These are the best podcasts/bits of audio I've listened to this month...

This is a series that “examines the long shadow of slavery”. Starting with the arrival of a ship carrying more than 20 enslaved Africans in the English colony of Virginia, in August 1619. It looks at an interesting range of slavery’s impacts – such as how it shaped the economy, American music, the ownership of land. I am really enjoying short series like this one. Series that go deep on an issue with engaging storytelling and high production values. The host, Nikole Hannah-Jones, is straightforward and authentic. I like show she shares her own personal stories. Here’s the first ep but I strongly recommend the whole series.

This is a stunning piece produced in 2002 and inspired by the New Children’s Hospital at Westmead. It lives in a blurry grey spot between radio documentary, sound art and music,
Cello and voice: Ion Pearce. Featuring Andrew Salter.
If won the Best Documentary: Silver Award in the 2002 Third Coast / Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Competition.
Recommended to me by Emma Lancaster.

Produced for All Things Considered way back in 1996, this piece about cypress knees (who knew trees had knees?!) is a real delight. It’s not just about tree knees though, it’s also about memory, hardship and death.
Darcy Christ (maker of Audio Envelope – the plugin that facilitates my What I’m Listening To playlist), reminded me of this piece and we listened to it again together.

I’ve been really enjoying The Open Ears Project. It describes itself as “Part mixtape, part sonic love-letter”, In each daily episode, a different person shares a classical track, and explains why it’s important to them in about five to ten minutes. Then we hear the track. I like this for its simplicity, and for the way it is reinserting classical music into my life. This episode features a New York City firefighter, Rob Vogt. Vogt spent the months following 9/11 as part of the “bucket brigade”, searching the rubble for the bodies of those killed in the attack. His chosen track is quite galvanising and I can totally image wanting to have that blasting into your ears as you looked through the rubble of the twin towers. The first episode, with Alec Baldwin, was also particularly enjoyable because turns out Baldwin is quite hilarious. Who knew?

Yes, it’s a documentary musical about towels. Turkish towels. Turkish towels look very pretty, but do they really do what a towel is supposed to?

To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, the Truth has replayed (repodcast?) their first ever episode, back from 2010. The story is inspired by a real contingency speech written in 1969 by William Safire for Richard Nixon titled “In Event of Moon Disaster.” If you were going to be left to die on the moon, wouldn’t you want to write your name in moon dust too?

As well as being an extremely gifted pianist, Glenn Gould also made film and audio documentaries. Excellent, weird ones. This audio documentary is about Mennonites in Manitoba. We hear the intimate, raw, sometimes certain and sometimes confused reflections of Mennonites as they consider the impact of modern life on their culture. I’m not sure if Gould intended this to be listened to on headphones or not. There are often two entirely different tracks playing on the left and right channels. You might hear a sermon in one ear, and a Mennonite man talking about how many in their community now have TVs in the other. In headphones, you can kind of switch the sides of your brain to concentrate on one or the other. But on a speaker, it comes out as a very confusing cacophony of words and sound.

The Quiet in the Land was made for CBC Radio in 1977 and is the third part of the Solitude Trilogy, three documentaries united by the theme “withdrawal from the world”. Part one of this trilogy, is The Idea of North an entrancing mash-up of voices talking about Canada’s far north. This track is an except, but you can listen to the whole thing on Spotify here (there’s also a few bootlegs on YouTube). Thanks to Andrea Valentino for sharing this recommendation in the Bello Collective.

This is the first of a three part series called ‘Changing World, Changing Bodies’. It covers depressing changes to our feet, backs and faces as a result of our sedentary and tech-filled modern lifestyles (spoiler alert the common theme is decay). It’s a pretty straight-up BBC doco style but full of interesting info, such as thr delightful tidbit that will make you feel smug if you live in Australia – turns out our outdoor living is good for our eyesight.