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

February 2021

‘The Forgotten Sense’: The Sunday Read – The Daily

One of the more unusual symptoms of Covid-19 is the loss of the sense of smell. While this often occurs temporarily during and after many viruses: stuffy, inflamed noses can block the passage to the smell receptors at the top of the airway and sometimes these receptors are also damaged by inflammation, taking time to recover. The Covid-19 loss of smell, however, occurs without any of that typical nasal blockage. And this has opened new doors to understanding our most neglected sense.

I am often outraged by the way humans view vision as the primary sense. Sight is the main way we perceive the world, the plethora of visual metaphors and idiom that pervade out language attest to this point. Note the first sentence of this paragraph.

As an audio producer, I feel annoyed in the many situations in which our hearing is at best ignored, at worst abused. I want to scream when I walk into a new restaurant in which obscene sums have obviously been spent on a new fit out but NO money or attention has been paid on treating the space for sound. Turns out people working with our sense of smell share similar frustrations. “While we have long understood the basic mechanisms of vision and audition, it has been less than 30 years since the neural receptors that allow us to perceive and make sense of the smells around us were even identified. The discoverers — Linda Buck and Richard Axel — were awarded the Nobel Prize in 2004.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/31/podcasts/the-daily/coronavirus-loss-of-smell-anosmia.html

November 2020

The Wait

This series is among the best things I’ve listened to this year. In-depth interviews, field reporting, audio diaries and conversations are expertly weaved together to tell the stories of refugees and asylum seekers stranded in Indonesia. They are without the right to work, study, marry, travel, or even hold a bank account. Many thousands of people are in this situation and the policies of the Australian Government play in important role in their ordeals.

Since the Liberal government ‘stopped the boats’, the plight of asylum seekers in the region has faded from the headlines. The Wait shines a much needed light on the impacts of the government’s policies.

Made by an impressive team led by Nicole Curby and Mozhgan Moarefizadeh, this project was years in the making and you can tell. One particularly moving moment had me sobbing on a sports field during my morning run. Episode one is below. Listen to the whole season.

Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society – CBC 2020 Massey Lectures

Everything that’s wrong with the internet in terrifying detail. Some of it you already know, a lot of it you don’t, but all of it well worth listening to. Deibert argues that the internet, especially social media, has an increasingly toxic influence in every aspect of life. The problem is how can we get away from it when we can’t fathom how we ever lived without it….

This lecture is split into six parts and this is the first: Look At That Device In Your Hand.

How to Lose an Election – Radio Diaries

This potted history of the public concession was published well before the US Election. Considering how it all unfolded, it was eerily prescient.

August 2020

Dispatches from 1918 – Radiolab

With the world in chaos wrought by Covid-19, Radiolab looks back at the broader impacts of the last global pandemic. There are convincing links that are made between the Spanish Flu and the negotiating of the Treaty of Versailles (and as a result, the rise of the Nazis), the fight for India’s independence, and every single flu death in the 100 years since. At one point the producer gives this haunting description of the flu: “In those rooms where Wilson and Clémenceau are sitting, that there’s this other chair there, this empty chair. You know, it’s over by itself, no one’s paying attention to it. And I just keep thinking how it was almost as if the virus itself kind of had a seat at the table”.

You don’t have to look hard to see how the Covid virus is stealthily occupying many seats at many tables right now (albeit virtual tables).

Confusingly, the opening story is told by the voices of Jad, Tad and Pat. Bear with them it’s worth it.

Radiolab publishes transcripts of every episode. Kudos.

My Dad Excavated A Porno – The Allusionist

This episode chronicles the history of the word ‘pornography’, which arrived in English in the 1840s. The reason involves archaeology, sexual art, sexism (surprise surprise!) and prudishness.

Effective Sound Effects – How Sound

An interview with Ben Naddaff-Hafrey, lead producer for The Last Archive, a history podcast hosted by Jill Lepore, writer for the New Yorker and historian who teaches at Harvard. (Sidenote, check out The Last Archive. It’s an excellent series that attempts to answer the question: ‘who killed truth?’ by tracing the history of evidence, proof, and knowledge. I don’t love all the stylistic choices in this production but the narrative and arguments are solid).

The interview with Ben Naddaff-Hafrey focusses on his approach to the sound design for the Last Archive. The sound vibe of the thing is 1930s radio drama and they went to impressive lengths to create it. Likewise, he didn’t just use a library of sound effects, but instead went looking in a literal library, and uncovered some exceptional stuff. I’ve got to admit, I liked the sound design in The Last Archive a lot more after listening to this.

A nice walk I took in August (Yes we swam!)

July 2020

July is Audiocraft month in Australia. This year the festival went online and it was the next best thing. My first recommendation for this month came by way of of an Audiocraft session, which were extremely well programmed this year by the inimitable Jess O’Callaghan.

I also presented at the Audiocraft festival. See more about my session Mic on Nature here.

Widows of Shuhada – RNZ

“Four women whose husbands were made martyrs (shuhada) – in the Christchurch mosque attacks of March 15, 2019, have allowed us into their lives as they come to terms with their new reality – Widows of Shuhada.” This is an intense series on many levels. The stories of these woman who lost their husbands in a brutal attack are gut-wrenchingly sad. One woman was four months pregnant when her husband died, and is now caring for an infant alone. Another was present at the mosque that day and witnessed the terror and violence. All the women speak eloquently and share their stories with generosity and honesty.

As a non-religious person, I find the careful explanations of Muslim ideas and practises interesting and, at times, confronting. I find it hard to get my head around the idea that the men who were killed were chosen by Allah, and being chosen in this way is an honour….

The production team behind this series presented at Audiocraft and it was one of my favourite sessions, along with a fellow RNZ presentation – that of the team behind White Silence (which if you haven’t listened to, you should). It was so refreshing to hear non-American perspectives on storytelling and audio.

The Skewer – BBC Radio 4

The series description: “a dizzying, dazzling satirical river of sound”, is entirely accurate. Listening to The Skewer feels like floating downstream, bouncing between dreamlike memories of events and ideas of 2019 and 2020.

This is the first of six episodes (each is in two parts for no apparent reason).

Intrigue: Tunnel 29 – BBC Radio 4

Two BBC Radio 4 recommendations in one month – they do what they do very well.

This series – part of the Intrigue feed that includes The Ratline, another acclaimed series to which I am yet to listen – tells the story of a tunnel from east to west Berlin, and the 29 people who escaped through it in 1962. It’s a remarkable story, expertly told by Helena Merriman. Each episode ends on a cliff-hanger which is slightly irritating but extremely successful in encouraging you to listen to them in quick succession.

I’ve included the trailer audio here.

Olivia Rosenman