Acclaimed independent musician Phil Elverum lost his wife, the musician and cartoonist Genevieve Castrée, to cancer just over a year after the birth of their daughter. Grieving, he used her guitar and bass to record an album in the room where she'd died. Phil tells Danny Greenwald that at first, he couldn't bear the thought of anyone else hearing the music he'd made and worried people would be angry. Now the album, A Crow Looked at Me, has won praise - and brought comfort to others experiencing loss.

Presenter: Danny Greenwald
Producer: Danny Greenwald and Laura Thomas

Photo: Phil Elverum. Credit: Getty Images

A Musician Embraces Life After Recording Through Grief

In 1971, when experimental composer Gavin Bryars chanced upon the voice of an anonymous old man - "a tramp" - on a spool of discarded tape, he had no idea where his impulse to make a piece of minimal 'pop art' would lead.

Gavin shares the story of Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet through the original vinyl recording on Brian Eno's Obscure label and the Mercury Prize-nominated CD version featuring Tom Waits to the adoption of the piece by the homeless community.

With Vince, Dee and Brian from the homeless choirs Streetwise Opera and Choir With No Name, Pam Orchard of The Connection At St Martin's, composer Jocelyn Pook and Revd Richard Carter from St Martin-in-the-Fields church in Trafalgar Square.

First broadcast 14th April 2024, BBC Radio 3
Produced by Alan Hall

Never Failed Me Yet

It's 25 years since London suffered three vicious nail bomb attacks - holdalls filled with 4-inch nails and hand-made explosives planted in Brixton market, Brick Lane and in the bar of the Admiral Duncan pub in Soho, intended to cause damage to those in the immediate vicinity and to the notion of a tolerant, diverse capital city.

The attacks are recorded in photographs shared at the time by the press - of London streets strewn with damaged buildings and injured people, an x-ray of a toddler with a nail embedded in his skull, the wedding photograph of two victims (one killed, the other severely injured) and the police mugshot of the perpetrator, a far right terrorist who hoped to start a 'racial war in this country'.

Fragments looks again at these images - some taken by Chris Taylor who happened to be on assignment in Soho's market photographing vegetables - to consider what it means for an instant to be captured and to endure in our memories and understanding of traumatic events.

Including contributions from photographer Chris Taylor; Jonathan Cash, who survived the Soho attack, Emdad Talukder, who was injured in Brick Lane and business owner Leo Epstein.

Music composed by Alan Hall, with Eleanor McDowall (chimes) and Alan Hall (trumpet)

Photo credit: ChrisTaylorPhotography.com 

First broadcast 14th April 2024, BBC Radio 4
Producer: Alan Hall

Fragments: The London Nail Bombings

Baltimore-based producer, sound designer, composer, etc. Also, I can be funny.

Go here: soundcloud.com/glassine. Listen to the music I make.

A Musician Embraces Life After Recording Through Grief

Danny Greenwald

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