Non-Canadian podcast recommendations

The Heart

The Heart is “a podcast and audio art project about intimacy and humanity” and “a show about love, life, bodies and feelings.” I love its content and sound.

Three favourite seasons are No, Pansy and Silent Evidence, and three episodes with especially memorable sound are That Smell, Itch and Idiot + Dummy.

You can listen to host Kaitlin Prest’s own recommendations or hear award-winning episodes at theheartradio.org. (h/t The Imposter)

bitchface

The Heart’s Kaitlin Prest: “I feel like I’m still not seeing the kind of shows that I hoped would emerge from the second golden age of radio. I still often feel relatively alone in the high-production-value, intersectional-feminist-show universe… I started binge-listening to their show. The show is called bitchface, and it’s everything I want a show to be. I feel like I heard them say that they were the intersectional feminist antidote to life, and I feel like that’s what they are. I feel myself desperately hungering for more of their episodes… It’s the beautifully made, badass audio I’d been hoping for, my whole radio life.”

Listen to the three-part series, “Against the Couple Form.” (h/t The Heart)

Food 4 Thot

Food 4 Thot is a “podcast/gabfest wherein a multiracial mix of queer writers gather around the table to talk about sex, identity, culture, what we like to read, and who we like to read.” Three great episodes are “4 Queers Walk Into a Bar…,” “Werking Grl” and “It’s Not Me, It’s You.” Read this great review by Phil Zminda. (h/t The Heart)

Meat

Meat is “a podcast about our bodies and the life we live because of them.” It has only one episode to date (with two more coming soon), in which the host, Jonathan Zenti, “candidly and beautifully discusses his body and how he loves it despite the fact that not everybody else does.” Like The Heart, it sounds like few podcasts do. I can’t wait for new episodes. (h/t The Heart)

Ear Hustle

Ear Hustle “brings you the stories of life inside prison, shared and produced by those living it.” Each episode describes a different aspect of life in prison – Left Behind stands out in my memory. I was lucky to attend an interview with co-host Nigel Poor at the Hot Docs Podcast Festival. (h/t Lex Gill)

The Lonely Palette

In each episode of The Lonely Palette, host Tamar Avishai picks an art object, records art-goers reactions to it, and then dives into the significance, history, and social context of the artist and movement. Pick an artwork you’re curious about to start. (h/t Jake Hirsch-Allen)

Audio drama

I’ve never been as invested in the characters of an audio drama as in Steal the Stars, a “sci-fi heist thriller podcast.” Listen to the first episode. (h/t Lex Gill)

The Truth makes one-episode short stories. Three favourites are Commentary Track, Ice Music & Mirror Lake and The Dark End of the Mall. (h/t Meat)

Lastly, Ben Cannon of the A.V. Club writes, “no podcast has played with the conventions of audio storytelling better than Within The Wires,” the latest audio drama I’ve subscribed to. (h/t Constant Listener via Canadaland)

Thanks to Rebecca Williams for laughing spontaneously at the idea of a blog post about “non-Canadian” podcasts. 🙂