Archive Hour – New York 77 Blackout
July 18th, 2008 by Russell DaviesI don't think I'd had the nerve to post another Archive Hour, it seems we do it every week, but this one was a listener request so I couldn't resist. And it is a complete audio joy. The words, the voices, the music are all great, a welcome departure from the Radio 4 norm in the use of music. But the sheer sound of it is delicious. Lots of crackly phones, under-powered tape recorders, badly tuned radios. It's incredibly evocative. Hats off to Brook Lapping who made it, and in an absolutely unheard departure for a radio production company, mention it on their website! Genius. MP3 here.
July 18th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
I think the only way to get away with it is to stop billing them as Archive Hours! We ought to just put a standing link in the sidebar I suppose. I mean it’s just our kind of radio show isn’t it!
July 18th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Thanks for putting this on the site – I was the one who requested it. I vaguely remember this as a young kid at the time, and it was a fascinating programme.
August 8th, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Thank you so much for this. I heard the programme when it was first broadcast on Radio 4, and it’s haunted me ever since – the score from ‘Taxi Driver’ is just the most perfect musical backdrop to a smotheringly menacing event, beautifully presented and narrated. I’d been searching for ages for this wonderful piece of radio. Thank you again. X