In Hauser & Wirth London, Axel Kacoutié and Lou Mensah sit in front of a Amy Sherald painting titled “For love, and for country” (2022). The piece is part of an exhibition called The World We Make and it’s Amy’s first solo show in Europe. The piece is also the subject of ‘Interludes: Dream Recurred’, the fourth episode in the new season of the Shade Podcast, which this live podcast experience is launching.

Interludes is a collaboration between multi award-winning sound artist Axel Kacoutié and Shade, where six contemporary artists answer the question: What does healing sound like?

Lou Mensh and Axel Kacoutie. Photo credit: Kid Circus

In previous seasons of the Shade Podcast, host Lou would hold interviews between artists and herself regarding how art has moved through their life. It would result in conversations about what art means personally, but also beyond one person. A particularly harrowing season of Shade was after the Black Lives Matter protests of summer 2020 – season four reflected on how the media responded to the uprising.

Speaking to Lou before the show, she told me that though those conversations were timely, she felt that after this response the audience needed a place where they could find some sort of solace. “I just thought next season I want it to be a gift to the audience and for people who are listening, something that can hold them, comfort them and acknowledge the need for everyone just to take a step back – to take some respite and some selfcare. I just wanted to create a small space through this series with Axel that would help people do that.”

This is evident through Axel’s sonic response. At the launch, they play us a snippet of the episode ‘Dream Recurred’ – Amy discusses the piece “For love, and for country”. Her images depict Black Americans in ordinary everyday situations and also reimagines them in historical moments: This piece in particular was a recreation of the photograph VJ Day in Times Square (1945). She fondly mentions friends she cares deeply about and wanting them to be represented, and it is followed by Axel using audio of Amy simply repeating the words “love is love” – the words linger in the air and the audience take them in. After sitting in comfortable silence for some seconds, Axel explains why the use of repetition not only emphasises the statement but reminds us how grounding the listening experience can be.

Credit : Amy Sherald ‘For love, and for country.’ 2022

“I feel like there’s a lot that the body and ear can do and need and I wanted to speak to that intuitive response,” they continue, “to follow how sound and music works to encourage and evoke a stillness,” a stillness that is often difficult to find in podcasting.

Lou talked briefly about how as the Producer she broke the housekeeping rules of podcasting – there is no traditional intro and outro, no break for ads and sponsors. Lou wanted all of that removed, “I wanted it to be an audio but also a physical and an emotional space to rest. For people to just relax. In audio there’s a lot of talk, a lot of chat, there’s a lot of fast energy. There’s a lot of slick audio making but I feel like it misses that capacity to hold people emotionally. I just felt like it was something I would try and do.” I felt like this approach of break in structure from Lou and these moments of quietness and minimalism for Axel worked well together – healing itself is such a nuanced and deeply personal topic; it is never linear therefore giving the listener a moment of reflection and breaking tradition feels just.

For those who have been listening to Shade for a while, you may remember the first glimpse of collaboration between Axel and Lou was the final episode of the 2021 four-part series of conversations exploring anti-racism in the arts, co-curated by Shade and Convergence. They’ve wanted to work together since, both confirming that it had been a year long process to get Interludes made. However, to add a timeline to projects like these is reductive. In some of the Interludes episodes, the sounds Axel used draw inspiration from projects that were made ten years ago, “It’s all part of the healing process that being able to give life to things that you thought would never see the light of day,” Lou adds, “I’ve been working in the arts for nearly 30 years so there is no way that all the things I’ve experienced and been a part of, have not been a part of this series because they have, so it’s a lifelong process of memories and inspirations.”

This project was as much for the creators as it is for the listener.

Listen to Interludes on The Shade Podcast now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other popular podcast apps.

The post REVIEW // Shade Podcast LIVE – Interludes appeared first on POD BIBLE.

I came up with the idea for the podcast after noticing how many of the audience members from my live shows wanted to come up to me afterwards and get into really compelling conversations about Amy Winehouse. They were full of memories, stirred up by the show’s time travel back to 2006, by the music I play and by this feeling that they had some unfinished business if not with the singer herself because they didn’t know her, but then with their idea of her. Talking about Amy was a way of reassessing the problematic 2000s, of understanding that we were young in a very different time to now.

I decided to ask fans from the worlds of music, journalism and comedy to talk to me about their three favourite Amy Winehouse songs, where they were at in life when they first heard her, the memories her songs soundtrack, her cultural importance… and all of those subjects naturally lead into explaining a feeling we shared: that we miss Amy Winehouse.

The first guest is journalist Emma Garland, who wrote the introduction to the book Amy Winehouse: Beyond Black. Emma was asked to do this by the book’s author, Naomi Parry, who had been Amy’s stylist and one of her closest friends. The book came out in summer 2021, to mark the 10th anniversary of Amy’s death, and it was accompanied by a beautiful exhibition about Amy’s life and style at the Design Museum.

I wanted to feature Amy Winehouse’s music in the podcast to make it a more immersive experience, rather than potentially pushing the listener away from our audio and off to stream the music elsewhere. This meant having to make some compromises. As an indie podcast maker, I can’t afford music royalties or a PRS licence of my own. So I decided to launch the series as a Music + Talk show on Spotify and Anchor. This means that I can search for any of Amy Winehouse’s songs hosted on Spotify and then drop them into the podcast episode. Listeners with free Spotify will hear a 30-second clip, and listeners with Spotify Premium have the option to hear the whole song if they want, otherwise they can easily scroll onwards.

The podcast format I’m working with is like a scaled-down Desert Island Discs, in that my guests only talk about three songs by Amy Winehouse that mean something to them. That format determined how I interviewed my guests, always keeping at the back of my mind the fact that I’d need to move them onto the next song.

The back end of the Music + Talk show determined how I’d edit. It works by letting you drop in songs into your audio, but of course I would have to introduce each song. I had to start thinking of my episode as halfway between a pre-recorded radio show and the podcasts I have been used to making (Freelance Pod, Black Mirror Cracked). I would also have to divide the interview up into segments, to allow space to drop the songs into the episode at the right place. The songs can’t be dropped into an uploaded MP3, only around it. As someone who will happily let interviews meander into interesting places and move sections about in the edit, I found myself aiming for much more linear interviews this time, to save myself from having to deal with too many moving parts in the edit.

Lastly, the main compromise is that the podcast will only be available on the Spotify app. For some potential listeners, that will be a dealbreaker; for others, it will be a mild annoyance for them not to be able to use their favourite app. We Miss Amy Winehouse won’t slot into their podcast queue, but maybe I don’t want it to – maybe it’s better that it stands out.

Making my Edinburgh show, I Miss Amy Winehouse, has been a mostly solitary undertaking, so producing the podcast has been a wonderful reminder that there is an audience for this out there, and even if I don’t get to meet them all at the Fringe, at least I’ve found another way to reach them.

The post We Miss Amy Winehouse: Making a companion podcast to my Edinburgh Fringe comedy appeared first on POD BIBLE.

The nomination seemed like a good excuse to catch up with host Marc Thompson and Producer Hana Walker Brown to learn more about how the show was made…

Pod Bible: Congratulations on the recent British Podcast Awards nomination! How does it feel to see this show nominated?

Marc: It feels fantastic and such an honour to be nominated for this award and to be on such an incredible list. I’m really proud that my passion project has been recognised alongside so many great podcasts that I listen to myself.

Hana: Its always nice to be recognised for the work you’ve done, especially with such a small team. We’re up against big budget and even bigger team productions. “We Were Always Here” was made by Marc and I with the support of our production assistant Rory Boyle so it really shows what is possible – and no women were murdered for this storyline!

I believe We Were Always Here was the first series of Broccoli’s ‘Documentary’ stream. I’ve been wondering which came first: the idea for a stream of short-run series, or the idea for WWAH?

Hana: Both kind of happened simultaneously, my background is documentary so it was really important to me that we had a dedicated space for docs that could be include any number of subjects, producers, series – just a space to be adventurous or introduce new voices bound only by the broccoli ethos of telling stories that empower. I got an email from Marc through our mutual friend who had connected us for a series of Anthems. He wanted to make a show about the UK HIV Epidemic and was asking for me for advice on where to pitch it. As soon as I read it, I knew I had to make it and felt there was no other company that could his story justice in the way he wanted to tell it so I said don’t pitch it, we’ll take it and that was that!

What was the collaboration like between Marc as Host and Hana as Producer? Did you silo your roles or was there collaboration on all aspects?

Hana: It was a really collaborative project– obviously there are things that we both brought to the table – Marc’s rich history and connections to the community and my storytelling and sound design skills and sensibility – together we were responsible for creating a space not just for Marc’s story but the stories of all the people that feature as well as the community as a whole that could bring to the fore those unheard voices to the fore and ensure their history was documented. We trusted each other implicitly which I think is important and actually, we both cared about these people and these stories which definitely helps.

Hana told me on Twitter that “I interviewed @marct_01 for hours and built the narrative from his ridiculously eloquent answers.” Do you know how many hours of conversation between the two of you was recorded?

Marc: I think Hana and I probably recorded around 6-8 hours maybe between just us!

Hana: We have a responsibility as doc makers to tell the “truth” of any situation and to me that starts with the words of the narrator which have to feel authentic and I think the only way you can do that is through interviewing. Yes, it’s a bit of a heavier lift than just feeding someone words on a script but it allows a much deeper intimacy and connection to the person’s story so I wouldn’t do it any other way. Also, Marc is a phenomenal storyteller so it made my job a lot easier!

Marc: And also outside of our interviews we recorded 80 hours of interviews with individuals who made up the bulk of the narrative of the podcast it was really refreshing to get to sit in the interview seat as well and ask the questions I was really interested in and to learn so much about friends and colleagues and allies.

There are a couple more big budget podcasts about or incorporating HIV that have come out this month – A Positive Life and Love In Gravity – I wonder if you’ve had a chance to listen yet?

Marc: I haven’t had a chance to listen to any of the new podcasts yet. I wish them really well. I welcome them as it’s great that we’re finally hearing all of these narratives about the HIV epidemic. It adds to the wider canon of British history and LGBTQ+ history so I think it’s great that they’re out there.

Follow-on question – why do you think this topic is being picked up more at the moment?

Marc: I think the HIV epidemic story is being picked up right now because its 40 years since the first cases were identified and it’s really important this anniversary is marked in various ways. We don’t have a memorial to those we lost in the UK, so this is a great opportunity to remember that history and the people we lost, and to also to remind ourselves that HIV hasn’t gone away, that we still have work to do to end new HIV transmissions and support the lives of people who continue to live with HIV in the UK and globally.

Hana: I agree- and while this year has put HIV back into the mainstream consciousness due to the anniversary and the popularity of shows like “It’s a Sin” it really needs to continue. As Marc said we recorded over 80 hours of interviews for this which we are handing over to Bishops Gate queer archive this autumn – all audio and transcripts and episodes – so that they live on beyond the podcast as a resource. A lot of the retellings of this history have been through a predominantly white lens so we wanted to ensure that these voices don’t get lost.

Listen to We Were Always Here on Broccoli’s Documentaries Stream on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other popular podcast apps.

The post We Were Always Here: Untold stories of Britain’s HIV epidemic appeared first on POD BIBLE.

I caught up with SallyCade Holmes, the Senior Manager of Business Operations and Partnerships at Next Chapter Podcasts, to find out more…

Can you tell us how you got involved in Play On Podcasts?

I’ve worked as a consulting producer with Play On Shakespeare for years. When I heard the plan to make these modern verse translations of Shakespeare’s work into podcasts I jumped at the opportunity to work on them!

Most people will be used to seeing Shakespeare on stage or film. Would you say that Shakespeare’s plays lend themselves well to podcasting?

The Play On Podcasts create an aural environment that allows your imagination to run wild. Our sound designers, directors, composers, and actors all work together to create a listening experience that’s truly out of this world. It really allows you to hear and understand Shakespeare in new and more clear ways.

One of the things that stands out to me is the use of sound to make the world feel very populated. I am assuming (given COVID restrictions) this wasn’t the case in real life… Can you give an insight into how this was achieved?

During the height of the pandemic, all of our cast recorded remotely. We have a stellar crew of engineers, sound designers, technicians, and producers that work tirelessly (and remotely) to achieve the highest quality listening experience.

Sadaharu Yagi, KING LEAR Recording Engineer 3 – Photo Credit Edgar Camey

Can you remember your own first introduction to Shakespeare?

I think it was in 7th grade? Romeo and Juliet? But it was in English class so we were just reading the text… I don’t think I realized that this text was meant to be performed. It just felt like a thing I had to read. As I got more and more into theatre, I realized how much more alive these stories are when amazing actors are breathing life into the characters.

We always like to give people a point of entry to new series – there’s now 5 series/5 plays – do you have a favourite series you’d direct people towards?

Oh man. They’re all amazing. I’m really partial to A Midsummer Night’s Dream because it feels so whimsical and your imagination can really go wild. I also love Macbeth because I’m a huge RuPaul’s Drag Race fan and our witches are played by Peppermint, Manila Luzon, and Monet X. Change — three queens from Drag Race.

Keith David, who plays King Lear in the latest series. Photo Cred Bernard White

Were you influenced by any other podcasts whilst developing this?

I spoke with our Executive Producer Michael Goodfriend who said Passenger List by Radiotopia and Blackout by QCode were examples of immersive listening experiences that inspired the Play On Podcasts’ style. He was engaged by the number of levels in the audio storytelling that exist in these pieces — phone calls, intercoms, dialogue, etc. Also Floodlines by Atlantic Magazine has a sound design that we were inspired by — it illuminates the story without overpowering it.

Listen to the latest Play On Podcasts now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other popular podcast apps.

The post Play On Podcasts: Shakespeare runs wild appeared first on POD BIBLE.