Speechification

I’ve always been a fan of unusual percussion. I once got to play an anvil soundalike in the Derby Playhouse. And played canons (via reel to reel) for 1812. I’ve never gotten to play the taxi horns for An American In Paris though. Rainer Hersch has made this excellent programme about unusual instruments, making me all nostalgic for my metal-bashing days. Good to hear the intra-percussionist rivalry too. How we hated those bloody timpanists. MP3 here.

The Speechification crew were at the BBC this week, showing them what we were up to, hoping they wouldn’t hate it. They were thoroughly charming and helpful, especially with news on new features coming soon which mean it won’t be such a struggle to uncover who actually made the programmes we all love. There does seem to be lots of good stuff around the corner. But this Key Matters programme is an illustration of what still makes Listen Again so frustrating. It’s a lovely programme, fifteen minutes about what makes the key of E flat major so distinctive, and as soon as you stumble across it you want to listen to the four programmes that preceded it. And you can’t. They’ve gone. Curses. Oh well, at least we captured this one. MP3 here.

Update: Speechification listeners are marvels. If you look in the comments you’ll see that ‘Riffle’ has the remaining programmes. I’ve grabbed them from him and here they are: C major, D minor, B flat, F sharp.

Been busy. Sorry. Listen to this, it’s brilliant. MP3 here.

You can’t beat a radio programme about a legendary chinook helicopter. Not all chinook’s, a specific one - Bravo November. The jargon, the bravery, the incident, the relationships makes for great, dramatic documentary, but it was the sound that really made me love this programme; the bleeps, the sirens, the engines. Even the chinook’s nickname - wokka - is a great sound. You couldn’t do this with any other medium. MP3 here.

Geoff Emerick and James Lock are two pioneering sound engineers who helped shape the sound of the last 40 years: Emerick as the teenage tech behind the experimental sound of the Beatles and former Decca guru Lock as the classical mastermind behind recordings like Pavarotti’s Otello.

In The Sound Makers (here’s the homepage and MP3) Paul Gambaccini - who’s going through something of a purple patch on Radio 4 at the moment - guides them along as they dole out reminiscences of working on some of the most legendary recordings of our lifetimes… including Emerick’s tale of how he got “a letter from the management” about his microphone positioning during the recording of Revolver.

Half an hour didn’t feel like quite enough - sound geeks will probably be itching for more by the end, as the discussion broadens out - but it’s intriguing listening that had me reaching for my record collection.

Steve has raved about Chris Watson before. Maybe a couple of time actually. So I suspect he’s going to be a speechification staple, his recordings are just brilliant. And the way he layers them together, edits and moulds them. I know it’s a cliche, but it makes you listen to the world properly again. What’s extra special about this programme is also hearing from Mr Watson himself, explaining what excites him about this stuff. MP3 here.

I was just thinking how I’d love to hear this sensibility applied to the city when I noticed on Mr Watson’s website, that he’s leading a ‘Field Recording in the City’ workshop at the Museum of Garden History on January 28th. Must go to that.

Here’s a lovely example of the kind of material that the Kitchen Sisters gathered for their Lost and Found Sounds show on NPR (the show itself is off the air). This one’s got stories from early radio in Nashville, a really marvelous train whistle and the legendary Sam Phillips from Sun Records. I ripped this MP3 from a 2000 Real stream. There are lots of other shows - all excellent and unbelievably varied - here and you could, if you felt like it, give the Kitchen Sisters some money to help them make more.

I’m putting this up quick because I reckon the five (five already!) Speechification contributors will be racing to do so. Since the rest of them probably have better things to do with their Saturday nights, I’m first! It’s another Archive Hour (I love the Archive Hour).

This one celebrates found and accidental and informal and amateur recordings collected by American independent media celebrities the ‘Kitchen Sisters’, Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson, for broadcast on their NPR radio show Lost and Found Sound.

If Russell’s last selection was Speechification crack, then this one must be Speechification cocoa. It’s full of breathtaking recordings from sources you won’t believe: 9/11 voicemail messages, a Buster Keaton sing-along, Tennessee Williams mucking around with his friends, a man who actually heard the Gettysburg Address… Moving and joyful stuff. (MP3).

And another thing: why don’t they just turn Saturday Live into a British Lost and Found Sound?

I must be an auditory learner. I can soak this stuff up indefinitely: mesmerising, layered natural sound recorded in and around a ruined castle on the Northumberland coast by Chris Watson (who’s made more than one appearance here since we got started). I guess the excellent presenter could be producer Sarah Blunt but she doesn’t get a credit anywhere at bbc.co.uk, which is a pity (MP3).

Here’s another very Radio 4 thing, an “adventure in sound and memory” from 2004. The only reference I can find to it anywhere is this page from radiolistings.co.uk which appears to be another volunteer project, providing archive listings for speech radio. The sounds here “the ring of an old telephone, a treadle sewing machine, the hum of a radiogram” are splendidly evocative, even if I don’t share the actual nostalgia of the contributors. And I suspect it won’t be long before I’m tempted to make a similar programme about the noise of a modem handshaking or the painful banging ring of one of those rock-hard shrunken footballs hitting a cold thigh in a 70s playground. (MP3 here)