Slow Radio

From the medina of Marrakech to the palmeries in Zagora, join sound recordists Andrea Campisi and Silvia Malnati as they embark upon a roadtrip in sound, leaving the capital city to journey across southeast Morocco. Across four movements of contrasting energies, bound together by the motif of the muezzin’s call to prayer, we listen to an immersive musical suite comprising binaural field recordings and on-location sound. I. Allegro: In Marrakech medina we take a walk through a maze of streets and stalls before arriving out onto the iconic Jemaa el-Fnaa square. Here, we’re met with the hypnotising sound of pungi flutes and, as the sun sets, of gnawa musicians, jesters and Said Anazoure’s intricate banjo playing. II. Largo: We leave the city behind to seek refuge in the mountainous region of Ourika. Here, we hear sounds of village life, as well as the distant voices of children reciting the Koran from behind the school’s door. III. Scherzo: Having crossed the Atlas mountains, we descend towards the Draa Valley…

Poet Owen Sheers explores the strange sound world of the underground spaces of Wales, from slate caverns to sea caves, from Snowdonia to the Gower peninsula. In a new poem, he contemplates these dark and hidden places integral to Welsh myth, industry and psyche. Written and read by Owen Sheers Sound design by Catherine Robinson Produced by Emma Harding

Relax with a calming mix of music and natural sounds - from the Caribbean and back again via the rainforests of Queensland and the icy waters off Nova Scotia, Canada. Includes listener recordings made by William Collinson and Julio Davila and BBC Natural History Unit recordings from Trevor Gosling, Mike Potts and Grace Niska Atkins.

Jarrow Slake is an expanse of tidal mudflats at the mouth of the Tyne with fascinating social and natural histories. The Venerable Bede lived and worked here; timber from Scandinavia was brought to mature in its ponds. In 1972 the Port of Tyne authority filled these in to allow factory development. Now cars built at Sunderland are stored at Jarrow Slake prior to export. Part is a post-industrial site, where land meets water and sky. It is desolate and little visited, and so there is a rich variety of wildlife, much beneath the water and in the mud, unseen and unheard. For several years, the sound artist and composer Tim Shaw has been recording the sounds of Jarrow Slake, at high and low tide, at ground level and underwater. He captures the sounds of industry, of passing ships, the different birds, the wind and the water. And the astonishing musical noises of the tiny aquatic creatures. Sounding Jarrow Slake is a Slow Radio piece composed of these remarkable sounds, punctuated by bare fragments of information…

Tie on to the rope of artist and climber Dan Shipsides to go sea cliff climbing at Fairhead on the north Antrim coast of Northern Ireland. For Dan climbing and art feed into one another in unexpected and complimentary ways - both are creative acts - appreciative of aesthetics and beauty. Also joining us on the climb will be Derry-born dancer Zoe Ramsey. She was introduced to the sport by Dan and was instantly hooked. While their climbing styles might be as different as the art they create both see parallels between what they do in the studio and what they do on the rockface. Moving, balancing and extending for Zoe, drawing a line through a vertical landscape for Dan. With the jangle of the metal wedges they use to protect their ascent hanging from their climbing harnesses and the 'thwip' of the rope running out we join the pair as they inch their way up the cliff face with the Irish sea roaring far below in a journey from the deep blue of the water to the pale blue of the sky. Producer: Peter McManus

Escape to the seaside and enjoy the sounds of a day at the fair. As the country comes out of long periods of enforced lockdown, it's good to be reminded of the fun things that bring people together, and escape to a happy place, with reminders of holidays, childhood, excitement and wonder. The Pleasure Beach at Great Yarmouth is a family-run business that has stood on the sea front for over a hundred years. It mixes the latest fairground ride technology with vintage favourites. This Slow Radio experience takes in one of the first days of opening after the fairground's Covid-enforced shutdown. So forget your troubles for half an hour and come and ride on the Big Apple Coaster, the carousel and the dodgems; take a fairy tale trip on a mechanical snail, dare to visit the Haunted Hotel, and watch out for the Barrel of Laughs. Producer: Sam Hickling

This Slow Radio feature takes us on a leisurely stroll round the park. Parks are always important but during the lockdowns they've become vital to people stuck in cities and towns. Children can still play in the park; grown-ups can still walk, run and even dance there. When a smattering of snow fell in London recently Greenwich Park erupted with people - of all ages - pouring like lava down the icy slopes below the Royal Observatory, on sledges, tin trays, even grill pans. There were snowball skirmishes and snow sculptures appeared. It was a wonderful sight, and even more arresting were the sounds - the cacophony of joy. The park these days is 'full of noises, sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not', the sounds of life and happiness. But, in the distance you hear, too, the sounds of sorrow - a church bell tolls and ambulances wail. Today's Slow Radio programme gathers all these - the birds, the dogs, the children, runners, boxers, ice, mud, rain, and the - almost - silence, capturing a…

Take your ears on a binaural summer holiday through the Mallorcan town of Soller, from sunrise to sundown. The sleepy town awakes into market day, and tourists arrive at the Miro-decorated train station before climbing aboard the tram that runs through the town square down to the beach of Port de Soller. Night brings the local fiesta of St Bartomeu as the drums beat into the night in the town square.

Composer Iain Chambers’s celebration of the domestic sound world, starting in the present day before travelling back in time. Lockdown gave us the excuse to consider our own home environments in a new way. Household Gods takes this new focus further, exploring in depth and amplifying the sounds of domestic objects, arranged into a through-composed musique concrète work. This is a joyful sonic celebration of the domestic environment, starting in the present day, and travelling back in time to explore earlier homes, through historic sound research and sound design. At times the domestic sound world is bustling, at others a haven of peace. We hear the technology that helps us cook, clean, relax, eat, pass time. During lockdown, many of us rediscovered the hidden joy in the objects that surround us that we hadn’t properly considered before our enforced isolation. Composed and produced by Iain Chambers.

With extraordinary close-up recordings of his life as a vet, the bird population, the wildlife, the sea and the shore, veterinarian Joe Hollins brings his time on the island of Tristan da Cunha to the ears of the Slow Radio listener. Joe has recorded over 20 hours of close encounters with wild life and domestic animals, and this Slow Radio piece will take the chance to really zoom in on the incredible richness of sounds which he has recorded here over six months. This is one of the most unique locations for untamed wild life and birds and this has enabled Joe to get right in there among the penguins, the seals, and the sea birds that cover the cliffs. He is also present at every part of the farmer's life - sawing the over grown horns of the sheep, birthing calves, and helping with the milking. The landscape itself is as rich a sound terrain - from getting on and off the tiny boats, and fishing vessels, scrabbling down the cliffs or into the heart of the volcano itself. This will be one of those rare things -…

In 2017, audio producer Phil Smith travelled to Ukraine to attend his friend's wedding. There, somewhere between the cities of Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv and Odessa, he fell in love with the soundworld of the sleeper train: its steady hypnotic rhythms, the melody of hurtling through time and space, the calls of distant tannoy speakers drifting across platforms in the dead of night, the chorus of snores from sleeping passengers. Revisiting these recordings, seven years later, this Slow Radio journey offers echoes of a country in calmer times, when such trains were not a means of logistics transportation or symbol of desperate escape (as witnessed in the February of 2022) but conduits of restful imagining. From the opening establishing shot - the sound of whistles and shunting engines, off in the distance - we are moved along in a river of wheeled luggage through the cathedral acoustics of a station building to take our seat in the carriage of the overnight train. The scenes are unhurried as bunks are unfolded and…

Relax with a mix of music and natural sounds, recorded by Radio 3 Sunday Breakfast listeners. Three dawn choruses from across the UK, starring woodland, garden and sea birds, follow on from the very different dusk chorus from the remote Greeenland town of Ilulissat, which features hundreds of huskies. Recordings made by Julie Moody, Alice Smith, Ted Reed and Michael Bawtree.

Time unravels in this hypnotic audio journey... In this edition of Slow Radio, we tumble inside the delicate mechanism of the clock - our attempt to contain and mark the steady rush of time itself. Musical and rhythmic, this surreal audio composition moves between the meditative beat of a single timepiece through to a cacophonous eruption of melodious chimes and cuckoos. The Clock will air just after Big Ben's midnight chimes play out on the BBC, 100 years after London's most famous clock was first broadcast on New Year's Eve 1923. Featuring audio first recorded for the documentary Time Flies on BBC Radio 4, as well as new recordings and compositions built from the sounds of Big Ben's internal mechanism and ringing bells. Produced by Eleanor McDowall A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 3

How does the Berlin urban landscape sound? Using a unique approach that combines field recordings and photographs translated into audio, the Uruguayan and Berlin-based artist Darío Dornel, aka Kirap, takes listeners on a captivating journey through the city's hidden soundscapes. Pictures of recognisable city places are translated into sound using audio software through Bitmap's code conversion. A wide range of sounds is generated using various sound design tools and techniques. These sounds are combined with field recordings from the same places, creating an immersive sound exploration trip. The journey starts at an old Berlin district, where listeners are greeted by the songs of birds, we then explore a street market in Neukölln, a demonstration on the old Prussian road, to finally listening to the day fading out at a train station, and welcoming the night at a known corner in Mitte. Whether you are a local or a first-time visitor, this sound piece offers a fresh perspective on Berlin's urban landscape and…

Relax with a mix of music and natural sounds, recorded by Radio 3 Sunday Breakfast listeners. We start in the Himalayas and end in an urban forest in Dehli, getting there via Kardamyli beach in Greece and the Thames footpath in Oxfordshire. Recordings made by Naryndra Kumar, James Hadley, Kate Sandars and Michael Lidgley.

YA Z AN, a Palestinian Berlin-based artist, travels around his hometown of Ramallah, located in the heart of the West Bank. During his journey, YA Z AN encounters sounds that comfort and remind him of home. He uses binaural technology to collect audio pieces from the verdant Palestinian landscape and sculpts them with sounds from everyday life to create a complete surround sound experience. Setting off with a ‘oud player singing folklore music during a post-wedding ceremony and followed by a walk to home where family is gathered at a dinner table chit-chatting about food and how it is prepared, the recent events that resulted in the death of martyrs in Palestine and the earthquake that occurred in Syria/Turkey. Progressing through the day, Yazan goes down to the city centre farmers market (Al-hisbeh) where a number of street vendors are shouting out the prices of their products. Upon joining friends to hangout, the journey travels further to a jam session when surprisingly the rhythm of the community turns…

With its peak at 2410 metres in altitude, the North Grigna is an imposing quasi-mythical character in the local culture of the Lombardy region. Those who get to its top can take in a 360-degree view over the Alps, Lake Como and the plains around Milan. Celebrated by Leonardo Da Vinci in his Codex Atlanticus for its rocky ridges, the mountain is also the protagonist in an Italian Alpine folk song entitled The Legend of the Grigna. The lyrics speak of a beautiful female warrior who is turned into a dangerous mountain, divine punishment for her having asked a sentry to fire an arrow at her suitor. This song - sung in Italian by a local choir - frames our ascent on foot to the top of the North Grigna. As the singers recount the story of the warrior, warning us of the dangers of the hike, we pass through woodlands of beech and larch trees, and encounter small pastures where sheep and donkeys graze. There are rain showers, steep slopes, scree and snowy paths to battle and rare encounters with other intrepid…

Relax with a calming mix of music and natural sounds, from rooks on Orkney to a midwife toad chirruping in south-west France. Plus bats in Lancashire and nightingales in Sussex. Recordings by BBC Radio 3 Sunday Breakfast listeners Stephanie Fritchley, Aidan Semmens, Simon Tuck and Paul Richens.

Beekeeper Anthony Smith looks after several hundred beehives across Herefordshire and South East Wales. This episode of Slow Radio takes us to one of his apiaries where we eavesdrop on Anthony’s activities. It’s the middle of the summer, and the bees are at their busiest. Many of the sounds of bees and beekeeping have barely changed for thousands of years, whereas others are distinctly modern. We’ll hear single bees collecting nectar as they move from flower to flower, and clusters of bees jostling against each other inside a busy hive. The beekeeper releases puffs of smoke to calm his bees as he inspects their work and we can hear the subtle differences in buzzing between a colony with or without a queen. Over in the workshop, or ‘honey room’, we witness the processes that transform a frame of honeycomb into a pot of honey, from the spinning of the frames to the filling of the jars. A Tandem Production for BBC Radio 3

Relax with a calming mix of music and natural sounds. A special edition featuring the Sounds of the Earth mixes of music and the incredible sounds of the insects, birds and animals featured in BBC One's Wild Isles series. The nature sounds were captured by the audio team at Silverback Films, with audio post-production from Wild Buffalo, and kindly shared with Radio 3’s Sunday Breakfast team for the weekly Sounds of the Earth feature.

Across Britain, 352 BBC transmitters stand, mostly on the tops of hills broadcasting sound, music and voices invisibly across the country. In this slow radio episode, Matthew Herbert and a group of recording engineers visited some of these transmitters in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England to listen to what the transmitters were hearing at exactly 11.30 at night - the time of this broadcast. Starting at the transmitter atop Crystal Palace and then moving through the country to finish in snowy Aberdeen, hear how the sonic landscape changes the further north travelled. Transmitter is a production from Munck Studios with Matthew Herbert for BBC Radio 3, recorded by Pete Stollery, Hugh Jones, Dan Pollard, Ella Kay, Robbie McCammon, Pieter Dewulf and Cameron Naylor.

Relax with a calming mix of music and natural sounds. This springtime special features a blackbird singing at daybreak in Newcastle, a nightingale in the Umbrian foothills, central Italy, and a newly born lamb communicating for the very first time with its mother in a field in Wiltshire. Recordings by Radio 3 Breakfast listeners Sarah Couch, Nick and Val Bale, and Tom Perrett, plus master sound recordist Chris Watson.

This Slow Radio experience features sounds from the BBC television programme Wild Isles: a chance to revel in the extraordinary sounds recorded and created for the series, without voice-over or music. Using an aural collage of clips, the half-hour soundscape takes a journey from mountain stream to the sea, around Great Britain and Ireland. It utilises sounds from the Freshwater and Oceans episodes and begins with a specially recorded introduction by Sir David Attenborough. From there, the sounds of cascading streams and waterfalls give way to the call and shuffle of a common toad. Around the caves of County Cavan bats use sonar to navigate. Their ultrasonic clicks can be heard, slowed down. A cuckoo sings beside a chalk stream while a spider catches a pond skater in its web. The distinctive low call of the bittern introduces the Suffolk reed beds, where great crested grebes perform a mating dance, beaks clashing. Further towards the sea, a colony of knot are scattered by a peregrine falcon, and in the…

Relax with a calming mix of music and natural sounds, from the Atlantic rainforests of Brazil to Eastern Banjo Frogs in Adelaide, Australia. Plus a dawn chorus in Cornwall and chaffinches in Noja, Northern Spain. Recordings by BBC Radio 3 Sunday Breakfast listeners Bob Castell, Kate Wilson, Peter Halmkin and Kevin Cox.

There’s a gentle rhythm to everyday life in a Hindu temple, that follows carefully choreographed rituals linked to the care of the deities - creating a rich aural texture from dawn when the gods are woken, to nightfall when they sleep. The sounds wax and wane; each part of the day has its own soundscape and the priest presides over it all. You’ll hear the constant sound of bells as a backdrop, rung by devotees as they approach the shrines, focussing their minds and alerting the deities to their presence. The deities, or murtis, as they are known in Hinduism, represent the different aspects of God - in the form of beautifully carved statues. They are worshipped and cared for as the physical representations of God. This episode of Slow Radio takes us to the Shree Sanatan Mandir, a Hindu temple in Leicester, where we recorded sounds from inside the temple across a whole Saturday. The mandir is one of the oldest and largest mainstream Hindu temples in Leicester, housed in a former Baptist chapel. There is one…

Relax with a calming mix of music and natural sounds, from birdsong and tortoises in the Seychelles to waves and whistling frogs in Barbados, via a bubbling brook in Northumberland and a murmuration of starlings playing in a poplar tree. Recordings by David Fay, Honey Schreker, Kathryn Potts and Rupert Ormond.

High in the mountains snow falls. As it comes to rest on the frozen slopes it become part of an ancient glacier. Over the course of 100 years the glacier will flow down the valley, changing the landscape around it. Using field recordings from deep within glaciers, along with the sounds of the natural world around them, this programme charts an imagined journey of snow and glacier from mountain top to valley floor. Over the course of that journey we hear the sound world change and the increasing impact of human activity on the landscape - the wilderness of the high slopes replaced by the noise of tourism and traffic. There is an irony to the fact that the people who choose to visit the mountains because they love them are also contributing to their changing environment. These unique glacier recordings have been made by Ugo Nanni, researcher at the University of Oslo who specialises in the stability of Arctic glaciers, and field recordist Clovis Tisserand. Producer: Barnaby Gordon

It is January 2022, and in the Upper Manhattan neighbourhood of Harlem all is quiet as people stay at home, preferring not to venture out into the minus-13-degree snow and ice that has blanketed the city. This half-hour soundscape begins with the geese pecking at the frozen lake at the northern tip of Central Park with the occasional sound of a passer by who has braved the weather. As we head north to Harlem, walking up Malcolm X Boulevard, an invitation into the warmth of the Abyssinian Baptist Church is welcome. It is no ordinary service but a celebration of Martin Luther King Jr and we hear sounds of the pastor and gospel choir as they join together in worship. Heading back out into the bracing cold, Harlem is busier. More people are gathered on the streets with stereos playing music, and public transport still in operation, battling against the snow. Sounds of live jazz emerge from local restaurants and wandering inside is a refuge from the weather, joining crowds of brunch-goers enjoying live music,…

Relax with a calming mix of music and natural sounds: a walk in the Faroe Islands, a deer in the Scottish Highlands, a robin in Northamptonshire and a royal garden in Norway. Wildlife recordings from Chris Watson and Andy Fell, plus Radio 3 Sunday Breakfast listeners Louise and Donald Proven.

A settlement first known as Almatu developed on the Silk Road from the 10th century onwards. In the 1920s, the new Soviet authorities renamed the place Alma-Ata ('Grandfather of the apple') and made it the capital of the Kazakh SSR (formerly in Kyzylorda). We start our journey from one of Almaty's Soviet-era train stations, Almaty-2, built in the 1930s, with its paintings by Kazakh and Russian artists and the multi-lingual Tower of Babel representing the journey's start, in conversations and tannoy announcements. We hear the old Soviet engines arriving into the station, disgorging their passengers before awaiting a new intake; we hear the slow steady rhythm of the train, as passengers in varied states of boredom chat to each other and eat meals; we hear the sound of scalding water being decanted from the samovar, to make the harsh tea beloved in these parts for so many years; in the dining car we hear passengers sharing food, drink and stories, as they eat 'Plov' and other traditional food. We step out of…

The Reindeer follows the epic travels of a reindeer mother and her young.

Relax with a calming mix of music and natural sounds: sanderlings on a beach in Shetland, a farmyard in Shropshire, urban birds in Buenos Aires and the Red Burn in Argyllshire. Wildlife recordings from Radio 3 Sunday Breakfast listeners Ian Reid, Barbara Petty, Susan Robinson and Bob Dickinson.

Relax with a calming mix of music and natural sounds. Cicadas in Portugal, sheep in Wensleydale and a magnificent dusk chorus in Wiltshire. Wildlife recordings from Radio 3 Sunday Breakfast listeners Kate and John Livingston, Geoff and Christine Holland, and Ruth Taunt, plus Radio 3 producer Michael Rossi.

Relax with a calming mix of music and natural sounds. Sparrows in the heart of the City of London, birds on Shapwick Heath in Somerset, and frogs and elephants in the Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. Wildlife recordings from Radio 3 Sunday Breakfast listeners Vaughan Ives, Dora Thornton, Jeremy Warren and Ian Strange.

Relax with a calming mix of music and natural sounds. Cornish waves, Welsh cows, a wren in a walnut tree and rain in the Galician mountains, recorded by Radio 3 Sunday Breakfast listeners Adriana Flores, Sean Tobin, Penny Lawrence and Alex Lisle.

The ever-present and changing sound of the wind on Fair Isle.

Relax with a calming mix of music and natural sounds. Featuring recordings of birdsong from Kelso to Senegal sent in by Radio 3 Breakfast listeners listeners Betsy Barker, Caroline Fiennes, Helen Boyles and Ros Bleach.

Join Honey, a 15-year-old fox-red labrador, as she goes about her day.

The sounds of a small boat on the tidal Thames and the calls on its two-way radio.

Relax with a calming mix of music and natural sounds. Featuring recordings of spring birdsong in Bath, Leamington Spa, Gloucestershire, and the island of Mauritius, sent in by Radio 3 Breakfast listeners Colette Wilson, Anthea Asprey, Judy Bailey and John Fenner.

Stockholm-based artist Milo Lavén reveals the hidden world within slowed-down sounds.

Relax with a calming mix of music and natural sounds, from the Fens to the Scilly Isles via St Albans and Shaftesbury. Featuring recordings of birds, frogs and horses made by Radio 3 listeners Susie Nicholls, Tom Perrett, David Learner and Stuart Macer.

City life and moments of calm – a sound portrait of Riley Square in Coventry, recorded with artists Georgiou & Tolley.

Relax with a calming mix of music and natural sounds, from Kenya to New Zealand via Lancashire and the Cotswolds. Featuring recordings made by Radio3 Breakfast listeners Cathy Tattersfield and Josh Clarke, and BBC Natural History recordists Trevor Gosling and Nigel Tucker.

The sounds of energy generation across the industrial heart of Northumberland.

Relax with a calming mix of music and natural sounds. From midwinter on the English coast to the floodplains of Central Brazil via an Oxfordshire canal and a Somerset millpond, this month's mix focuses on birds. Includes listener recordings made by Michael Bawtree and Paul Miles, BBC Natural History Unit recordings from Tim Bevan and Paul Reddish, and several made by sound recordist Chris Watson.

Tokyo-based DJ and broadcaster Nick Luscombe explores the sound of winter in Japan.

The sounds of the cosmos revealed through the sonification of astronomical data.

There are 107 bell towers in Venice. Wherever you go in the city the passage of time is measured by the echo of bells across rooftops. But the biggest bell of them all – the Marangona in St. Mark's Basilica – only stirs into sound twice a day: at midday and midnight. In this beautiful soundscape Radio 3’s Slow Radio takes you from the chime of Marangona at midday, along lapping canals and whispering alleyways, across piazzas and bridges, around this evocative city, until midnight, when the deep, resonant sound of the Marangona brings the day to an end.

Relax with a calming mix of music and natural sounds - from a Loch in the Scottish Highlands to the evergreen forests of Thailand via South Africa and a tiny Gloucestershire village. With field recordings by Hugh Manistree, Grace Niska Atkins, Christopher Hammond and Dave Reid.