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New Weird Britain

New Weird Britain: Urban Hinterlands

Urban Hinterlands

BBC Radio 4 - New Weird Britain, Urban Hinterlands

Music Journalist John Doran seeks out radical music in the urban hinterlands of Britain.

Music writer John Doran seeks out the radical music being made in the margins of Britain. He hears from musicians who have been pushed to the edges of the big cities.

Music journalist John Doran travels across the country in search of an underground movement of musicians, blossoming in the margins of Britain. 

Artists of all stripes have been driven out of the city centres by soaring rent prices and hit hard by the dwindling revenues of the digital economy. But untethered from the prospect of making any money and fueled by the current political turmoil, a new wave of musicians is splintering away from convention to stage bizarre one-off performances that fly in the face of austerity.

They are living off-grid in the countryside, building their own instruments out of electronic junk, staging strange rituals with priests smeared in clay, or even performing with a team of dancers dressed as anatomically correct vaginas which squirt cream over the audience.  

In this episode, John Doran seeks out the musicians who are managing to cling on to the edgelands of the big cities to find out whether, away from the expensive artisanal coffee outlets of the urban centres, a new musical underground can still survive in the major cities of Britain. 

Contributors include Natalie Sharp, aka Lone Taxidermist, Dan Jones and Charlotte Blackburn from UKAEA, Marion Andrau, Kelly Jayne Jones, Emma Thompson, LOFT, Gordon Bruce and Joel White from GLARC.

Produced by Alannah Chance
A Reduced Listening production for BBC Radio 4

Image credit: Luis Kramer

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

John Doran seeks out a new wave of radical music being made in the margins of Britain.

Music Journalist John Doran seeks out a new wave of radical music being made in the margins of Britain.
[Image credit: Al Overdrive]

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