Slow Radio

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.

Relax with a calming mix of music and natural sounds - from the Flow Country of the Scottish Highlands to the Bristol Downs, via Chesil Beach and an East Sussex bluebell wood.

With field recordings by Chris Watson, Timothy Dowling, Martin Handley, and Steve Urquhart.

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 - an animal paradise for the ears.

Producer: Sara Jane Hall

Music from

Relax with a calming mix of music and natural sounds - from the beaches and forests of Costa Rica, to the shores of Loch Ballygrant on the Isle of Islay.

With field recordings by Les Pratt, Bronwen Buckeridge, Chris Watson, and Stephanie Lyons.

Relax with a calming mix of music and natural sounds - including a Swedish forest, a Dorset dawn chorus, and water lapping the shores of Lough Erne in Northern Ireland.

A journey on the Flying Scotsman with privileged access to the driver on the footplate.

Composer Iain Chambers takes a sound walk along Suffolk's River Deben, meeting avocets and curlew, and culminating in the musical sounds of Woodbridge boatyard.

Have you ever wondered what goes bump in the woods at night?

Hugh Huddy discovers the night time soundscape of a woodland in Suffolk by placing a binaural recording box in a tree and leaving it there overnight. Listening back to the recording, the secret life of the dark woods slowly reveals itself.

Producer: Cathy Robinson for BBC Wales

An antidote to today’s frenzied world. Step back, let go, immerse yourself: it’s time to go slow.

Listen to the sounds of birds, mountain climbing, monks chanting as you go about your day. A lo-fi celebration of pure sound.

An intimate, breath-close binaural portrait of the intoxicating Indian city of Mumbai.