A new podcast will offer a deep-dive into the fascinating art of music production through insights from revered producers, composers and artists including Catherine Marks, Hannah Peel and Marta Salogni.
Studio Radicals gives listeners the chance to hear from some of the brilliant minds behind albums by Björk, Boygenius, Little Mix and Depeche Mode. Made by a women-and-gender-expansive team, it offers illuminating reflections on artistic collaboration while also exploring some of the challenges that these creators have faced – and how they’ve broken into “historically exclusive spaces”.
Created and hosted by UK journalist and broadcaster Kate Hutchinson – behind the award-winning series The Last Bohemians – with dCS Audio, the series will begin with an interview with Italian engineer, producer and mixer Marta Salogni.
Salogni has engineered records for acts including Bon Iver and also produced English Teacher’s Mercury Prize-winning debut, This Could Be Texas. She was also hand-picked by Björk to assist with her 2017 album, Utopia, in Iceland.
“It was beautiful,” Salogni says in the first episode. “I stayed there for I think about a month, in August. It was really special to be there because to mix in the same place where she was based and some of the songs were made and composed and, looking out at the mountains – that was the view from the studio that I had – the harbour and the mountains and to just be in the same geographical spot, I think really helped me to immerse myself into the world of Utopia.
She later says she felt “really empowered” by the trust Björk put in her to deliver her vision for the album: “I felt like I had so much to learn from her, and I felt the exchange within a creative process is so precious. I could try things that were new to me and I felt so honoured to be trusted. It was very special to me to find myself in the quotidianity of life in Reykjavik with her, and the warmth of it and the humanity of it.”
In other episodes, Hutchinson travels to Hollywood to speak with Ebonie Smith about how she went from singing in gospel choirs to engineering the Hamilton soundtrack, and meets with Catherine Marks – adored by rock musicians everywhere – who won a Grammy for her work on Boygenius’s 2023 album, The Record.
In Miami, Maria Elisa Ayerbe discusses her reputation as a “genre-defying voice” in Latin American alternative music, while composer Hannah Peel opens up about her work as the Emmy Award-nominated composer whose works frequently reference the links between science, nature and music.
Further episodes will star electronic pioneer Suzanne Ciani, vocal engineer Ramera Abraham (Adele, Little Mix), and Abbey Road-based mastering engineer Cicely Balston (David Bowie, Nubya Garcia).
Hutchinson told The Independent: "It was so interesting to see what themes arose across the year from making these different episodes. I think what really stuck out for me was how our guests are artists in their own right; the way they think about and feel sound is so magical and goes way beyond the technical, from the way in which Marta Salogni describes creating bold sonic worlds for the artists she works with to the headspace that Ramera Abraham gets into when she records vocals."
"I feel like Studio Radicals underscores not just how these individuals have broken boundaries and challenged the status quo in their fields, whether they're a composer, producer or engineer, it's a sonic love letter to experimentation, collaboration, embracing unique perspectives and the journey one goes on to find their artistic voice, as well as the dedication that it takes to really craft a powerful record."
Hutchinson added that she hoped the podcast would encourage the “huge uptick” of self-producing artists in pushing their sound forwards: “ I know it has inspired me – I've been a music journalist for 20+ years and doing these interviews really challenged me to gain a fresh perspective on how I think about music,” she said.
The first three episodes of Studio Radicals will be available on all good podcast platforms from 23 April. More information here.
