Monday 11 September 2023

Welcome To ArtsLab

Hello dear visitor! It is now September the 11th 2023 and I'm writing a blog post about ArtsLab. ArtsLab began when I joined the wonderful RedShift Radio in Nantwich in 2015. The people there and the whole experience was wonderful, life-changing in many ways. We community radio producers and presenters were given the freedom to craft a show as we saw fit. For the first year I showcased strange and arty music, and added various anarchic or surrealistic features. Most episodes featured special guests. For series 2 and 3, in a bid to boost listenership and audience engagement, I adopted a bold new format where all of the content (or at least, as much as possible) was created by listeners, artists, or anyone else, and sent to me each week for broadcast.

This blog is an archive of the programme episodes. All of the episodes were originally uploaded onto the RedShift Radio MixCloud account for streaming, but some episodes vanished after a few months, and over time it seems that more and more are disappearing. I will endeavour to keep adding any that are missing to my MixCloud account to keep this cultural resource available.

This blog was an attempt to preserve the record of this unique show. Many of the audio artworks are unique, created by a small band of artists and poets specifically for the programme and never performed or broadcast since.

Enjoy browsing this blog, and if you can find the episodes, enjoy listening. Tags here are used for the artists or poets who contributed works in series 2 and/or 3, and only present when the contributor has appeared on more than one show.

You can find links to the ArtsLab episodes on MixCloud via the Links gadget on the right. These were originally uploaded as part of the RedShift Radio MixCloud account, which I cannot access or maintain, so you may need to search to locate specific episodes.

ArtsLab Episode Guide

ArtsLab Episode Guide:

Series 1 (53 episodes, numbered 0 to 52)

Ep. 0: Two Hour Launch Special (23 September 2015, 14:00, programme lost/not recorded)
Ep. 18: A Curious Feeling Special
Ep. 30: Star Wars Day Special
Ep. 33: Journey To The Centre Of The Earth Special
Ep. 46: Eldorado Special

Series 2 (53 episodes, numbered 0 to 51)

Ep. 0: Experimentation (26 October 2016)
Ep. 1: New
Ep. 2: Old
Ep. 3: Leaves
Ep. 4: Zodiac
Ep. 5: Lines
Ep. 6: The Sun
Ep. 7: Cycles of Time
Ep. 8: Birth
Ep. 9: Blue
Ep. 10: Mountains
Ep. 11: Words
Ep. 12: Dinosaurs
Ep. 13: Love
Ep. 14: Gateways
Ep. 15: Ancestors
Ep. 16: The Moon
Ep. 17: Sweden
Ep. 18: Mystery
Ep. 19: Furniture
Ep. 20: Chemistry
Ep. 21: Descendants
Ep. 22: Tuesday
Ep. 23: Space
Ep. 24: Insects
Ep. 25: The Letter D
Ep. 26: Borders
Ep. 27: Trees
Ep. 28: Crystals
Ep. 29: Cars
Ep. 30: God
Ep. 31: Computers
Ep. 32: Birds
Ep. 33: The Dark Ages
Ep. 34: Medicine
Ep. 35: Africa
Ep. 36: Codes
Ep. 37: Mirrors
Ep. 38: Film Noir
Ep. 39: Tokyo
Ep. 40: Underground
Ep. 41: Fruit
Ep. 42: Modern Philosophers
Ep. 43: Memory
Ep. 44: Chess
Ep. 45: Money
Ep. 46: Snow
Ep. 47: Carpets
Ep. 48: Time
Ep. 49: Police
Ep. 50: ArtsLab: The Opera: I, Leviathan Part 1
Ep. 51: ArtsLab: The Opera: I, Leviathan Part 2

Series 3 (12 episodes, numbered 1 to 12)

Ep. 1: Open Theme (8 January 2018)
Ep. 2: War
Ep. 3: Soil
Ep. 4: Dawn
Ep. 5: Spirals
Ep. 6: The Planet Mars
Ep. 7: Fish
Ep. 8: Hunger
Ep. 9: Australia
Ep. 10: Pink
Ep. 11: The Number Six
Ep. 12: Endings & Beginnings (simultaneous broadcast with the first ArtSwarm)