A sonic journey into Japan's unique culture of music cafés and listening bars. Places where people come together to indulge in deep listening in audiophile quality, with venues for fans of everything from classical, jazz, to electronic music. This culture has its origins in the time prior to the second world war, when imported records and audio equipment were prohibitively expensive. People began to gather in cafés where, for the price of a cup of coffee, they could listen to rare records on the highest quality gramophones. While the traditional classical and jazz cafés are slowly disappearing, there are new modern listening bars emerging, often concentrating on specific genres and even microgenres of contemporary music, with a focus on the same concept of concentrated and collective listening. Rich in binaural recordings, this radio documentary features the owners and regulars of legendary music cafés, like the classical music cafés Violon in Tokyo, and Musik in Kyoto, the jazz café Downbeat in Yokohama, as well as the DJ-Bar Bridge, a cutting-edge listening bar in Shibuya, Tokyo. Producer: Andreas Hartmann in collaboration with Julia Shimura Translation: Krzysztof Honowski Voice Actors: Peter Becker, Matthew Burton, Ian Dickinson, Riah Knight and Tomas Sinclair Spencer Photo Credit: Andreas Hartmann

The permafrost is a thriving ecosystem, teaming with life, mythology, histories and futures, hidden just below the surface. Yet unlike tropical rainforests or the deep oceans, this frozen expanse rarely appears in the cultural imagination. Curator Sophie J Williamson ventures on a journey to discover the life of the permafrost. In -40° winter of the Canadian Yukon Valley, ancient forests, perfectly preserved by the permafrost, are uncovered by miners and 10,000-year-old grass seeds sprout into life. In the blustery remote Artic town of Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard (the world's northernmost settlement) cryomicrobiologists drill boreholes hundreds of meters deep to explore the deepest and oldest of earthly ecologies, bringing to the surface living microbes that are hundreds of thousands of years old. And in unceded Sápmi lands of northern Finland, permafrost mounds decompose into marshy peatlands, while biologists trace the shifting bio- and geoacoustics of a changing ecology. From the piercing-white tundra and the hundreds of thousands of lakes across the vast expanse of Siberia, indigenous folklore emerges from the unknowns of the icy underlands. And scientists in Yakutsk (the world’s coldest city), travel the icy landscapes to discover the stories secreted within the still fleshy, visceral carcasses of mammoths and ancient creatures that are exposed as the millennia-year-old ice thaws. With contributions by Hannu Autto, Jonathan Carruthers-Jones, Tori Herridge, Karen Lloyd, Sanna Piilo, Svetlana Romanova, Nikita Tananaev, Peter von Tiesenhausen, and other members of Sámi, Sakha and Yukagir communities of unceded Sápmi territory and Northern Siberia who prefer not to be named. Specially commissioned spoken word piece by Sata Taas (written and spoken by Al-Yene and Jaangy, with sound design by Karina Kazaryan aka KP Transmission) With excerpts of Jana Winderen's 'Energy Field', 'Listening Through the Dead Zones' and 'Pasvikdalen'. Published by Touch Music. Recorded and curated by Sophie J Williamson Sound design by Rob Mackay Produced by Mark Rickards A Whistledown Scotland Production for BBC 3 Imagining the Permafrost is part of the wider arts programme, Undead Matter. Follow on Instagram @undead_matter

The UKs last remaining coal fired power stations are about to close, bringing to an end our use of coal to produce our electricity. West Burton is one of the last coal fired power stations still generating electricity, and Andrew Carter was able to record a soundscape there before it falls silent for ever. West Burton was originally planned to close in September 2022, but the Russian invasion of Ukraine has extended its operations until the spring of 2023 to help with continuity of supply during the current energy crisis. Andrew's late father was a mechanical engineer, and he worked for the Central Electricity Generating Board, and fifty years ago he took Andrew around Cottam power station – which is just up the road from West Burton – and as you can imagine that tour around the plant left a big impression on an eight year old. As luck would have it, when Andrew was recording at West Burton, he was able to go to Cottam, which he discovered is now in the process of being demolished, and he walked again in his father’s footsteps. It brought back a lot of poignant memories. This soundscape in an operating, and disused coal fired power station is Andrew's homage to his father, before these cathedrals of power are reduced to rubble, capturing, before it’s too late, the sounds that would otherwise be lost to history. A BBC Radio Cumbria production, produced by Andrew Carter

In this piece, the fool stands at the edge of the cliff, looking up at the sky. She asks herself, “How did I get here?” And also, “Where am I meant to go?” Part of our recurring series of miniature audio-works for Radio 3's home for adventurous radio-making - Between the Ears. In this series, five audio-makers from around the world were invited to choose a card from the tarot deck as a creative prompt for their idea. The card at the heart of this edition is The Fool. Featuring: Briana Gutierrez Additional voices: Kate Bowen, Cristina Umaña Durán, Hannah Patterson, Ruoyi Shi, Sofija Stefanovic, and Canelo Joaquin Produced by Phoebe Wang A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 3

Filling out a form, Mido is confronted with a series of boxes to tick. Two familiar boxes emerge from the crowd and stand side by side. One says ‘Male’. The other says ‘Female’. Beyond the Box is an intimate and inquisitive immersion into the nature of these boxes and what life is like living beyond them. Developed through a series of facilitated workshops, producer Christina Hardinge invites friend Mido to explore their personal lived experience of being ‘put in a box’. By integrating the therapeutic tools of visualisation and guided imagery with interview, together they imagine new ways of framing this conversation. Christina Hardinge is a Bristol based audio producer and multi-disciplinary artist working creatively in the field of documentary. She has over 10 years experience of telling intimate personal stories rooted in interview; spanning across the mediums of audio, film, theatre and immersive installation. Winner of the Charles Parker Radio Prize and nominee for Prix Europa's Rising Star audio award, her work has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4's Short Cuts and exhibited at international festivals. Beyond the Box forms part of our recurring series of miniature audio-works for Radio 3's home for adventurous radio-making - Between the Ears. In this series, five audio-makers from around the world were invited to choose a card from the tarot deck as a creative prompt for their idea. The card at the heart of Beyond the Box is the Death card. Produced by Christina Hardinge Co-created by: Mido A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 3

feeling body is part of a series of pieces reflecting on the physical and psychological experiences during and after an extended period of illness (long-COVID). The work draws on multiple symbolisms, from The Nine of Swords in the Minor Arcana, to the undercurrent of water, where long baths were a point of solace during the experience of debilitating symptoms. Interspersed with perspectives of internal and external interactions, voiced by the composer in multiple ways as well as a by Kiswahili text-to-speech voice, and with additional sounds from performers Yaz Lancaster (voice, violin) & Michael O’Callaghan (trumpet), the piece blurs the lines between a perspective from the time of illness and one in retrospect, underlining an inevitable consequence of illness: how it arrests, irreversibly, one’s awareness of their living body. feeling body forms part of our recurring series of miniature audio-works for Radio 3's home for adventurous radio-making - Between the Ears. In this series, five audio-makers from around the world were invited to choose a card from the tarot deck as a creative prompt for their idea. Nyokabi Kariũki is a Kenyan composer and sound artist. Illuminated by musical sensibilities from her African upbringing, Nyokabi shares a unique artistic voice spanning across various genres — from classical contemporary to sound art, film, and explorations into (East) African musical traditions. Her works have been experienced in various contexts around the world, from audio art festivals (including the Hearsay International Audio Festival, where she received the 2021 Hearsay ‘Art’ Award), to performances by acclaimed ensembles like Third Coast Percussion and Cello Octet Amsterdam. Produced and composed by Nyokabi Kariũki A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 3

Marta Medvešek explores a local legend she encounters on her summer vacation in Bol, Croatia – the story of the House in a House. A magical place where imagination meets reality, and fate–possibility. The House in a House forms part of our recurring series of miniature audio-works for Radio 3's home for adventurous radio-making - Between the Ears. In this series, five audio-makers from around the world were invited to choose a card from the tarot deck as a creative prompt for their idea. The card at the heart of The House in a House is The Tower. Marta Medvešek is a Croatian audio producer with a soft spot for helping stories cross language borders. She’s produced work for BBC Radio 4’s Short Cuts, Resonance FM, The Allusionist, Deutschlandfunk Kultur and BBC World Service. Since winning the Best European Radio Documentary prize at the 2021 Prix Europa, her piece “Fly or Die” has already traveled to Germany, Sweden, Lithuania, Belgium and Italy. Featuring Ivica Jakšić Čokrić Puko and Mario Borovčić Kurir Music by Kevin Kopacka Produced by Marta Medvešek A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 3

Researchers Bongani Kona and Catherine Boulle have spent the last year piecing together the story of one woman’s decades-long search to find the remains of her father, a South African political activist who died in 1966. In between visiting old prisons and sifting through archival collections, Bongani begins dreaming about the ghost of his own father, a man he's never met. The quest to uncover the meaning behind these recurring dreams leads to Julia, a spirit medium and healer, who practices one of the oldest forms of divination on the planet – “throwing the bones”. In consultation with ancestral and spirit worlds, Julia deciphers “energy fields within one’s psyche, spirit and soul body.” This is all to bring solace to troubled souls and minds; to “these soft houses in which we live”, as Kei Miller writes, “and in which we move and from which we can never migrate, except by dying.” Khangela, in isiXhosa, is to look, or to search. Khangela forms part of our recurring series of miniature audio-works for Radio 3's home for adventurous radio-making - Between the Ears. In this series, five audio-makers from around the world were invited to choose a card from the tarot deck as a creative prompt for their idea. The card at the heart of Khangela is The High Priestess. Bongani Kona is a writer, and a lecturer in the department of history at the University of the Western Cape. Catherine Boulle is an audio maker and writer, currently based at the University of Cape Town. Together, Catherine and Bongani won the 2021 Whickers Radio & Audio Funding Award for their documentary about South Africa's Missing Persons Task Team, and the case of James Booi. Produced by Bongani Kona and Catherine Boulle A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 3

This feature focuses on two friends, neuroscientists and ultra-runners - Matthias Ekman (German) and Laurence O'Dwyer (an award-winning Irish poet). It's a meditation on ultrarunning through interview, poetry, location recordings, sound and music. This programme weaves specially commissioned poems (Laurence O'Dwyer) and music that chart the pain and elation of running. It explores Larry’s endurance, physical deterioration and injury alongside Matthias’s personal determination to become the fastest known runner on the 800km route, the Haute Route Pyrénées. Producer Zoë Comyns weaves location recordings, amateur archive phone recordings, interviews, poetry and tracked runs. With original compositions by Ruth Kennington, many musical sequences were performed live using real-time generation and manipulation of audio that responded to Laurence and Matthias’s stories. Longer composition and looped components relay the repetition of ultrarunning and mimics how the mind works as the runners spend long periods on their own in dangerous and remote locations. Each sound carries with it the resilience and propulsion of the long-distance runner. It charts how predictive brain studies in the lab might be applied out on the trail, how your mind ‘pre-plays’ the terrain, anticipating where to place your feet at speed over long distances. With thanks to Regan Hutchins, Kevin Brew and Ronan Kelly. Produced by Zoë Comyns Original music and sound design by Ruth Kennington HRP archive recordings Matthias Ekman. The Racing Mind is a New Normal Culture production for BBC Radio 3

For over half a century, the Wildlife Sound Recording Society has been active in encouraging amateur recordists to develop their skills and increase their understanding of the natural world, in the UK and around the globe. In this impressionistic sonic portrait, we join society members on a group field-recording trip to Caerlaverock Wetland Centre in Dumfriesshire, to share in reflections and reminiscences about encounters with nature and the art of audio recording. The sound of thousands of barnacle geese in flight; the wingbeat of a whooper swan; the ambience of a lake at night - our recordists have different sounds they wish to capture during the trip, and a variety of techniques, equipment rigs and field craft know-how at their disposal. Some want the ultimate sense of a location in stunning stereo, while others want to document specific species with as little other "pollution" as possible. What makes a good recording? And what drives them to keep heading out at dawn and dusk alone with their microphones? Featured Field Recordings: David M. - A flock takes to the air at Caerlaverock Richard Youell - Overhead Whooper Swan Johannes van den Burg - Black-backed Jackal calling at the Waterhole Anna Sulley - Bird song: Wren, Curlew, Jackdaw Robert Malpas - Inner Farne: Terns with People Johannes van der Burg - Life In The River Eye Derek McGinn - Snow Bunting Richard Youell - Geese over Caerlaverock With thanks to the Wildlife Sound Recording Society and to the British Library for permission to share extracts from the Charles and Heather Myers collection. Photo credit: Richard Youell Producers; Peregrine Andrews and Phil Smith A Far Shoreline production for BBC Radio 3.