Josie Long presents short documentaries and audio adventures about finding meaning amid the noise.

The poet and audio producer Ross Sutherland seeks to understand the strange echoes in his hearing, a remnant from a house fire is transformed into music and the radio-maker Liza Yeager finds magic in a series of encounters.

Hallucinations
Featuring Dr Theresa Marschall and Lizzy Dening
Produced by Ross Sutherland

The Right Colour Candle
Featuring Annegret Curtis, Ed Dadey and Jan Gehmlich
Produced by Liza Yeager

Stovepipe Wind Harp Summons the Frogs
Produced by Fil Corbitt

First broadcast 19th September 2023, BBC Radio 4
Series Producer: Eleanor McDowall
Curated by Axel Kacoutié, Eleanor McDowall and Andrea Rangecroft

S36: Short Cuts: Signal To Noise 1/9

A grand piano slowly climbs the stairs in Glasgow, a man in Brighton keeps finding his upright pianos going missing, a piano decays slowly in the woods while a grandson finds himself thrust into the role of a ship's pianist. Josie Long presents short documentaries and audio adventures with a piano at their heart.

Pianos Aren't His Forte
Featuring Mark Campbell
Produced by Phil Smith
Including piano performances from Mark Campbell and Songs Without Words composed by Felix Mendelssohn and performed by Vassily Primakov from the Free Music Archive

Piano in the Woods
Written and produced by Ross Sutherland
Featuring performances from the project Piano in the Woods by the improviser, artist and curator Sam Bailey. You can learn more about the project at pianointhewoods.com

Two, Three, Hup
Produced by Steve Urquhart
Featuring piano performances by Steve Urquhart

First broadcast 30th April 2024, BBC Radio 4
Series Producer: Eleanor McDowall
Curated by Axel Kacoutié and Eleanor McDowall

S38: Short Cuts: A Piano 1/6

"And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you..."

Late at night, the writer, audio artist and sleep-deprived parent of a newborn, Ross Sutherland, is staring into infinity...

"Usually, my phone becomes my window into a bigger world. Not just bigger- endless. Unmeasurably vast. You can scroll social media feeds forever and never hit the bottom of the chasm. I know it's objectively bad for me but I can’t stop myself. I'm craving endlessness- I need space! Vast, endless interior space... to compensate for the smallness of my waking days."

Sinking into the infinite scroll of his phone (a web design technique - created to encourage addiction as your webpage never ends...) he weaves a woozy, funny, adventurous audio essay through sonic experiments, illusions and mirror worlds that invite us to reckon with the infinite.

Including archive from ReThinking with Adam Grant 'Aza Raskin on why technology – and democracy– are in an imagination crisis' (courtesy of TED).

Original music composed by Jeremy Warmsley

First broadcast 1st September 2024, BBC Radio 4
Written and produced by Ross Sutherland

Infinite Scroll

We make documentaries and audio art for radio, podcasts and public spaces.

At the heart of what we do is a belief in the imaginative possibilities of radio. Sounds that can reconfigure the world around you, move you through inner landscapes, sink into your dreams.

We are an intentionally small company that considers carefully the creative, social and political aspects of the work we put out into the world.

Falling Tree has two full-time Directors – Eleanor McDowall and Alan Hall – and we work with freelancers across our projects, including the core Short Cuts production team of Alia Cassam, Axel Kacoutié and Andrea Rangecroft.

We are one of the founding signatories of the Equality in Audio pact. 

You can listen to hundreds of our documentaries in the free, online Falling Tree archive.

New tracks tagged #Ross Sutherland