“Ahhh Radiolab” – That one word and one noise can be said in the same voice as when getting in to a warm bath or having the most spectacular glass of wine ever; Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich present one of the most instantly listenable podcasts you can get your hands on. Produced by an American public radio station (the WNYC of the title) it is played on stations across the states, it is primarily available to this side of the Atlantic as a podcast. And I think I can best sum up what they do in their own words…
Radiolab believes your ears are a portal to another world. Where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy, and human experience. Big questions are investigated, tinkered with, and encouraged to grow. Bring your curiosity, and we’ll feed it with possibility.
Now that might sound like a rather grand idea, and it is, but with the simplest bits of presenting knowhow, clever editing and interesting choice of themes they more that surpass what they say of themselves.
Take as an example the titles of just three of the more recent podcasts: Mapping Tic Tac Toe-dom, Damn it, Basal Ganglia and Talking To Machines. Each of these ‘casts vary in length (Basal Ganglia, one of their ‘shorts’, being just 13 minutes long and yet Talking to Machines runs at more than an hour) clearly vary wildly in subject but never vary in their ability to excite and inform. I’m going to pick out one theme from their last few months as an example and that theme is ‘Loops‘
There are two Radiolab podcasts about loops – the first is a short, and they often have a short podcast just before a more full length look at the subject comes on line. It’s really nice to almost have the opportunity to decide whether or not you like a theme before choosing to invest an hour in listening to them discuss it. Not that you’d ever be able to second guess the way they take their themes. Musical loops, literary repeats, stuttering over words.. three of literally dozens of ways they take the word loops and expand on the theme so wildly they’re always on the verge of flying out of it. But they never do, they’re always firmly routed, bringing you back to the very crux of each idea before it has time to make you think it deserves an hour of it’s own! (They could quite easily create days worth of listening on each theme, and their skills at editing it down into an hour know no bounds)
And, speaking of the editing, it’s a joy. Occasionally it’s almost small pieces of radio drama; other times the most straightforward of subject has the easiest interview of their career. But when put together by the team behind the presenters it moulds and melts and turns in on itself. One really simple example being a presenter saying “And so we asked–” before someone who’s voice we don’t know answering with their name. Many speech based stations and programmes use this, but none with quite as much delight as Radiolab. They have people seemingly interviewed weeks and miles apart discussing things, bouncing of each other points. And the presenters chuckle along when they should, and sound humbled when it’s required. Even the ‘mistakes’ which are left in celebrate their themes beautifully “3, 2, 1. …that’s the last time I ever count backwards” Jad says far too quickly at the beginning of ‘Slow’ – letting his co-presenter elaborate on their chosen subject within seconds of the podcast beginning.
All this leads in a roundabout way to simply making you have an ever so slightly train of thought. You may get everything or nothing out of a given podcast; just the title of some leave me with dread. But by the time i’ve spent 13 minutes or an hour listening to interesting people being interesting i’m sold. I’m certain ‘The History Of Wallpaper Paste” is in the making, and i will be first in the download queue. They quite simply find it impossible not to work hard, mine something deep and leave you informed
Radiolab is sponsored by some pretty big companies, and still requires donations to keep going. They may well be on more than 300 American radio stations, but that doesn’t pay; and their programmes only available here in England as podcasts. They deserve more than the few dollars they ask for the quality of the material they produce. Great radio is hard to find. Beautiful, interesting, enthralling radio is a rarity indeed.
The Radiolab podcasts are all located here, but I suggest just sign up in iTunes and put aside a week!
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