, interweaving and abstracting its sound world. It follows the course of the milking process — from the magical stillness as the cows enter and take their places, to the rhythmic drive of the machines, drawing you in — gradually giving way to calm again as the milking ends. Finally, the cows leave the barn, guided by the farmers’ calls back to the pasture — marking the close of the piece.

Produced by Miri Berlin

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I Dream Of Water: The Well, The Bay, The Sea

Susanne Lambert (UK 2025)

7 min

This is part of a body of work is about people's relationships with water, based around a set of audio recordings from various people Suzanne knows. She asked contributors to share something about a place of water they have strong memories of, or connections to, and to say something about what feelings are evoked in the place.

Susanne set the audio messages within new compositions (including found sounds and field recordings) in different ways to create a series of pieces. She has combined improvised open passages (drums/clarinet/piano/synth) with more considered and formulated sections, in an attempt to echo, mirror and juxtapose the words, and build imagery around the stories shared.

The series will eventually also include factual information, alongside the personal connective elements, as an opportunity to examine the diverse and sometimes contradictory elements of our human relationship to water.

Produced by Susanne Lambert aka Suzi Lamb

Listen to the collection

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XMTR Radio Hour #36: Festival Preview

Produced by Social Broadcasts (UK 2025)

60 min / Episode 36 of 36

This XMTR (Transmitter) Radio Hour features a selection of audio works that have been submitted to xmtr.fm: Nanou Thassinda tells her story of belonging and acceptance in the UK through a study of regional accents in Life in Progress by Phoebe Macindoe, Chloe Turpin has uncomfortable conversations with her family in Brittany about a shameful event concerning her grandmother Emmeline during WW2 in Shorn Women, and Giacomo Bagni has to come to terms with the replacement son that his father has chosen to spend time with in Brothers. 

XMTR Radio Hour Produced by Lucia Scazzocchio

Follow the series

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