Transmissions
XMTR Radio Hour #39: Radio Limbo
Social Broadcasts (UK 2025)
Produced by Social Broadcasts (UK 2025)
60 min / Episode 38 of 38
In this XMTR (Transmitter) radio hour we are taken into the liminal audio apace that is Radio Limbo. This guided audio trip is an unusual quest through original music, collage, soundscapes, and disembodied voices. The show celebrates radio as a shape-shifting portal to other worlds, a wilderness of its own, and its unique qualities of companionship. Join Pete for this curation and performance of surreal scenes and sonic experiments, using local intrigue and lost histories as the jumping-off point. This was recorded live at the XMTR Audio Arts Festival in St Leonards-On-Sea.
Radio Limbo aka Pete Hazell is a music and audio artist based in Bristol. His various projects fall under the ‘Limbo’ umbrella, known for their signature blend of curious music, sound design, storytelling, and collage. His cassette label Limbo Tapes focuses on releasing music, monthly residency on Bristol’s Noods Radio. In 2024, Pete released the audio series Limbo Calling as a podcast, expanding the Limbo universe through character, voice work, and surreal audio fiction.
XMTR Radio Hour Produced by Lucia Scazzocchio
Follow the series
All Under One Magnetosphere
Hannah Kemp-Welch + Oliver Sanders (UK 2025)
Hannah Kelp-Welch & Oliver Sanders (UK 2025)
28 min
Electromagnetic waves fill the universe, radiating from solar storms and bursts of lightning, but also from our electronic devices and infrastructures. Using simple, DIY tools, a community of audio enthusiasts translates these waves into sound, uncovering hidden sonic worlds.
Five dedicated ‘natural radio’ enthusiasts venture beyond the electromagnetic pollution of the city, tuning into the Earth’s natural static to reveal a rich, textured soundscape rarely heard.
Stephen McGreevy, a cult figure within this practice, shares stories of his recordings during the geomagnetic storm of 1989. Hannah Kemp-Welch travels to northern Norway in search of the electromagnetic waves of the aurora borealis, struggling to escape the omnipresent hum of the mains power grid. Alyssa Moxley captures the crackles of shooting stars in southern France; Matt Parker ventures into the National Radio Quiet Zone in Virginia, USA; and Anonea experiments with antennas from a remote location in northern Spain.
This audio feature encourages listeners to contemplate the vast, often invisible role electromagnetism plays in our daily lives. It invites us to look up at the sky and imagine radio waves bouncing off layers of the atmosphere, connecting us all under one magnetosphere.
Produced by Hannah Kemp-Welch and Oliver Sanders
Research & Development: Hannah Kemp-Welch
Editing & Sound Design: Oliver Sanders
Executive Producer: Lucia Scazzocchio
Special thanks to Anonea, Alyssa Moxley, Dan Tapper, Francesca Thakorlal, Matt Parker, Rob Stammes, Rebekah Breding, Ruth Stewart, Sébastien Robert and Stephen P. McGreevy.
A Social Broadcasts production for BBC Radio 4- Illuminated
Glittering Prospects
Anna Bertmark (UK, 2025)
Anna Bertmark (UK, 2025)
20 min
Set on Brighton Beach in 2098, an local metal detectorist records search-reports for the Council's new Portable Foundle Department; a new requirement since mysterious artefacts have started appearing on the beach...
Glittering Prospects is an immersive audio drama exploring humans' relationships with changing coastal environments through treasure hunting and local folklore. This 20 minute peice weaves together Brighton Beach’s hidden histories, environmental mysteries, and the stories of those who search its shores. Inspired by cinematic interview techniques, found audio recordings, and through interviews with metal detectorists, wildlife and folklore experts, the piece presents a compelling fictional documentary drawing from the world of treasure hunting and local coastal history and superstitions. Through the power of place-based storytelling, this immersive listening experience explores how lost artefacts buried beneath our feet reveal meaningful stories.
Written and Produced by Anna Bertmark
Performed by Rachel Capell
Funded by the National Lottery.
Gary's Lincoln Continental
Anna Van Dine (US 2024)
Anna Van Dine (US 2024)
2 min
Gary of St. Johnsbury, VT, talks about the car that makes him happy. Her name is Big Red.
Produced by Anna Van Dine
Seven Minutes, Seven Years
Anna Van Dine (US 2024)
Anna Van Dine (US 2024)
7 min
As long as Anna has been interested in sound and documentary, she has recorded things. What does it sound like when you take seven years' worth of recording and condense it into seven minutes? What does time sound like? What does memory sound like?
Produced by Anna Van Dine
NOISE CAPITAL
Sofia Kourous Vazquez (PY/UK, 2025)
Sofia Kourous Vazquez, (PY/UK 2025)
52 min
NOISE CAPITAL is completed feature-length audio documentary exploring our complex relationship with the urban soundscape. How does sound become noise, and who decides?
The programme blends interviews with a range of contributors including soundscape researcher John Levack Drever, the Noise Abatement Society, venue operators at MOTH Club and the George Tavern, acousticians, nightlife advocates, mediators, venue owners, and writer Emma Warren. Through these voices, the doc examines the frictions between complaints, regulation, and cultural expression.
Produced by Sofia Kourous Vazquez
Music by Jake Thomas
Produced as part of an audio storytelling MA
Echo Charmer
Xelís de Toro (UK, 2025)
Xelís de Toro (UK, 2025)
5 min
Vocal with electronics, sound poetry, concrete poetry.
Xelis de Toro is a Galician writer and performer based in the UK.
Composed by Xelis de Toro
Produced by Paul Dutnall, published in vol. 6 compilation by Chocolate Monk
The Trees of Saunders Park
Claire Sabel and Alex Lewis (US, 2025)
Claire Sabel and Alex Lewis (US, 2025)
34 min
The Trees of Saunders Park presents stories about trees and why people feel connected to them. It is centered on profiles of residents who have planted individual trees in Saunders Park, the main public green space in the West Powelton neighborhood of Philadelphia, a part of the city that has experienced considerable displacement and gentrification for decades. Though each tree story is unique, the piece explores connecting threads between them: the ethos of DIY planting, neighbors confronting gentrification, connecting to the earth in urban environments, communal joy in spite of neighborhood change and loss..
Written & hosted by Claire Sabel
Produced by Alex Lewis
There Was There Was Not: The Women of Artsakh - Uncovering Roots
Maxim Saakyan (UK 2025)
Maxim Saakyan (UK 2025)
32 min
Linum e, chi linum. There Was There Was Not. This is how Armenians begin their myths and stories, the same saying as "Once Upon a Time."
Filmmaker Emily Mkrtichian spent several years in Artsakh documenting four women building their lives and fighting for their place in society. In this episode we follow two of them in Artsakh. Sose, a judo champion dreaming of the Olympics. Siranush, a politician determined to prove women could lead differently.
Then September 27, 2020 arrived, and the question became: What do you do when your world suddenly disappears?
Produced by Maxim Saakyan