Speechification

I 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.

Just to keep your podcast up to date, here’s the second and final part of Orlando Figes’ brilliant Archive Hour of memories from ordinary Russians who suffered under Stalin’s brutal and arbtitrary rule (MP3, Real).

And, while I’m on the subject (I mean podcasts, not Stalin), don’t forget to subscribe to the Speechification podcast. Every time we link to an MP3 you’ll get it delivered to your computer so you can listen to it later on your iPod. Here it is (paste it into iTunes, use your feed reader or your browser’s automatic RSS subscription thingie).

Archive Hour’s going to keep coming up round here isn’t it? I guess it’s inevitable when you think about the quality and volume of material available to the producers in the vaults at Broadcasting House. This programme’s a departure, though. The material here is new - amazing stuff recorded for a new archive of voices from Stalin’s Russia.

Orlando Figes has written a book about the indescribable suffering of ordinary Russians under Stalin. He travelled around Russia recording the voices of still-terrified survivors and he’s made two programmes under the series title: Stalin’s Silent People. The material is of such awesome quality and resonance as to brook no argument. Just listen, really.

The first programme is called War Against the family (MP3, Real). Next week’s is called Freedom or Death. I’ll blog that one too.

Thanks to Rupert for the tip. Speaking of tips: Radio 4’s programme pages are usually a bit light on background but if you dig around a bit (use Google’s site: syntax) you’ll usually find a press release with much more information. Scroll down this one for a few interesting paragraphs about Figes’ project. Why don’t they use this material on programme pages?

This week’s Archive Hour is a highly relevant celebration of the early documentary film makers, amongst whom the ‘creative interpretation of reality’ was taken for granted (Real stream, MP3).