ACFM

What could our towns and streets become after the pandemic? Ahead of the next #ACFM on space, Nadia Idle goes down to street level to discuss spatial equality with architect and planner Pooja Agrawal.

As the co-founder of Public Practice, a social enterprise bringing good design into local government, Agrawal spends a lot time thinking about how public space is used and shared. She talks to Nadia about how councils can take back control from developers, what high streets might be used for in a post-retail world, and the work that she’s doing with Sound Advice, a platform exploring spatial inequality through music.

Produced by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens.

Keir Milburn, Nadia Idle and Jeremy Gilbert get on the couch to talk about therapy. Wrangling with how to square their collectivist politics with the introspective work of therapy, they wonder if people on the left are more inclined to seek such treatment, and what role physical exercise plays in their mental wellbeing.

Analysing their own very different experiences of the therapist’s couch, the gang also consider the shortcomings of CBT and the twisted logic of positive thinking.

Go to Novara Media’s SoundCloud for the extended musical version of this podcast.

Music: Prince Paul – ‘Outroduction to Diagnosis’ / The Raincoats – ‘Fairytale in the Supermarket’ / Gil Scott-Heron – ‘The Bottle’ / Burial – ‘Endorphin’ / Bongwater – ‘Folk Song’

Produced and edited by Chal Ravens and Matt Huxley. PRS Licence Number: LE-0016481

The point of psychodrama is not to create beautiful theatre, laughs practitioner Nada Sabet. To accompany the next #ACFM Trip on the topic of therapy, host Nadia Idle finds out about an unusual therapeutic technique which borrows elements of theatre, psychiatry and psychotherapy to gain insight into different facets of our identity.

Nada explains how psychodrama can be used to deal with trauma, abuse and family dynamics, and how the method can shift focus from the personal to the political.

Produced by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens.

What do we mean by solidarity? Keir Milburn, Nadia Idle and Jeremy Gilbert consider the meaning of a much-used word in this unusual Trip, recorded live as part of HKW’s online festival, Acid Communism: Spectres of the Counterculture.

With music from Nina Simone, The Youngbloods and The Special AKA, the gang consider the legacy of the counterculture in creating solidarity between liberation campaigns, what happened to solidarity with the emergence of identity politics in the 1980s, and how the flourishing of mutual aid during the pandemic might have a lasting impact on culture.

Music: The Youngbloods – ‘Get Together’ / The Specials AKA – ‘Nelson Mandela’ / Nina Simone – ‘Revolution’

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS Licence Number: LE-0016481

In this extended Trip, Keir Milburn, Nadia Idle and Jeremy Gilbert wrestle with the idea of “the long ‘90s”: a set of cultural, political and affective assumptions that have outlasted the 20th century, and from which a certain cohort of today’s politicians, commentators and columnists cannot seem to escape.

With music from Roni Size, Stereolab and Kula Shaker, the gang discuss to what extent the long ’90s were shaped by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and the Chinese Communist Party, how “new laddism” emerged as a riposte to cultural pluralism, and what people really meant when they declared “the end of history”. Finally, they agree to disagree on the musical and social value of Britpop.

Music: Roni Size – ‘Brown Paper Bag’ / M-Beat ft. General Levy – ‘Incredible’ / Kula Shaker – ‘303’ / Spice Girls – ‘Wannabe’ / Stereolab – ‘Ping Pong’ / Asian Dub Foundation – ‘Fortress Europe’

Produced and edited by Chal Ravens and Matt Huxley.

The proposed new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is an obvious assault on the right to protest, threatening penalties of up to 10 years in prison for “causing public nuisance”. With the bill on its way to becoming law, Jeremy Gilbert, Nadia Idle and Keir Milburn draw on their own experiences to discuss the recent #KillTheBill protests. How is the bill a reaction to movements like Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion? What might it reveal about the social coalition backing up the current Tory government? And just how effective are street protests anyway?

Produced by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens.

Jeremy Gilbert hits the road for a musical microdose accompanying the #ACFM Trip on Folk. Connecting different strands of folk music with their various political tendencies, Jeremy looks at the communism of Woody Guthrie and the singers of the Dust Bowl era, the Vietnam protest music of Bob Dylan and the Greenwich Village scene, and the folk psychedelia of the Incredible String Band and Vashti Bunyan.

This episode includes over 40 musical examples spanning a period of around 100 years, which we’ve also compiled in a Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3OH9nNxqlmcpTSgMCqXRDz

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS licence number: LE-0016481

Nadia Idle, Keir Milburn and Jeremy Gilbert go back to the land to dig into the politics of folk. With music from The Pogues, Steeleye Span and Enigma, the gang discuss island cults, progressive patriotism, Communist folkies and the pitfalls of accelerationism. Turn on, tune in, muck out!

Music: Woodie Guthrie – You Gotta Join That One Big Union / Steeleye Span – Hard Times of Old England / The Pogues – The Irish Rover / The Incredible String Band – The Hedgehog’s Song / Ewan MacColl and The Pogues – Dirty Old Town / Billy Bragg – A New England / Enigma – Return To Innocence

Books: Alex Niven – Folk Opposition / Simon Reynolds & Joy Press – The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion and Rock ‘n’ Roll / Raymond Williams – Culture and Society; The Country and the City / Fred Turner – From Counterculture to Cyberculture / Alex Williams & Nick Srnicek – Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work / Simon L. Lewis & Mark A. Maslin – The Human Planet

Film and TV: The Wicker Man / Blood on Satan’s Claw / Straw Dogs / Deliverance / The Owl Service / The Good Life

Other: My Albion podcast

Produced and edited by Chal Ravens and Matt Huxley.

Nadia Idle, Keir Milburn and Jeremy Gilbert explore the political power of desire from the storming of the Capitol to the millenarian strands of Corbynism, with music from Portishead and the Au Pairs.

Music: Portishead – Glory Box / Tricky – Makes Me Wanna Die / Alton McClain & Destiny – Crazy Love / Alternative TV – Love Lies Limp / The Au Pairs – It’s Obvious

Books: Deleuze & Guattari – Anti-Oedipus / Freud – The Interpretation of Dreams / Spinoza – Theologico-Political Treatise / Wilhelm Reich – The Mass Psychology of Fascism / Nick Hornby – High Fidelity / Herbert Marcuse – One-Dimensional Man / Adkins, Konings & Cooper – The Asset Economy / Alex Williams – On Negative Solidarity and Post-Fordist Plasticity

Produced by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens.

Nadia Idle speaks to psychosexual therapist and writer Tabitha Bast about dating and desire. They discuss the changing dynamics of dating, how to build romantic resilience, the politics of swiping right and more.

Tabitha is a qualified psychosexual therapist who works privately and through a charity, currently conducting her sessions online. She was also involved in ecological and social justice activism for over 20 years.

Look out for the next episode of #ACFM on 14 February, with Nadia, Jeremy and Keir exploring the concept of Desire.

Books: Emily Nagoski – Come As You Are

Podcasts: Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel / Tabitha on the Bella Ciao podcast