Unclassified

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Elizabeth Alker welcomes in St Patrick's Day with a focus on ambient music from Dublin

To mark St Patrick's Day, another chance to hear Elizabeth Alker's celebration of the best ambient and neo-classical music being made in the city of Dublin.

Elizabeth Alker celebrates Bloomsday with a roster of Dublin's finest ambient artists.

Bloomsday, the 16th of June, the date upon which that most dazzling of modern novels, James Joyce's Ulysses, is set. Like the book, the day offers a celebration of that most illustrious and musical of cities, Dublin. Joyce himself was a trained singer, forever bursting into song, and his obsession with music spilled into his book, just as the Bloomsday revellers spill into the Dublin streets. To mark this year's event, Elizabeth Alker looks across the Irish Sea to find out what Dublin's best ambient, experimental and neo-classical musicians are up to right now, as they seek out the ineluctable modality of the audible.

For Bloomsday, the great celebration of Dublin as portrayed in Joyce's Ulysses, Elizabeth Alker offers the best ambient and neo-classical music being made in the city today.

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Elizabeth Alker with late-night sounds showcasing the range and beauty of the organ.

Elizabeth Alker with a late-night, Unclassified celebration of what's been described as the world's first synth - the organ.

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To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker with brand-new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions.

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As the BBC's Wild About Nature Week draws to a close, Elizabeth Alker explores how contemporary ambient and experimental musicians are using field recordings to bring a sense of the natural world into their music. Plus she'll share news of an exciting opportunity for composers and producers interested in working with nature. Also in the show, Listening Chair guest Adelle Stripe revels in the beauty of Small Hours, a track from John Martyn's One World album, recorded on the shores of a lake at Woolwich Green Farm in Theale, Berkshire.

Stripe has written on a wide range of subjects including music, and her biography of the cult band Fat White Family - Ten Thousand Apologies - was a Sunday Times bestseller and a Rough Trade book of the year. Her most recent book, Base Notes: The Scents of a Life, is a memoir of working class life in Northern ​England told through the prism of perfume.

To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker welcomes author Adelle Stripe into the Unclassified Listening Chair.

Author Adelle Stripe shares a track with the power to transport her elsewhere. Plus news of an opportunity for composers and producers who take inspiration from the natural world.

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Elizabeth Alker explores landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds, hearing from emerging independent producers whose work plays with orchestral textures and classical form as well as the latest sounds from a new generation of contemporary composers who look to embrace the spirit of rock, pop and electronica. This week: Peter Broderick takes inspiration from an iconic Japanese video game soundtrack; New York composer Tristan Perich collaborates with superstar organist James McVinnie; Laurel Halo scores an oceanic ravine with dense string textures; and there's a surprise poetic appearance from an Oscar-winning actor.

To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions

Elizabeth Alker with a late-night journey through new music from today's most exciting genre-defying artists. This week: Peter Broderick, Laurel Halo and Masayoshi Fujita.

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Sonic vistas, open strings, mountainous atmospheres, canyons of sound... Elizabeth Alker embarks on a musical roadtrip through America's ambient landscapes, encountering the work of emerging independent producers and contemporary composers whose music explores the borderlands between classical and electronic/experimental genres. New York composer and cellist Clarice Jensen manipulates her instrument's sound to create pulsing drone textures; LA's Daniel Wohl soundtracks historical investigations into UFO sightings; and William Tyler's Highway Anxiety is a perfect slice of modern country music from Nashville, Tennessee.

To listen on most smart speakers just say 'ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified'.

Elizabeth Alker with a sonic roadtrip through the USA's rich and varied ambient landscapes

Join Elizabeth Alker with a selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists as we journey through landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds. Along the way, we'll hear from emerging independent producers whose work plays with orchestral textures and classical form as well as the latest sounds from a new generation of contemporary composers who look to embrace the spirit of rock, pop and electronica.

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To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions.

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Produced by Alexa Kruger

Produced by Alexa Kruger

An eclectic selection of ambient music by women and gender minority artists.

Produced by Alexa Kruger

Elizabeth Alker's selection features Christina Vantzou, Stefan Goldmann and Fever Ray.

Join Elizabeth Alker for a selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists as we journey through landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds. Along the way, we'll hear from emerging independent producers whose work plays with orchestral textures and classical form as well as the latest sounds from a new generation of contemporary composers who look to embrace the spirit of rock, pop and electronica.

To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified

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Produced by Phil Smith

Produced by Alexa Kruger

Elizabeth Alker celebrates the music of Scottish ambient and experimental artists.

Elsewhere in the show, sounds inspired by these days of bloom, including a ladybird drone from Manchester-based duo Space Afrika and an ode to an ancient oak tree from Keeley Forsyth. Plus, we are transported to the Kenyan Bai fields with sound artist KMRU and David Bowie invites us into the immersive world of a moss garden.

Produced by Alexa Kruger

Elizabeth Alker joins singer Magphai on an ambient forage in the Calder Valley.

Tonight Elizabeth has new tracks from Oliver Coates (who has a new album on its way following the success of his work on the Aftersun soundtrack), The London Electronic Orchestra, as well as Berlin-based guitarist and pianist Ben Lucas Boysen.

And Elizabeth shares news of the ‘Tune in to Nature' prize, a project run by The University of Derby in conjunction with the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, The Conservation Foundation, EarthPercent and Sounds Right, a global music initiative to recognise the value of nature.

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Amongst the choices in this week's playlist are a previously unbroadcast live performance by the BBC Concert Orchestra of Moor Mother's riveting orchestral arrangement of her original composition Dream Culture. The piece was performed in May at the Unclassified Live concert on London's Southbank. There's also music from Erland Cooper's latest album, which carries within its sound the effects of having been buried in the ground for over a year.

And Elizabeth shares news of the ‘Tune in to Nature' prize, a project run by The University of Derby in conjunction with the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, The Conservation Foundation, EarthPercent and Sounds Right, a global music initiative to recognise the value of nature.

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions.

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Herself a visitor of the band's iconic Kling Klang studios in Düsseldorf, Elizabeth Alker considers Kraftwerk's classical roots, placing the album in the context of Twentieth-Century German Classical Music (the musicians themselves have cited the expressionism of Schönberg and Stockhausen's experiments with sound as key influences.) And, as can be heard in the iconic title track, which unfolds over twenty minutes, the band were borrowing from traditions of structuring music that harken back to older, classical forms, too (in the bringing back and development of themes). Elizabeth also plays contemporary tracks that share a musical kinship with Autobahn, and owe it too, perhaps, a debt of gratitude.

Elizabeth Alker marks the 50th anniversary of Kraftwerk's influential album Autobahn.

Elizabeth Alker takes an Unclassified perspective on the impact and influence of Kraftwerk's legendary album Autobahn.

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Produced by Alexa Kruger

Elizabeth Alker selects music from the worlds of ambient and experimental music.

Elsewhere in the show, Elizabeth Alker goes on a sonic wander through mysterious landscapes, serving up ambient sounds from the folk horror genre including new releases from composer and violinist Laura Cannell and electronic artist Alexander Tucker.

Produced by Alexa Kruger

New ambient music, plus author Benjamin Myers with a track that transports him.

Elsewhere in the programme, Elizabeth introduces the new single from Max Richter, music from Glasgow greats Mogwai, and the latest song from Kathryn Joseph.

To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker welcomes Bonnie Prince Billy to the Unclassified Listening Chair

Will Oldham a.k.a Bonnie Prince Billy shares music with the power to transport him elsewhere.

Elsewhere in the programme, Elizabeth gives a nod to Pierre Boulez who would have celebrated his 100th birthday on 30th March - and plays, as usual, a selection of the best new ambient and experimental tracks from today's most exciting genre-hopping artists.

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New experimental and ambient takes on brass band and Morris traditions for Whitsuntide.

To mark this year's Whitsunday, Elizabeth Alker presents contemporary experimental and ambient artists who have been finding new approaches to brass band and Morris traditions.

Join Elizabeth Alker with a selection of fresh music for the new year from genre-defying artists as we journey through landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds. Along the way, we'll hear from emerging independent producers whose work plays with orchestral textures and classical form as well as the latest sounds from a new generation of contemporary composers who look to embrace the spirit of rock, pop and electronica.

To listen on most smart speakers just say 'ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified'.

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions.

Elizabeth Alker welcomes in the new year with another late-night journey through fresh music from today's most exciting genre-defying artists.

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Music, according to the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, is how we decorate time, and to mark the clocks going forward, Elizabeth Alker celebrates those genre-defying musicians and composers who play with the possibilities of time in their work. Across 60 carefully curated minutes, we'll hear from emerging independent producers whose music twists temporal as well as musical boundaries as they look to embrace the confluence of rock, pop and electronica.

To listen on most smart speakers, just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?.

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Regarded as one of the great English composers of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, William Byrd's musical output included choral works intended for the great cathedrals and chapels of his day as well as secular instrumental music designed for the major courts and households. His approach to creating musical structures often involved the gradual addition of layers and the overlapping of melodic ideas as well as subtle repetition and variation, techniques employed by many artists working today within ambient and experimental music.

Singer-composer Kieran Brunt takes inspiration from Civitas Sancti Tui, a motet which Byrd wrote in response to the persecution of Catholics under Elizabeth I's early rule. The Latin text speaks of desolation - ?The city of thy sanctuary is become a wilderness, / Sion is made a Wilderness, / Jerusalem is desolate? - and Brunt's creation takes fragments from the original and repeats them like mantras through broken, auto-tuned layers of his own voice and distorted synths. Welsh composer-musician Georgia Ruth, meanwhile, responds to The Bells, a harpsichord piece in which Byrd evokes the peeling and clamouring sounds of a belfry in the countryside. Ruth uses harp, pedals and field recordings gathered in her rural surroundings to build up a meditative sound world. And improvising composer Laura Cannell re-imagines a melancholic song by Byrd, translating the piece into an arrangement for three bass-recorders. Phrases from the original are stretched, half-remembered, overlaid and ornamented in a piece of overdubbed contemporary consort music dedicated to her friend, the late artist Mira Calix.

Produced by Alexa Kruger

Elizabeth Alker presents a range of the most exciting new ambient and electronic sounds

A fresh musical take on The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari heads up a selection of the best new genre-defying music, presented by Elizabeth Alker.

Produced by Alexa Kruger

Elizabeth Alker shares festive ambient music, and CARM is in the Listening Chair.

Elizabeth Alker shares ambient and genre-defying artists with new takes on festive themes

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Elsewhere in the show, new sounds from Texas instrumental ensemble Balmorhea, a soulful track that has been dubbed by the group as ?ambient Americana', plus a piece by composer Hannah Peel and the Manchester Collective that captures the spirit of Tokyo's Shinjuku train station. And we hear a track from the reissue of Mount Wittenberg Orca for Record Store Day earlier this year by Bj?rk and Dirty Projectors, a playful and intimate song cycle arranged to stunning effect by both artists.

Produced by Alexa Kruger

Elizabeth Alker shares new ambient music, and Cate Le Bon sits in the Listening Chair.

Elizabeth Alker serves up a selection of fresh music for late night listening from genre-defying artists.

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We'll hear lush string textures courtesy of London-based film and TV composer Jon Opstad, and a new release in the dark ambient realm by multi-instrumentalist and producer Kinn, who takes inspiration from the sacred and the supernatural. Elsewhere in the show, we traverse grainy sonic landscapes with the Calder Valley's Sullivan Johns (aka Cloud Diameter) and get immersed in the minimalist techno and sublime voice of singer, DJ and producer Park Hye Jin from Seoul.

Produced by Alexa Kruger

Elizabeth Alker shares ambient music perfect for cloud-gazing.

Elsewhere in the show, we hear new releases from a variety of artists including Penguin Cafe with their new musical creation for this year's Piano Day, a gorgeous hypnotic track by Brazilian DJ and producer ANNA featuring Laraaji, and the gentle folk-esque meanderings of pianist Angus MacRae.

Produced by Alexa Kruger

Saxophonist Colin Stetson sits in the Listening Chair.

Elizabeth Alker shares new ambient and experimental sounds, and saxophonist Colin Stetson shares a track that transports him elsewhere.

Join Elizabeth Alker with a selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists as we journey through landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds. This week she offers up a stunning arrangement of Bryce Dessner's ‘Towards the Forest' played by the mighty Gautier Capuçon; a track from the latest Black Country, New Road's dramatic, genre-hopping album ‘Forever Howlong'; and Daryl Henner's gorgeous and gorgeously-titled electronic soundscape ‘We Ditched School and Climbed Over the Neighbour's Fence to Swim in their Pool All Day'.

To listen on most smart speakers just say 'ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified'.

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions

Join Elizabeth Alker with a selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists as we journey through landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds. Along the way, we'll hear from emerging independent producers whose work plays with orchestral textures and classical form as well as the latest sounds from a new generation of contemporary composers who look to embrace the spirit of rock, pop and electronica.

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Elsewhere in the programme, Elizabeth Alker selects fresh music from genre-defying artists who take us on a journey through landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds. These include emerging independent producers whose work plays with orchestral textures and classical form as well as a new generation of contemporary composers who look to embrace the spirit of rock, pop and electronica.

To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions.

Elizabeth Alker offers a late-night journey through new music from today's most exciting genre-defying artists, and Takiaya Reed aka Divide and Dissolve is in the Listening Chair.

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This week, she invites composer, producer, singer, and visual artist Gazelle Twin, aka Elizabeth Bernholz, to lead us on a surprising and transportive journey in deep listening. Experimental electronics meet folk-horror in Gazelle Twin's sound, which weaves together themes of the pastoral, the supernatural and the disturbing through haunting vocals and industrial drones. Her latest album Black Dog is about confronting fear, but for her Listening Chair she selects a piece of Japanese ambient from the 1980s that she listened to during a cesarean delivery a few years ago, which made the experience feel serene, safe and gentle.

Elsewhere, there's splashing waves and electronic dolphins from the late composer Joanna Brouk's early new age masterwork Sounds of the Sea, and chamber-pop from Manchester's Daniel O'Sullivan based on an apocalyptic sonnet written in the 1880s. Plus a new hypnotic work for carillon bells from New York minimalist composer Charlemagne Palestine dedicated to his collection of over 18,000 cuddly toys, which he calls his ‘divinities'.

Produced by Katie Callin

Submerge yourself in the waters of ambient and experimental music with Elizabeth Alker.

Join Elizabeth Alker with a selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists as we journey through landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds. Along the way, we'll hear from emerging independent producers whose work plays with orchestral textures and classical form as well as the latest sounds from a new generation of contemporary composers who look to embrace the spirit of rock, pop and electronica.

To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions

[LISTEN NOW]

To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions

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Elizabeth Alker with late-night music from today's most exciting genre-defying artists.

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Join Elizabeth Alker with a selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists as we journey through landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds. Along the way, we'll hear from emerging independent producers whose work plays with orchestral textures and classical form as well as the latest sounds from a new generation of contemporary composers who look to embrace the spirit of rock, pop and electronica.

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions

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To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions

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Also in the show, highlights from the winners of this year's Oram Awards. Named after the pioneering Daphne Oram of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, the awards celebrate the work and voices of women and gender minority artists who bring an innovative approach to their music-making and a readiness to create using emerging technologies.

Produced by Alexa Kruger

Elizabeth Alker with a mix of new ambient and experimental music.

Dublin-based singer-guitarist Kevin Fowley, meanwhile, offers up a luxurious slowly-unfolding setting of a medieval French lullaby, À? la Claire Fontaine, the simple melody surrounded by smoothed pillows of guitar. And Roxanne de Bastion's album Songs From The Piano Player Of Budapest is a homage to her grandfather, Stephen, a composer-musician and survivor of the horrors of the holocaust in Hungary. His piece “Sleep, Sleep Little Boy ? is here reimagined by his granddaughter in collaboration with Ed Harcourt.

Elizabeth Alker plays a selection of ambient music including new lullabies for our times.

Elizabeth Alker plays a selection of ambient and experimental tracks including new takes on the lullaby.

Elizabeth Alker is on hand to feature that project alongside a range of other pieces that have looped and stretched their original source material to great effect. It's a fine and noble tradition - think of Gavin Bryars' incredible composition Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet or Brian Eno's elongated takes on Pachelbel's famous canon; Elizabeth will present the best recent examples from the worlds of ambient and experimental music.

Elizabeth Alker presents new ambient and experimental music that stretches time.

Elizabeth Alker plays a selection of tracks that stretch, loop and embellish source material from elsewhere to create powerful and beautiful extended arrangements.

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Join Elizabeth Alker with a selection of fresh music from of today's most exciting genre-defying artists. We'll hear from emerging independent producers whose work plays with orchestral textures and classical form, as well as the latest sounds from a new generation of contemporary composers who look to embrace the spirit of rock, pop and electronica.

To listen on most smart speakers, just say 'ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified'.

Elizabeth Alker takes us on another late-night journey through fresh music from today's most exciting genre-defying artists.

[LISTEN NOW]

Join Elizabeth Alker with a selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists as we journey through landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds. Along the way, we'll hear from emerging independent producers whose work plays with orchestral textures and classical form as well as the latest sounds from a new generation of contemporary composers who look to embrace the spirit of rock, pop and electronica.

To listen on most smart speakers, just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?.

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions.

[LISTEN NOW]

To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions.

[LISTEN NOW]

Join Elizabeth Alker with a selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists as we journey through landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds. Along the way, we'll hear from emerging independent producers whose work plays with orchestral textures and classical form as well as the latest sounds from a new generation of contemporary composers who look to embrace the spirit of rock, pop and electronica.

To listen on most smart speakers, just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?.

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions.

[LISTEN NOW]

This week, she invites composer, producer, singer, and visual artist Gazelle Twin, aka Elizabeth Bernholz, to lead us on a surprising and transportive journey in deep listening. Experimental electronics meet folk-horror in Gazelle Twin's sound, which weaves together themes of the pastoral, the supernatural and the disturbing through haunting vocals and industrial drones. Her latest album Black Dog is about confronting fear, but for her Listening Chair she selects a piece of Japanese ambient from the 1980s that she listened to during a cesarean delivery a few years ago, which made the experience feel serene, safe and gentle.

Elsewhere, there's splashing waves and electronic dolphins from the late composer Joanna Brouk's early new age masterwork Sounds of the Sea, and chamber-pop from Manchester's Daniel O'Sullivan based on an apocalyptic sonnet written in the 1880s. Plus a new hypnotic work for carillon bells from New York minimalist composer Charlemagne Palestine dedicated to his collection of over 18,000 cuddly toys, which he calls his ‘divinities'.

Produced by Katie Callin

Submerge yourself in the waters of ambient and experimental music with Elizabeth Alker.

Submerge yourself in the waters of ambient and experimental music with Elizabeth Alker and a Listening Chair selection from the other-worldly composer and vocalist Gazelle Twin.

Join Elizabeth Alker with a selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists as we journey through landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds. Along the way, we'll hear from emerging independent producers whose work plays with orchestral textures and classical form as well as the latest sounds from a new generation of contemporary composers who look to embrace the spirit of rock, pop and electronica.

To listen on most smart speakers, just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?.

[LISTEN NOW]

To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions.

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Elizabeth Alker invites Elbow frontman Guy Garvey to share a track that transports him.

Elizabeth Alker presents her selection of the best new genre-defying music and welcomes Guy Garvey into the Listening Chair to share a track that transports him elsewhere.

Elsewhere, the magic of choral music inspired by an enchanting hawthorn tree from American musician and composer Peter Broderick and East Forest, the artist name of the composer Trevor Oswalt; plus underwater aquatic colours and bubbly textures courtesy of musician, composer and lifeguard Rom?o Poirier.

Produced by Alexa Kruger

Elizabeth Alker selects music from the ambient and experimental music realms.

Elizabeth Alker welcomes Helen Mort to the Unclassified Listening Chair to share a track that transports her elsewhere. Helen has been described by Carol Ann Duffy as being “among the brightest stars in the sparkling new constellation of British poets ? and is also widely celebrated for her work in fiction, drama and creative non-fiction. A keen walker and climber, Helen's writing displays a deep engagement with the rhythms of the body and the natural world.

Elsewhere in the programme, Elizabeth shares the latest sounds from a new generation of contemporary composers who look to embrace the spirit of rock, pop and electronica.

To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker invites poet Helen Mort to pick a track that transports her

Elizabeth Alker picks new releases from the world of ambient music. Plus celebrated writer Helen Mort shares a piece of music that transports her elsewhere.

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To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions.

Elizabeth Alker celebrates the glorious light, joy and mystery of high summer with a journey through new music from today's most exciting genre-defying artists.

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Elizabeth Alker invites pianist-composer Hania Rani to share a Listening Chair track.

Polish pianist, composer and singer Hania Rani is in the Unclassified Listening Chair to choose a piece of music that transports her. Her choice: a classic from Holst.

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Yoshimura's album Surround was originally commissioned by a Japanese housing developer as a soundtrack to their living spaces, though the rich and delicate sonic textures he folds together prove to be far much more than simply part of the furniture. The forthcoming album by Bill Ryder Jones is his most ambitious yet, sonically at least. He wants, he says, Iechyd Da “to be like a home, where people can come and feel safe, like my favourite records are for me. ? Meanwhile Chimet, the debut album from the collective of sound-designers, programmers, and improvising musicians known as Mining, charts the approach, impact and aftermath of a major week-long storm upon the south coast of England, fusing meteorological data with electronic sound to trace the contours of the tempest.

Join Elizabeth Alker as she takes us on a sonic journey that's headed for home.

Elizabeth Alker opens the door to new ambient and experimental sounds exploring ideas of home.

To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker with mid-winter music from artists and composers defying genre convention.

Elizabeth Alker with a mid-winter journey through new music from today's most exciting genre-defying artists.

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Elizabeth Alker shares her favourite dream-inspired tracks from ambient realms.

Elizabeth also plays a track from a compilation celebrating the work of pioneering composer Norman McLaren, creator of landmark short films like Dots and Synchromy and the founder of the influential animation studio at the National Film Board of Canada.

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions.

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Elsewhere in the show, Elizabeth will, as ever, present a selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists whose work plays with orchestral textures and classical form as well as the latest from a new generation of contemporary composers whose output is infused with the spirit of rock, pop and electronica.

Sitar innovator Jasdeep Singh Degun is in the Unclassified Listening Chair

Elizabeth Alker offers up the latest genre-defying music and sitar virtuoso Jasdeep Singh Degun is in the Listening Chair to select a special track that transports him elsewhere.

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The latest ambient and experimental sounds, this week with a distinct jazz flavour

Elizabeth Alker features music from Shabaka Hutchings' forthcoming album alongside the best from other new jazz-inspired ambient and electronic releases.

Elsewhere in the show, Elizabeth serves up music from a range of artists who also take inspiration from similar creative techniques. The selections include abrasive work from the legendary William Basinski, the wonky and playful electronic sounds of Bernard Parmegiani (a prot?g? of the late Pierre Schaeffer), and the emotive musical results of a collaboration between the Californian sound artist Claire Rousay and composer Emily Harper Scott.

Produced by Alexa Kruger

Elizabeth Alker shares electronic sounds and Jean-Michel Jarre sits in the Listening Chair

New ambient music plus folk singer John Francis Flynn offers a track that transports him.

Elizabeth Alker presents new sounds from the world of ambient music. Folk singer John Francis Flynn is in the Listening Chair to recommend a piece of music that transports him.

Elsewhere in the show, Elizabeth offers up a vibrant selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists who take us on a journey through landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds.

Elizabeth Alker welcomes Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith to the Listening Chair

Elizabeth Alker invites Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith to the Unclassified Listening Chair to select a track that transports her elsewhere.

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Produced by Alexa Kruger

Elizabeth Alker shares new ambient music and KMRU is in the Listening Chair.

The Trades Club in the West Yorkshire town of Hebden Bridge is not only Elizabeth Alker's local, it's also one of the most lively and well-loved music venues in the north of England. In this very special episode of Unclassified, Elizabeth welcomes three of the show's favourite performers to play in front of a packed, enthusiastic crowd. Carmel Smickersgill trained at the Royal Northern College of Music and is now one of the most exciting and playful artists around, with a scintillating live set full of floating vocals and arpeggios cranked out in what she describes as her ‘electronic DIY' style. LINDT is the latest project from Nigerian-born artist Iyunoluwa Yemi-Shodimu, who under a range of different guises has become a fixture of the experimental, multi-disciplinary scene in the North West. Yorkshire Modular Society, meanwhile, is the fabulously eclectic ambient project of Bradford-based Dominick Schofield, who draws on key musical influences like Aphex Twin as well as TV, films and video games for his inspiration.

To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker with a special edition of Unclassified from Hebden Bridges Trades Club.

Elizabeth Alker welcomes a live audience to The Trades Club in Hebden Bridge for performances from three of Unclassified's favourite artists.

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Recorded and mixed by Udo Wüstendörfer, Hessischer Rundfunk

Elizabeth Alker heads to Germany for a special edition of Unclassified Live

Elizabeth Alker travels to Frankfurt in Germany for a special edition of Unclassified Live, featuring music from Hania Rani, Richard Reed Parry and Brandt Brauer Frick.

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Alongside House Music, Bell Orchestre's album-length suite sculpted from a 90-minute group improvisation, the ensembles also present material from violinist Sarah Neufeld's solo work Detritus in a new arrangement by Owen Pallett.

Bell Orchestre comprises Pietro Amato (French horn, keyboards, electronics), Michael Feuerstack (pedal steel guitar, keyboards, vocals) Kaveh Nabatian (trumpet, gongoma, keyboards, vocals), Sarah Neufeld (violin, vocals), Richard Reed Parry (bass, vocals), and Stefan Schneider (drums).

MUSIC PLAYED:

Sarah Neufeld - Stories (arr. Owen Pallett)

Bell Orchestre - House Music (arr. Owen Pallett)

PERFORMERS:

Andr退 de Ridder (conductor)

BBC Concert Orchestra Senior Producer, Neil Varley

Sound Engineer, Joe Yon

Produced by Alexa Kruger

Elizabeth Alker presents Bell Orchestre performing with the BBC Concert Orchestra.

Also taking to the stage with new music created for the night are London-based composer and sound artist Hinako Omori, with a blend of orchestral textures and ethereal electronic soundscapes; and Pakistani-American composer and drummer Qasim Naqvi, whose work combines complex polyrhythms and pulsating drones.

Produced by Alexa Kruger

Elizabeth Alker presents Unclassified Live, with a set from Cate Le Bon.

Elizabeth Alker presents Unclassified Live on London's South Bank, where Cate Le Bon, Hinako Omori and Qasim Naqvi performed with the BBC Concert Orchestra.

Erased Tapes was formed in 2007 by Robert Raths and has been a key player in the melding of the contemporary classical and ambient electronic scenes over the past decade. At Fat Out, a quartet of both established and newly-signed label artists join together for a unique in-the-round performance led by local conductor Ellie Slorach.

In the music of Japanese vocalist Hatis Noit we encounter the sounds of experimental and classical traditions as well as sacred chant idioms, folk styles and avant-garde approaches, all of which are delicately layered and intuitively combined. Fellow Londoner and labelmate Rival Consoles, meanwhile, creates synthesiser journeys in which energy and rhythmic optimism are balanced by a harmonic palette shot through with wistfulness. Joining them are Douglas Dare whose modern chamber music brings sublime fragility and poise, as well as Penguin Cafe, the pared-down continuation of the legendary avant-pop orchestra led by Arthur Jeffes.

Produced by Phil Smith

Elizabeth Alker presents Erased Tapes artists in collaboration with BBC Philharmonic.

Elizabeth Alker presents Erased Tapes label artists in collaboration with players from the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra at the opening concert of Salford's Fat Out Fest.

At forty years of age, Erland has already established himself as one of the leading voices in a new generation of neoclassical composers, with albums like Solan Goose and Sule Skerry establishing his trademark sound, steeped in the sea-swept rhythms and atmospheres of his Orkney home. For his latest album 'Carve The Runes', he explores themes of time and decay through a compositional process that involved burying the master tapes of the album in the ground and leaving clues for intrepid fans to find them and release them into the world.

To listen on most smart speakers, just say: “Ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified. ?

Elizabeth Alker presents a concert performance from Erland Cooper.

Elizabeth Alker introduces Erland Cooper in concert with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra at the Aerial Festival in Ambleside.

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Isobel Waller-Bridge's skills as the creator of sensitive and absorbing film scores and TV soundtracks (Black Mirror, Fleabag, Emma) has brought her critical acclaim, though last year's debut solo album VIII brought her compositional voice into the limelight. At Bluedot, she plays piano in a suite of pieces taken from the album as well as a new untitled work, collaborating with orchestrator Lara Serafin to bring a fresh playfulness and experimentation palette of sounds and textures.

The world of Coby Sey's artistry is hard to pin down, a music of deep atmospheres that straddles the genres of ambient, experimental, grime and hip hop. For this Unclassified Live performance, Sey worked with arranger George Barton to realise an expanded version of Eve (Anwummer?), a track from his 2022 album Conduit. The studio recording of the song features his wordless vocals, but, inspired by the festival surroundings, Sey speaks and sings new lyrics: `Being here, absorbing the environment, I was thinking about what space means to me. I was thinking about what we mean to each other as humans, in this lifetime, on this planet. I think it's good to be kept grounded while also looking upwards.`

Produced by Alexa Kruger

Isobel Waller-Bridge and Coby Sey perform with the BBC Concert Orchestra at Bluedot 2023.

Both Richter and his Baroque inspiration share a love of patterns and motivic repetition. Remembering the process involved in creating Recomposed as a conversation between himself and Vivaldi, Richter talks about how he would be constantly 'suggesting' things to the original score: 'It's a series of little experiments. I say, 'What about this?' The music then starts to tell you whether it works or not. I see that as Vivaldi. He's saying, 'No, forget about that. Do it like this!

Produced by Katie Callin

On the winter solstice, iconic Baroque evocations of the seasons reimagined by Max Richter

On the night of the winter solstice, Elizabeth Alker presents the first broadcast of a live performance of Max Richter's Recomposed: Vivaldi - The Four Seasons.

Voices is a musical exploration of the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights (1948) and begins with an archival recording of Eleanor Roosevelt reading from Article 1: `All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and right

Bill Ryder-Jones is one of England's most distinctive musical voices, blending a boldness of approach and unbending curiosity with a deeply human intimacy. Having gained major success as a founding member of Liverpool band The Coral, his solo career - featuring albums such as ‘Yawn', ‘West Kirkby County Primary' and last year's ‘Iechyd Da' - has allowed the multi-instrumentalist to find ways of combining his deeply felt pop sensibility with an ever-increasing fascination with classical and experimental music.

Divide and Dissolve is a doom metal band founded by Melbourne's Takiaya Reed, who recently appeared in the Unclassified Listening Chair. She is a classically-trained saxophonist and guitarist playing music that is often heavy in tone and driven by a fiercely political edge. It is, she says proudly, genreless - so playing new arrangements with the BBC Concert Orchestra is a very natural fit.

Nwando Ebizie is a brilliantly original performer and composer whose music inhabits liminal and mythic spaces, using “art personas, experimental theatre, neuroscience, music and African diasporic ritualistic dance ? to encourage audiences to question their perceptions around reality. She has taken her entirely unclassifiable blend of Afro-futurism, ritual and science fiction around the world and is sure to light up the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker presents Unclassified Live from London's Southbank Centre.

Elizabeth Alker presents the latest Unclassified Live concert from London's Southbank Centre, with three guest artists performing music with the BBC Concert Orchestra.

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As Moor Mother, the poet-musician Camae Ayewa offers spellbinding lyrical forays into questions of freedom and justice. The Philadelphian's latest album The Great Bailout is unflinching in its exploration of the continuing presence of colonial history: “Tax payers of erasure, of relapse, of amnesia, paying the crimes off - Did you pay off the trauma? ? she intones on the track, Guilty, here performed with special guest vocalist Elaine Mitchener. For Unclassified Live, Ayewa's palette of electronic and ambient colours is augmented through new arrangements created for the BBC Concert Orchestra.

Modern Nature's Jack Cooper is a musician of wide-ranging talent, at home in art rock settings or alongside experimental improvisers. His Triptych for Orchestra - here receiving its premiere performance - sees him turn his craft to the creation of a piece of longer-form symphonic music for large instrumental forces.

Bringing the concert home is Kate Stables, a banjo and guitar-strumming singer-songwriter whose playful brand of art pop shot-through with heartfelt lyricism finds its home in the project she calls This Is The Kit. Alongside long time collaborators Rozi Plain and Jamie Whitby-Coles, Stables here explores tracks from the project's back catalogue in specially commissioned arrangements that add an orchestral depth to serve the words. “The story is the telling - Potential in the waiting - Movement is deciding - Forward is the doing -  ?

Produced by Phil Smith

Join Elizabeth Alker and the BBC Concert Orchestra for a night of genre-defying new music

Join Elizabeth Alker and the BBC Concert Orchestra for a night of genre-defying new music featuring guest artists This Is The Kit, Modern Nature and Moor Mother.

Join Elizabeth Alker at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on London's South Bank for an evening of genre-defying musical collaboration featuring new commissions and arrangements performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by André de Ridder.

As Moor Mother, the poet-musician Camae Ayewa offers spellbinding lyrical forays into questions of freedom and justice. The Philadelphian's latest album The Great Bailout is unflinching in its exploration of the continuing presence of colonial history: “Tax payers of erasure, of relapse, of amnesia, paying the crimes off - Did you pay off the trauma? ? she intones on the track, Guilty. For Unclassified Live, her palette of electronic and ambient colours is here augmented through new arrangements created for the BBC Concert Orchestra.

Modern Nature's Jack Cooper is a musician of wide-ranging talent, at home in art rock settings or alongside experimental improvisers. His Tryptych for Orchestra - here receiving its premiere performance - sees him turn his craft to the creation of a piece of longer-former symphonic music for large instrumental forces.

Elizabeth Alker offers big sounds in new experimental and electronic music.

Elizabeth Alker offers up a powerful mix of new experimental tracks including bare, bold metal and relentless, vibrant electronica from the likes of Ben Frost and Squarepusher.

Produced by Alexa Kruger

Elizabeth Alker shares new sounds from the worlds of experimental and ambient music.

Elizabeth Alker welcomes the American harpist and composer Mary Lattimore into the Unclassified Listening Chair to share a track that transports her elsewhere. Mary uses her harp alongside perfectly-placed effects to conjure impressionistic musical worlds forged out of memory and movement - one critic suggested she has, 'the uncanny ability to pluck a string in a way that will instantly make someone remember the taste of their fifth birthday cake.' Committed to the creativity that comes from both improvisation and collaboration, Mary has worked with artists including Thurston Moore, Sharon Van Etten and Jarvis Cocker on albums such as 'Hundreds of Days,' ‘Silver Ladders' and 'Goodbye, Hotel Arkada'. Elsewhere in the programme, Elizabeth selects fresh music from genre-defying artists who take us on a journey through landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds.

Elizabeth Alker welcomes harpist Mary Lattimore to pick a track that transports her.

Elizabeth Alker shares ambient and genre-defying sounds; and harpist and composer Mary Lattimore shares music with the power to transport her elsewhere.

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Elsewhere in the show, Elizabeth serves up a healthy dose of the latest ambient and experimental sounds to soothe and inspire.

Produced by Katie Callin

Elizabeth Alker shares new ambient sounds, and Maxine Peake is in the Listening Chair

Produced by Alexa Kruger

Get wonderfully lost inside musical loops and ambient worlds selected by Elizabeth Alker.

Produced by Katie Callin

Elizabeth Alker picks a wintry bouquet of ambient and experimental music.

Elizabeth Alker picks a wintry bouquet of ambient and experimental music, with rosebud laments, woodland improvisations and the sparkle of frosty landscapes.

Produced by Katie Callin

Lose yourself in all manner of ambient and experimental sound worlds with Elizabeth Alker

Lose yourself in all manner of ambient and experimental worlds of sound with Elizabeth Alker, across minimalist seas, molten drones, imaginary landscapes and dream spaces.

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Elsewhere in the show, Elizabeth offers up sounds from the latest releases by ambient heavyweights Loscil and Lawrence English, plus new piano music from Okonski and a track from the violinist-composer Daniel Pioro.

Produced by Alexa Kruger

Elizabeth Alker with ambient music and a Listening Chair selection from Mogwai.

Plus: Moor Mother is in the Listening Chair to share a piece of music that inspired and transports her. Dubbed “the poet laureate of the apocalypse ? by Pitchfork, the Philadelphia-based wordsmith intones with a lyrical urgency and vision fitting for our times.

Moor Mother in the Listening Chair, plus new ambient music with a poetic twist.

For World Poetry Day, Elizabeth Alker seeks out the common ground between experimental musicians and poets, and Moor Mother is in the Listening Chair.

First broadcast in October 2022.

Produced by Katie Callin

Shh! Lean in close as Elizabeth Alker shares music around the theme of whispering.

There's nostalgic electronics from prolific Liverpool producer and composer Forest Swords, as he returns with a new album that features the likes of Neneh Cherry and the late Lee Scratch Perry. There'll be nature-inspired improvisations from a new compilation by Folklore Tapes, whose mission is to research and soundtrack the folklore, mythology and occult annals of the UK. Plus a new collaboration between Penguin Cafe and the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra.

Produced by Katie Callin.

A sonic journey into the world of ambient and experimental music with Elizabeth Alker.

Join Elizabeth Alker for another sonic journey into ambient and experimental music, with nature-inspired sounds from Folklore Tapes and nostalgic electronics from Forest Swords.

Elsewhere in the show, Elizabeth Alker goes on a sonic wander, serving up ambient and electronic sounds including new releases from composer and pianist Tiny Leaves who offers a mesmerising soundscape inspired by the Shropshire countryside. Plus there's twinkling and ethereal melodic lines from Montreal harpist Sarah Pag? and moody minimalist electronics from Danish composer and producer Astrid Sonne.

Produced by Alexa Kruger

Elizabeth Alker shares ambient sounds, and author Neil Gaiman sits in the Listening Chair.

Lose yourself in all manner of ambient and experimental sound worlds with Elizabeth Alker.

Join Elizabeth Alker as she embarks upon the new year with fresh music from the world of ambient and experimental sound.

Join Elizabeth Alker as she shares new ambient sounds for a new year, including the radical beauty of Mikado Koko's latest piano piece and the first new studio music in six years from Ben Frost. The Australian-born, Iceland-based producer has mastered the art of controlled abrasiveness in his music, folding field recordings into metallic guitar textures that build towards sometimes forbidding but always captivating. His are spectacular blocks of sonic storytelling and the new track, Turning The Prism, is no exception. Mikado Koko, by contrast, is on a search for pure beauty with his Satie-inspired piano music, in which - he enigmatically suggests - he both composes and doesn't compose, plays and doesn't play... (His hope is that the music - like the new track Lotus Eater - will return us to a state of peaceful childhood.) Elsewhere in the show, we'll hear Boston Blue Period from the forthcoming album by Strange Boy, aka Kieran Brunt and Matt Huxley - expect sweeping strings and tender vocals.

Elizabeth Alker with some of the best avant-garde music currently coming out of New York.

Join Elizabeth Alker as she presents sounds emanating from the experimental core of the Big Apple - New York City.

Elizabeth Alker offers some of the best avant-garde music currently coming out of New York

To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions.

[LISTEN NOW]

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions.

[LISTEN NOW]

Produced by Alexa Kruger

Elizabeth Alker shares new ambient sounds, and \u00d3lafur Arnalds is in the Listening Chair.

Join Elizabeth Alker for a selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists as we journey through landscapes of the folkloric and fairytale-inspired experimental sounds as part of the BBC's ‘Once Upon a Time' season. Along the way, we'll hear from emerging independent producers whose work plays with orchestral textures and classical form as well as the latest sounds from a new generation of contemporary composers who look to embrace the spirit of rock, pop and electronica.

Produced by Alex Yates

The BBC's ‘Once Upon a Time - ' week celebrates fairytales and storytelling in partnership with the British Library. On BBC Radio 3, Edith Bowman explores fairytales and fantasy in 'Sound of Cinema', actors Pearce Quigley and Lydia Wilson delve into the worlds of princesses, frogs, and spells in 'Words & Music', Sara Mohr-Pietsch charts a course to Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf in 'Music Map', and Elizabeth Alker presents music inspired by enchanted lands, magical creatures, and timeless tales in 'Classical Live' and 'Unclassified'. Just search ‘Once Upon a Time - ' in BBC Sounds. The British Library's major new exhibition Fairy Tales runs from 27th March – 23rd August 2026.

Elizabeth Alker with a late-night journey through folkloric and fairytale-inspired music.

Join Elizabeth Alker for a late-night journey through folkloric and fairytale-inspired music from genre-defying artists as part of the BBC's ‘Once Upon a Time' season.

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Ian Lynch is perhaps best known as one of the founding members of deadly Dublin band Lankum, but the freedom his solo project One Leg One Eye offers him has led to his “happiest experience recording music ?. Setting up his shruti box and uilleann pipes in abandoned spaces across his home city, he creates dark, forbidding drone sounds that lead us into sometimes transcendent, sometimes terrifying musical places. For his Listening Chair, Ian chooses the song that gifted his other band its name - John Reilly Jr.'s folk ballad ‘False Lankum'.

Elsewhere in the show, Elizabeth offers up a vibrant selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists who take us on a journey through landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds.

To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker welcomes One Leg One Eye to the Unclassified Listening Chair.

Elizabeth Alker invites One Leg One Eye - aka Ian Lynch from Lankum - to the Unclassified Listening Chair to select a track that transports him elsewhere.

[LISTEN NOW]

To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions

[LISTEN NOW]

To listen on most smart speakers just say, “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker welcomes Paola Mendoza to share her Listening Chair selection

Paola Mendoza - film director, activist, author and co-founder of The Resistance Revival Chorus - chooses a track that transports her.

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Grime, dancehall, grunge guitar and hip hop aesthetics are just some of the sounds and styles that coalesce in Gaika's new album Drift. The South London wordsmith and producer offers notes on past lives and contemporary existence in a weave of poetry embedded in nostalgic musical textures. Hot off the back of a summer's touring, meanwhile, Ross From Friends brings a retro UKG energy to tonight's show's playlist with his ever-evolving take on garage rhythms and vocals. And Galya Bisengalieva conjures elegiac landscapes of sound in her latest release, Polygon, a musical ode to the people, places and beings affected by the nuclear fallout from the Semipalatinsk Test Site on the steppe in north east Kazakhstan. The sound of the Kazakh-British composer's violin sighs and laments amongst pulsating electronic textures.

Elizabeth Alker with new ambient and electronic music that reconfigures the past, including selections from Gaika, Galya Bisengalieva and Ross from Friends.

Elizabeth Alker shares ambient sounds and poet Paul Farley sits in the Listening Chair.

Elizabeth Alker presents ambient and electronic sounds, while poet Paul Farely shares a track that has the power to transport him elsewhere.

Elizabeth Alker with ambient music and tranquil tracks to soundtrack the longest night.

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Join Elizabeth Alker with a selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists as we journey through landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds. Along the way, we'll hear from emerging independent producers whose work plays with orchestral textures and classical form as well as the latest sounds from a new generation of contemporary composers who look to embrace the spirit of rock, pop and electronica.

To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions

[LISTEN NOW]

Join Elizabeth Alker with a selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists as we journey through landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds. This week we'll hear a fabulous collaboration from Scanner and Neil Leonard that was ten years in the making; a track written during an Icelandic snowstorm featuring on the brilliantly titled album ‘All Our Friends Are Vampires'; and in the week marking 400 years since the death of John Dowland, we'll hear new music from Laura Cannell, a great fan of the Renaissance composer. Elizabeth also offers her signature mix of emerging independent producers whose work plays with orchestral textures and classical form.

To listen on most smart speakers, just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?.

Elizabeth Alker explores landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds, hearing from emerging independent producers whose work plays with orchestral textures and classical form as well as the latest sounds from a new generation of contemporary composers who look to embrace the spirit of rock, pop and electronica.

[LISTEN NOW]

To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions.

Join Elizabeth Alker with a selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists as we journey through landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds. This week we hear the mesmerising new track ‘À'™ from Danish composer and bassist Ida Dueland; Daniel Brandt's remix of Hiro Ama's terrifically optimistic ‘Everything Is Going to Make Sense In The End'; and new music from Belfast organist Brian Coney. We also drop in on a medieval French castle to hear the theremin played as you've never heard it before.

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music including tracks from Ida Dueland and Brian Coney

Elizabeth Alker selects music by an exciting roster of genre-defying artists. Featuring tracks from Ida Dueland and Brian Coney plus a Daniel Brandt remix.

[LISTEN NOW]

Join Elizabeth Alker with a selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists as we journey through verdant landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds. With spring very much in its stride, she'll plant seeds of music whose tendrils will spread out into the ether, “learning the gentle way of green growing things ?. Along the way, we'll hear from emerging independent producers whose work plays with orchestral textures and classical form as well as the latest sounds from a new generation of contemporary composers who look to embrace the spirit of rock, pop and electronica.

To listen on most smart speakers, just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?.

[LISTEN NOW]

Produced by Alexa Kruger

Elizabeth Alker shares drone music from ambient, electronic and orchestral realms.

Join Elizabeth Alker with a selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists as we journey through landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds. Along the way, we'll hear from emerging independent producers whose work plays with orchestral textures and classical form as well as the latest sounds from a new generation of contemporary composers who look to embrace the spirit of rock, pop and electronica.

To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions

Join Elizabeth Alker with a selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists as we journey through landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds. This week, enveloping saxophone textures from Colin Stetson, slowly-evolving organ clusters from Michiko Ogawa and the delicate balladry of Rakel.

Elizabeth Alker with a late-night journey through new music from today's most exciting genre-defying artists. Including tracks by Colin Stetson, Michiko Ogawa and Rakel.

[LISTEN NOW]

Alongside this, Elizabeth presents her trademark selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists who take us on a journey through landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds.

To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker welcomes Richard Dawson to the Unclassified Listening Chair.

Marking the release of his latest album End of the Middle, Richard Dawson shares a track that transports him elsewhere.

[LISTEN NOW]

Produced by Alexa Kruger

Elizabeth Alker shares entrancing ambient sounds from sacred spaces.

Produced by Alexa Kruger

Elizabeth Alker presents new ambient music and Sarah Neufeld is in the Listening Chair.

There'll be hazy reflections on light and dark from Australian composer Lisa Lerkenfeldt, whose latest work was inspired by an encounter with someone who explores abandoned underground tunnels. And new piano pieces created by Japanese composer Makoto Nomura following his visit to a research retreat at Tokyo University's Memu Earth Lab. Plus a dive into the back catalogue of dreamy ambient favourite Grouper, aka Liz Harris, to mark the repressing of some of her most popular releases since her debut in 2005.

Produced by Katie Callin.

Elizabeth Alker shares ambient and experimental sounds to keep the darkness at bay

As the nights draw in, Elizabeth Alker shares ambient and experimental music to keep the darkness at bay, from the likes of Grouper, Lisa Lerkenfeldt and Makoto Nomura.

To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker hears from British DJ-producer Sherelle who shares a treasured track

Elizabeth Alker serves up a sublime sequence of ambient and experimental music. Plus British DJ-producer Sherelle shares a more downtempo side to her musical personality.

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Tonight Elizabeth has new tracks from Oliver Coates (who has a new album on its way following the success of his work on the Aftersun soundtrack), The London Electronic Orchestra, as well as Berlin-based guitarist and pianist Ben Lucas Boysen.

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Amongst the choices in this week's playlist are a previously unbroadcast live performance by the BBC Concert Orchestra of Moor Mother's riveting orchestral arrangement of her original composition Dream Culture. The piece was performed in May at the Unclassified Live concert on London's Southbank.

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions.

This week: poet Moor Mother intones over a patchwork of minimalist textures woven by marimba and vibraphone-player Masayoshi Fujita; Australian drummer-composer Lawrence Pike reimagines Orpheus' trip to the underworld; seasoned rockers Seefeel return with another peerless stretch of shoegaze; and L'Rain soundtracks a horror film.

Elizabeth Alker serves up a selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists.

Elizabeth Alker serves up a selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists, including Masayoshi Fujita, Seefeel and L'Rain.

[LISTEN NOW]

Ahead of British producer Jon Hopkins' debut at the BBC Proms, Elizabeth selects a track from the ten-year anniversary and re-master of his album Immunity, a transcendent electronic journey that seamlessly blends intricate rhythms, ethereal melodies and dreamy orchestral swells.

Elsewhere on the show, we hear new music by multidisciplinary artist Jack Warne aka GAUNT, with visceral and rich textures that capture the deeply personal narrative and experience of Jack's life growing up with a hereditary eye disease.

Produced by Alexa Kruger

Ambient, experimental and orchestral music selected by Elizabeth Alker.

Produced by Katie Callin

Elizabeth Alker serves up music that defies classification

Join Elizabeth Alker for a selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists as we journey through landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds. Along the way, we'll hear from emerging independent producers whose work plays with orchestral textures and classical form as well as the latest sounds from a new generation of contemporary composers who look to embrace the spirit of rock, pop and electronica.

To listen on most smart speakers just say 'ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified

[LISTEN NOW]

Elizabeth Alker presents fresh music from genre-defying artists. This week's selection includes a tribute to the late great David Lynch composed by Michael A Muller and featuring brilliant brass player CJ Camerieri; music from Dana Gavanski that has a suitably noirish twist, speaking to her beginnings in the film industry; and the deeply enigmatic new single from Thom Yorke and Mark Pritchard, This Conversation Is Missing Your Voice.

To listen on most smart speakers just say, “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker with a late-night journey through new music from today's most exciting genre-defying artists. Including a new single from Thom Yorke and Mark Pritchard.

[LISTEN NOW]

Elsewhere in the show, we hear new releases from ambient giant Tim Hecker, Texan songwriter Jana Horn and composer and producer Rachika Nayar.

Produced by Alexa Kruger

Elizabeth Alker shares a mix of ambient music. Soweto Kinch sits in the Listening Chair.

[LISTEN NOW]

Join Elizabeth Alker with a selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists as we journey through landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds. In this week's show, we'll hear captivating new music from one of Ireland's most gifted composers, Linda Buckley; a glorious celebration of having a crush on someone from the all-female south London vocal group Woom; and Anna Högberg Attack's new double-sextet ensemble play a moving mediation on grief from from their forthcoming album, Ensamseglaren.

To listen on most smart speakers just say 'ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified'.

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions.

Join Elizabeth Alker with a selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists as we journey through landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds. Along the way, we'll hear from emerging independent producers whose work plays with orchestral textures and classical form as well as the latest sounds from a new generation of contemporary composers who look to embrace the spirit of rock, pop and electronica.

[LISTEN NOW]

Sound artist, composer and Oram Award-winner Hayley Suviste captures the atmosphere in the city's edgelands and abandoned herbaceous borders; Tommy Perman makes the buzz of Manchester's worker bee symbol into a soundtrack for a new park; and we hear new renditions of a very old song about the famous Salford gasworks.

Elizabeth Alker heads out of the studio, finding music to welcome the arrival of spring.

Spring has arrived, and to celebrate, Elizabeth Alker heads out into the city to discover signs of the new season as well as ambient and experimental songs to match the mood.

[LISTEN NOW]

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions.

[LISTEN NOW]

Produced by Katie Callin & Alexa Kruger

To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions.

[LISTEN NOW]

“Folksy, post-punk techno ? is how Resident Advisor describes the most recent work of “sonic polyglot ? Sockethead, the alter ego of Manchester's Richard Harris. There's an abrasiveness and darkness to the music, in which disturbed textures vye for our attention. In Birmingham, the classically-trained percussionist Emily Jones has leant her craft to the production of electronic music with her debut release as Echo Juliet, a layered dancefloor bubbler in which synths, samples and rolling thumb-piano ostinati invite us into a flow state. And Californian composer-musician Joshua Steinbrick offers introspective improvisatory piano-playing, sequences of chords and melody, delicate and sparse, that flit like thoughts across a clear mind.

Elizabeth Alker shares new ambient and experimental music of varying moods and atmospheres, including tracks from Sockethead, Echo Juliet and Joshua Steinbrick.

Elizabeth Alker welcomes Stuart Maconie to the Unclassified Listening Chair.

Elizabeth Alker plays the best of the latest experimental & ambient music and invites Stuart Maconie to the Unclassified Listening Chair to talk about a piece that transports him.

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions

[LISTEN NOW]

Elizabeth Alker has dance tunes to soundtrack the year's longest days and shortest nights.

Elizabeth Alker hosts a midsummer rave, Unclassified-style, with ambient dance grooves to mark the turning of the year.

Elizabeth Alker welcomes Suzanne Ciani to the Unclassified Listening Chair to share a track that transports her elsewhere. Suzanne is certainly one of the most important figures in the development of electronic music, an early meeting with engineer Don Buchla leading to a long association with the modular synth he developed. Her ongoing work - appearing across five decades in adverts, films and games as well as on albums - has been nominated five times for a Grammy award.

Elsewhere in this programme being broadcast on International Women's Day, Elizabeth pays tribute to the extraordinary sound pioneer Éliane Radigue, who died in February, having done so much to expand the possibilities of electronic music. Elizabeth also plays new music from Hannah Peel in collaboration with percussionist Bei Bei Wang, and haunting cello loops from Laura Cannell, inspired by 13th-century monophony.

To listen on most smart speakers, just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?.

Elizabeth Alker invites electro-pioneer Suzanne Ciani to pick a track that transports her.

Elizabeth Alker picks new releases from the world of ambient music. Plus legendary synth composer Suzanne Ciani shares a piece of music that transports her elsewhere.

[LISTEN NOW]

Okumu writes: 'As I consciously stand before my ancestors through the medium of this sound world, I proclaim that ?You survived so I might live.

Plus intimate and introspective solo guitar work from Berlin-based composer Martin Heynes and screams of feedback and oscillator pulses sculpted into dissonant forms by Elizabeth Cottern.

Produced by Alexa Kruger

This week, hypnotic moto perpetuo in a new work for three vibraphones and 20-channel 1-bit electronics by Tristan Perich with Ensemble 0; a hazy, sonic landscape conjured by Manchester's Black Brunswicker; and Caroline Shaw with a contemporary take on a much-loved song by Franz Schubert.

[LISTEN NOW]

To close Radio 3's weekend of Satie celebrations, Unclassified presents three new pieces created exclusively for the show courtesy of Manchester's purveyor of playful electronic music Carmel Smickersgill, Yorkshire pianist-improviser Matthew Bourne and guitarist-composer Rafiq Bhatia of Son Lux.

Before I compose a piece, I walk around it several times, accompanied by myself. ?

To listen on most smart speakers just say, “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified

Elizabeth Alker explores how Erik Satie's music inspires today's musical explorers.

Elizabeth Alker explores how Erik Satie's music continues to inspire today's ambient and experimental musicians, presenting three new commissions made especially for Unclassified.

[LISTEN NOW]

Elizabeth Alker plays new ambient and electronic sounds that take a scientific turn.

With a nod to 2024's International Day of Women and Girls in Science, Elizabeth Alker selects ambient electronic music by women who use technology in dynamic, pioneering ways.

As a musical project, This Is The Kit inhabits a very special space in today's musical world, and has earned the love and respect of some big name artists, many of whom have become occasional collaborators as well as long-standing devotees.

Elsewhere in the programme, the latest ambient and electronic releases selected by Elizabeth Alker.

Elizabeth Alker welcomes This Is The Kit into the Unclassified Listening Chair.

This Is The Kit appears in the Unclassified Listening Chair, and Elizabeth Alker presents the best new sounds from the world of ambient and electronic music.

Join Elizabeth Alker with a selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists as we journey through landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds. Along the way, we'll hear from emerging independent producers whose work plays with orchestral textures and classical form, as well as the latest sounds from a new generation of contemporary composers who look to embrace the spirit of rock, pop and electronica.

To listen on most smart speakers just say, 'ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified'.

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions.

[LISTEN NOW]

To listen on most smart speakers just say, “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker announces the winner of the Tune into Nature Music Prize.

Elizabeth Alker with a nature-themed, late-night journey through new music from today's most exciting genre-defying artists.

[LISTEN NOW]

From birdsong to rainfall and the sounds of the soil - open your ears for selections that celebrate the natural world as Elizabeth Alker announces the winner of this year's Tune into Nature Prize. We'll also hear some of the shortlisted entries as we journey through late-night landscapes of ambient and experimental music.

Produced by Connor Gani

To listen on most smart speakers, just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?.

Elizabeth Alker shares the winner of the Tune into Nature Music Prize.

Open your ears for sounds and selections that celebrate the great outdoors as Elizabeth Alker announces the winner of the Tune into Nature Music Prize.

[LISTEN NOW]

Elizabeth Alker celebrates music-makers with genre-defying approaches.

With the next Unclassified Live a few days away, Elizabeth Alker celebrates some of the artists who'll be performing - and those who've made the previous concerts so special.

Join us on a journey through landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds as Elizabeth Alker offers up a selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists. Expect to hear from emerging independent creators whose work plays with orchestral textures and classical form as well as the latest from a new generation of contemporary composers whose output is infused with the spirit of rock, pop and electronica. This week's show features expansive electronic vistas from Ben Lucas Boysen, playful chamber music from cellist Okyyung Lee and Welsh producer Koreless with new slice of sculpted dance music.

Elizabeth Alker with a selection of experimental sounds from genre-defying artists.

Elizabeth Alker with a selection of ambient and experimental sounds from genre-defying artists including cellist Okyyung Lee and producer Ben Lucas Boysen.

Join us on a journey through landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds as Elizabeth Alker offers up a selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists. Expect to hear from emerging independent creators whose work plays with orchestral textures and classical form as well as the latest from a new generation of contemporary composers whose output is infused with the spirit of rock, pop and electronica. This week's show features expansive electronic vistas from Ben Lukas Boysen, playful chamber music from cellist Okkyung Lee and Welsh producer Koreless with a new slice of sculpted dance music.

Elizabeth Alker with a selection of late-summer sounds from genre-defying artists.

Elizabeth Alker with a selection of late-summer sounds from genre-defying artists, including cellist Okkyung Lee and producer Ben Lukas Boysen.

Join us on a journey through landscapes of ambient and experimental sounds as Elizabeth Alker offers up a selection of fresh music from genre-defying artists. Expect to hear from emerging independent artists whose work plays with orchestral textures and classical form as well as the latest from a new generation of contemporary composers whose output is infused with the spirit of rock, pop and electronica.

[LISTEN NOW]

To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions.

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Will Gregory began playing music at school because “it was the only thing I was good at ?, starting out on the oboe and then switching to the saxophone, which he played as a member of Tears for Fears in the 1980s. Since then, he's performed with and composed for an extraordinary range of groups and ensembles, notably on synth as one half of Goldfrapp and as founder member of the Will Gregory Moog ensemble. For nearly two decades, that outfit has used a range of Moogs alongside Roland and Korg synths to perform specially composed music, transcriptions of classical works, and their own versions of music from popular culture and film scores.

Elizabeth Alker invites synth master Will Gregory to share a track that transports him.

Elizabeth Alker presents her pick of the best new ambient and electronic music and welcomes Will Gregory to the Listening Chair to share a track that transports him.

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To listen on most smart speakers just say “ask BBC Sounds to play Unclassified ?

Elizabeth Alker with brand new music from artists and composers defying genre conventions.

[LISTEN NOW]

Elizabeth Alker takes listeners on a sonic exploration into uncharted musical territory, delving further into an emerging scene of composers and performers who feel at home in both a traditional concert hall and a grimy basement venue.

These artists are unburdened by tradition and genre and they're meeting the demands of a growing international audience who have eclectic tastes and open minds. Join Elizabeth as she follows musicians such as Gabriel Prokofiev, Johann Johannsson, Flying Lotus, Bonobo, Nils Frahm and Christina Vantzou from electronic dance clubs onto windswept Nordic landscapes, into the world of art house cinema and on stage in some of the world's most reputable concert halls.

Disconnect from all devices and escape into soothing ambient soundscapes, rewire your brain for gorgeous electronic experimentation and let surprising collaborations transport you into as yet undiscovered sound worlds. We're hoping to get completely lost. This is music by composers who are rewriting the rules and changing the way we think about contemporary and traditional forms of music.

Elizabeth Alker takes listeners on a sonic exploration into unchartered musical territory, delving further into an emerging scene of composers and performers who feel at home in both a traditional concert hall and a grimy basement venue.

Elizabeth Alker introduces music by an exciting new generation of classically trained composers and performers who are breaking free of the constraints of practice rooms and concert halls and finding new international audiences for their brand of seriously engaging music. They are part of an innovative, emergent scene which defies categorisation.

Over the last decade new tech has empowered these artists and their fledgling record labels, driven by the confident demands of internet savvy audiences, to independently create and distribute this music.

Some of the artists covered include Nils Frahm, OLAFUR ARNALDS, Oliver Coates and Valgeir Sigurosson each developing armies of listeners hungry for new sounds. These artists, with their classical backgrounds, glide with ease from being, say, a soloist with the BBC Philharmonic to improvising in a club with an electronic DJ, or writing soundtracks for film and theatre.

Elizabeth traces the composers' artistic journeys, and looks at the labels, promoters, characters and venues they connect with. She looks at how this new contemporary music scene has taken shape and puts the spotlight on brand new artists, introducing Radio 3 listeners to an eclectic mix of exciting new music.

In part two of Unclassified, Elizabeth Alker looks back at some of the highlights of this year's Piano Day.

Piano Day was started in 2015 by Nils Frahm but it has since taken on a life of its own, becoming an international phenomenon with special one-off events and recordings happening all over the world. Since there are 88 keys on a piano, Piano Day is always celebrated on the 88th day of the year, and from Leeds to Lisbon, Shanghai to Shropshire and St Petersburg to Seoul, musicians and composers of all different disciplines came together this year on March 29th.

Elizabeth will celebrate and explore the possibilities of the piano, whether that's covering strings inside the piano with paper, hitting them with a £1 Ikea toilet brush or arranging new music for as many as eight pianos and tape loop. Expect the strange and the blissful, music that is freaky and gorgeous and definitely some sounds you've never heard before. There'll be brand new beautiful and experimental recordings from artists such as Nightports with Matthew Bourne, Poppy Ackroyd, Laurence Crane, Peter Broderick, Four Tet and Simeon Walker.

Elizabeth Alker looks back at some of the highlights of the 2018 Piano Day.

Piano Day was started in 2015 by Nils Frahm but it has since taken on a life of its own, becoming an international phenomenon with special one-off events and recordings happening all over the world. To celebrate the 88 keys on a piano, Piano Day is always celebrated on the 88th day of the year, and from Leeds to Lisbon, Shanghai to Shropshire and St Petersburg to Seoul, musicians and composers of all different disciplines came together last year on March 29th.

This is a repeat of a programme first broadcast last year.

If girls really do rule the world then they especially rule the quiet, contemplative, strange and beautiful corners of it. Elizabeth introduces Unclassified music by an all female line-up of composers daring to plough their own unique furrow. Hear Hannah Peel's journey to space transformed into a slow dance by Hinako Omori, experience the weather-beaten west coast of Scotland through the organ music of Claire M Singer; Lara Sarkissian gives ideas of memory and recognition a different beat and the sound worlds of Bruckner and Bjork collide in the music of Lucy Claire. All that plus an exclusive sneak preview of Julia Kent's forthcoming album and brand new music from Sophia Jani and Anna Meredith.

These artists are unburdened by tradition and genre. They are meeting the demands of a growing international audience with eclectic tastes and open minds by taking a fresh approach. Elizabeth will glide seamlessly with them between the sounds of electronic dance music clubs, art house films, grimy basement venues and classical concert halls. Expect ambient soundscapes, electronic experimentation, surprising collaborations and brand new sound worlds to get completely lost in. Discover composers who are rewriting the rules and changing the way we think about contemporary and traditional forms of music.

Following the great success of the first series of her late-night show ?Unclassified??, Elizabeth Alker returns with another run of six programmes trawling the underground world of genre-defying composers with roots in both pop and classical music. Unclassified is about music being made right now and will feature exclusive first plays from artists including Bryce Dessner, Richard Reed Parry and Edmund Finnis. Elizabeth will bring the latest news and brand new recordings from live events such as the recent PEOPLE festival at the Funkhaus in Berlin, the Erased Tapes Neon Workshops showcase and the Hexagonal Experiment at the Great Exhibition of The North. ?Unclassified?? will also feature a special celebration of a pioneer of this music Johann Johannsson, featuring music made by a new generation of artists he inspired and there'll be the chance to hear all the latest releases from the likes of Aphex Twin, Anna Meredith, Olafur Arnalds, Four Tet, Daniel Avery and many more.

Settling back into this magical last hour, the last one of of the weekend, Elizabeth will usher listeners past midnight with more blissful, brand new and unconventional music.

The first ever radio play of a brand new work for solo violin by Edmund Finnis, performed by Daniel Pioro brings shimmering, cyclical patterns of sound moving in and out of focus, James McVinnie creates a musical trick with a 17th Century organ, Anna Meredith's response to Vivaldi's The Seasons results in a sublime call and response through the centuries and new work from Aphex Twin whets the appetite for a rare performance in Bilbao.

~Unclassified' is a home for composers who are exploring new musical terrain and bringing back all kinds of shimmery, glitchy, expansive and joyful sounds from their sonic travels. Musicians who might have formal classical training or who are inspired by traditional classical music but who are blurring the lines between what is classical music and what is pop, rock or new experimental music.

Elizabeth also brings you an exclusive first play of a new work by Manchester composer Joe Duddell. There'll be wintry cello music by Zoe Keating, experimental saxophone music by Daniel Thorne, sounds that ripple and sparkle by the electro-jazz supergroup Szun Waves and the spirit of Daphne Oram channelled through composer, academic and instrument creator Tom Richards.

Group Listening perform a creation by Euros Childs, we look ahead to the excellent Organ Reframed festival at Union Chapel Islington with music by electronic duo Darkstar and Irish and Nordic cultural traditions collide in the work of Slow Moving Clouds

The kaleidoscopic piano playing of Anne Lovett collides with soaring cello from Oliver Coates, Phil Selway from Radiohead writes emotionally stirring music to soundtrack the film Let Me Go, Dada Meets Disco on the brand new album from Sone Institute, the shape and flow of Bach's cello suites are infused with new energy thanks to cellist Peter Gregson and Four Tet remixes Daniel Avery.

~Unclassified is for curious ears and composers who want to nudge their audience into strange and serene new sound worlds.

This edition features an exclusive first play of music from the forthcoming album 'Orange' by Pullitzer Prize winning composer Caroline Shaw. Orange is a collaboration with the Attacca Quartet which Shaw describes as having colours that are 'vivid and familiar' and the shapes which 'follow a pattern that you seem to know until you don't'. It comes out April 19th.

American composer and guitarist Sarah Louise takes us to the hills of North Carolina with her contemporary take on the American primitive guitar style, which sounds both rootsy and otherworldly. Caroline Eyck marries the bonkers sound of the theremin with the brilliant strings of the American Contemporary Music Ensemble and the British producer Raven works with the limitations of analogue technology to create a sound for the dance floors of now.

Also, an unlikely but joyful collaboration from one of the biggest names in UK Techno, Joy Orbison, with composer, improvisor and saxophonist Ben Vince sounds perfect alongside new music from Nils Frahm.

~Unclassified runs for six weeks and then returns later in 2019 in a new, regular slot on Thursday evenings.

Elizabeth Alker is back with genre-exploding new music for curious ears, hearts and minds.

Tonight's episode features the first ever play of music from Daniel Elms's forthcoming album Islandia, inspired by The North Sea, the post-industrial landscapes of the North of England, the people the ocean brings us and the places it takes us.

We celebrate the work of Adrian Henri with Thurston Moore and the Whitechapel Gallery, Rafiq Bhatia blends avant-garde jazz and electronic composition and we chase the drone from New York to Manchester with William Basinski.

Also in this episode, Erland Cooper transports us to the beautiful and bleak Orkneys and on a musical journey around it's sheltered bays and coves which look out over deadly sea mists. And we look forwards to a tour by American composer and multi-instrumentalist Julia Holter and back to a very special live performance of new music by Bryce Dessner.

Alongside this piece we'll also hear (for the first time on the radio) Thom's live premiere of his brand new solo track Gawpers, and a performance by him of the song Suspirium, taken from his recent soundtrack for the film Suspiria.

All these recordings were made during a live show at the Philharmonie de Paris, which was part of a concert called Minimalist Dream House, devised by sisters Katia and Marielle Labeque. As well as Thom's piece, the new classical work, Haven, by The National's Bryce Dessner plus new pieces by French composer and producer David Chalmin were performed. We'll also get to hear those in this episode.

Special thanks to the Philharmonie de Paris.

Programme

David Chalmin: Particule no 5 - Particule no 6 - (feat Thom Yorke vocals)

Bryce Dessner: Haven

Thom Yorke: Don't Fear the Light

Thom Yorke: Gawpers

Thom Yorke: Suspirium

David Chalmin: Distant Places

Thom Yorke (vocals, electronics and modular synthesiser)

Katia & Marielle Labeque (piano)

Bryce Dessner (guitar)

David Chalmin (guitar)

Exclusive first play of Radiohead frontman's classical composition - Don't Fear The Light.

Also in this programme, a Norfolk folk song as you've never heard it before in an interpretation for double bass, brand new music by Plaid, violinist Galya Bisengalieva reaches for her roots and turns her violin into a winged horse of Kazakh mythology, and we find out what happens when an accordion, a celtic harp, marimba, vibraphone and musical saw walk into a village chapel. Elizabeth Alker presents.

Stephen O'Malley: Sometimes

Adrian lan: As Sand With Salt

Hania Rani: Esja

James Joys: A Constellation Of Bargained Parts

Koreless: 4d

Elizabeth Alker scours chalk heaths for strange new sounds with Hannah Peel and Will Burns

Bjork collaborator Manu Delago takes 7 musicians on a hike in the Alps to capture everything that is breathtakingly beautiful and unforgiving about that landscape, Alex Mills adds reverb and processing to Liam Byrne's Viola da Gamba and Tim Hecker sculpts new sounds out of wood, wind, strings and mist.

We also look back to a blissful and immersive live show from Rakhi Singh and Vessel and find out what happens when Andre de Ridder's Stargaze ensemble teams up with Minneapolis synth pop band Polica.

As the weekend fades to a whisper, Elizabeth Alker has more soothing sounds to see it out.

And away from the festival, we have the exclusive first play of music by Thomas Farnon, a gem from the collaboration between Neil Cowley and Ben Lukas Boysen, brand new Four Tet and a look ahead to a show from the Scottish Ensemble with music by Anna Meredith.

This is the last in the current series of Unclassified although next weekend will feature the repeat of an episode from a previous series.

~Unclassified will be back in a new regular, weekly Thursday night slot in the autumn.

Elizabeth Alker winds down the weekend with music from Iceland's Dark Days Music Festival.

Tonight's programme features an exclusive first play of music from the forthcoming album by Mercury Prize-nominated Portico Quartet called 'Memory Streams'; the first chance to hear an alternative version of the Shards track, Unrest, featuring Son Lux drummer, Ian Chang; plus, a new recording of music by Sufjan Stevens which he wrote for a recent ballet called The Decalogue by choreographer Justin Peck.

~Unclassified is broadcast every Thursday at 11:30pm on BBC Radio 3.

Elizabeth Alker is back with genre-exploding new music for curious ears, hearts and minds.

Tonight's programme features an exclusive first play of music from the forthcoming album by Mercury Prize-nominated Portico Quartet called 'Memory Streams', plus, the first chance to hear an alternative version of the Shards track, Unrest, featuring Son Lux drummer, Ian Chang.

Elizabeth Alker is joined by Floating Points.

Elizabeth Alker with Floating Points.

Highlights from Unclassified Live, with music by Anna Meredith, Darkstar and Daniel Avery

Highlights from Unclassified Live, with music by Anna Meredith, Darkstar and Nicole Lizee.

Elizabeth Alker with premieres of new tracks from Anna Meredith and Keaton Henson.

Between all the toffee apple induced sugar highs and frightful Halloween dressing up, in this episode, Elizabeth Alker has no tricks and all treats; new soundtrack music by P J Harvey, Canadian electronic producer LNS's remix of field recordings of an ancient Italian dance ritual and freeform ambient experimentation from Burial. She'll also shine the spotlight on new composer Ell Kendall, look back to the Southbank's Deep Minimalism festival with Oliver Coates and head into the woods with viola player and composer Alison Cotton.

This episode explores Berlin's contemporary and experimental music scene and some of the many incredible venues, labels and artists in the city. Berlin is famous for its electronic music but that world has influenced and reached out to other areas of music-making in the city and meanwhile, collaboration within and beyond the contemporary music scene is producing some fascinating results. Sebastian Plano, who moved to Berlin from Argentina, tells Elizabeth about his creative life and community in Berlin, we head to the famous brutalist Funkhaus with music by one of its resident artists Nils Frahm and we'll hear the skittishly wayward and wonderful music of Holly Herndon. Also in this episode, the acoustics of Lichte Studios are felt in the ambient guitar of Martyn Heyne and we pay tribute to Berlin's superclub dance floors with Pantha Du Prince.

Elizabeth Alker explores Berlin's music scene.

Tonight, it's all about Berlin. As Radio 3 marks the Centenary of the Weimar Republic and the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Elizabeth Alker focusses on the city's cultural life in 2019. Like lots of cities that experience an extraordinary and significant amount of political, social and industrial change, artists move into the broken and abandoned spaces and tell the colourful and bleak, troubling and triumphant stories in their work.

This episode explores Berlin's contemporary and experimental music scene and some of the many incredible venues, labels and artists in the city. Berlin is famous for its electronic music but that world has influenced and reached out to other areas of music-making in the city and meanwhile, collaboration within and beyond the contemporary music scene is producing some fascinating results. We head to the famous brutalist Funkhaus with music by one of its resident artists Nils Frahm and we'll hear the skittishly wayward and wonderful music of Holly Herndon. Also in this episode, the acoustics of Lichte Studios are felt in the ambient guitar of Martyn Heyne and we pay tribute to Berlin's superclub dance floors with Pantha Du Prince.

Tonight Elizabeth has ambient Americana from J.R. Bohannon, sublime soundtrack music by Ben Frost and Jean-Michel Blais and the exclusive first play of brand new work by David Holmes. We'll also hear Floating Points' lush Requiem for CS70 and Strings, Robin Richards from the band Dutch Uncles with music inspired by a visit to a Welsh blacksmiths' forge, and the electroacoustic experimentation of Francois Bonnet meets the powerful drone of Stephen O'Malley.

Elizabeth also has the radio premiere of brand new music by Grammy award winning guitarist with American band The National and classically trained composer and arranger, Bryce Dessner, plus she'll be looking ahead to Daniel Avery's next live dates and she has an exclusive instrumental cut from a new folk opera by Rachel Grimes. We'll also hear Galya Bisengalieva and Rob Ames in a new recording of music by Ed Finnis.

Elizabeth Alker speaks to founder member of Can, Irmin Schmidt, in Huddersfield.

Elizabeth also speaks to New York Times music writer Giovanni Russonello who gives her some top tips of new acts to see and venues to visit in New York. And this episode has an exclusive first play of new music by Julianna Barwick which is inspired by the sky above Manhattan.

We also hear experimental saxophone music by Lea Bertucci, created using resonances in the Marine A Grain Elevator at Silo City in Buffalo. Daniel Wohl and Caroline Shaw represent New Amsterdam Records and Christopher Tignor takes inspiration from La Monte Young.

Elizabeth Alker presents a New York special plus an interview with Radiohead's Thom Yorke.

The eternal winter on the moon features in the music of Anna Meredith and Belle Chen and we'll sail round the Greenwich Peninsular, feeling nostalgic for the Millennium Dome, with new compositions by Lung Dart.

Elizabeth Alker with music from Anna Meredith, Belle Chen and Jonas Bonnetta.

Elizabeth also has music from a brand new soundtrack by one of the giants of the Icelandic music scene, Valgeir Sigur

Elizabeth Alker with an exclusive from Rival Consoles and the latest release from Darkstar

Elizabeth Alker with music by Aisha Devi, Hinako Omori, Holly Herndon and Daisy Moon.

Elizabeth Alker with tracks from Ben Lukas Boysen, Julia Kent, Four Tet and Christine Ott.

Elizabeth Alker with new music by Marisa Anderson, MJ Cole, Nightports and Nils Frahm.

Featuring music from Radiohead's Ed O'Brien and a bedtime story from Jarvis Cocker.

This week Elizabeth Alker plays an eclectic mix of beautiful music for these times. We hear new music from Darkstar, Hania Rani and Agnes Obel. Brothers Nick and Jordan Smart take us to the Indian Ocean with their new project Sunda Arc, IyatraQuartet combine Indian Raga with Cuban and Brazilian rhythm and western classical styles, and there's a collaboration with composer Luke Howard and vocal group Shards. Plus we have another bedtime story from Jarvis Cocker, and spacious, cosmic music from Childish Gambino's new album.

Also listed as Escape Isolation

AKA Escape Isolation

Elizabeth Alker with music that defies classification including Mogwai and Olafur Arnalds, plus an exclusive preview of Dan Michaelson's forthcoming album Colourfield. Also, brand-new tracks from Sandrayati Fay, Aisha Orazbayeva and Ian Chang, and music created in quarantine by Max De Lucia's Lockdown Experiment project - featuring the all-star line-up of Manu Delago, Ayanna Witter-Johnson, Guy Sigsworth, Alex Baranowski and Carlos Nino - and by Ross Downes in collaboration with Keeley Forsyth and James Johnston.

Elizabeth Alker with music that defies classification, including an exclusive preview of the forthcoming album by composer and Dawn of Midi drummer Qasim Naqvi. Brand-new releases from Icelandic pianist Gabriel Olaf, Revolutionary Army for the Infant Jesus, Gogo Penguin and Mark Waldron-Hyden, plus a track by Russian singer and musician Galina Ozeran AKA Chikiss, exploring the more muted and shadowy side of electronic music.

~Unclassified is a late night listening party, a place for curious ears to congregate, disconnect from all other devices and get lost in some soothing, serene and strange new sounds. It's a home for composers whose work cannot easily be categorised, artists who are as comfortable in a grimy basement venue as they are in a prestigious concert hall.

~Unclassified is a late night listening party, a place for curious ears to congregate, disconnect from all other devices and get lost in some soothing, serene and strange new sounds. It's a home for composers whose work cannot easily be categorised, artists who are as comfortable in a grimy basement venue as they are in a prestigious concert hall.

Elizabeth Alker with music that defies classification. This week there's brand new music from Julianna Barwick, Owen Pallett and James Blake. We also have an exclusive composition from Belle Chen written in quarantine, and there's updates on exciting musical initiatives taking place during these unusual times including a remix project from Grimes, and an opportunity for artists and composers from the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.

~Unclassified is a late night listening party, a place for curious ears to congregate, disconnect from all other devices and get lost in some soothing, serene and strange new sounds. It's a home for composers whose work cannot easily be categorised, artists who are as comfortable in a grimy basement venue as they are in a prestigious concert hall.

Elizabeth Alker celebrates black artists and composers whose music cannot easily be categorised, including tracks by Childish Gambino AKA Donald Glover, Afrodeutsche, Dean Blunt, Lady Vendredi, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe and sound artist and DJ Ain Bailey.

~Unclassified is a late-night listening party, a place for curious ears to congregate, disconnect from all other devices and get lost in some soothing, serene and strange new sounds. It's a home for composers whose work cannot easily be categorised, artists who are as comfortable in a grimy basement venue as they are in a prestigious concert hall.

In this episode, Elizabeth talks to genre-hopping sonic explorers and creators of electronic Northern Noir, Darkstar. The band introduce the radio premieres of brand new tracks from their fourth album 'Civic Jams' and discuss the themes and sounds on the record.

Darkstar are Aiden Walley and James Young. Their first album 'North' came out in 2010 and their unique brand of electronica has since seen them build a loyal and dedicated fan base, inspire a younger generation of electronic musicians and become increasingly popular amongst other experimental and trailblazing artists. Darkstar performed with the BBC Concert Orchestra at the Southbank for Radio 3's Unclassified Live in September 2019, they have worked on live dance performances with choreographer Holly Blakey and scored the Palme d'Or nominated short film ?Dreamlands'. They have also worked with organist James McVinnie and the London Contemporary Orchestra for performances at the Organ Reframed festival and the PRS New Music Biennial.

~Unclassified is a late-night listening party, a place for curious ears to congregate, disconnect from all other devices and get lost in some soothing, serene and strange new sounds. It's a home for composers whose work cannot easily be categorised, artists who are as comfortable in a grimy basement venue as they are in a prestigious concert hall.

Tonight Unclassified teams up with BBC Music Introducing for an hour of music by brand new, emerging artists who are making work that is genre defying, experimental and exploring new sonic realms. The BBC Introducing network aims to provide a platform for and promote new music through national and local radio, festivals and special live events. Radio 3's Unclassified programme is also committed to supporting new talent in the worlds of ambient, neoclassical, contemporary and experimental electronica. So this programme brings you the best of our findings with tracks from the likes of Lincolnshire-based minimal composer and great nephew of Sibelius Peter Conner with Gypsy Jazz enthusiast Andy Aitchison, Hebden Bridge studio explorer and experimenter Sullivan Johns, Falmouth alternative piano player Mac Dunlop and Norwich modernist Bill Vine. We also highlight artists supported previously by BBC Introducing and Unclassified who now have international careers such as Simeon Walker.

~Unclassified is a late-night listening party, a place for curious ears to congregate, disconnect from all other devices and get lost in some soothing, serene and strange new sounds. It's a home for composers whose work cannot easily be categorised, artists who are as comfortable in a grimy basement venue as they are in a prestigious concert hall.

~Unclassified is a late night listening party, a place for curious ears to congregate, disconnect from all other devices and get lost in some soothing, serene and strange new sounds. It's a home for composers whose work cannot easily be categorised, artists who are as comfortable in a grimy basement venue as they are in a prestigious concert hall.

Elizabeth Alker with an exclusive preview of tracks from Max Richter's new album Voices.

Elizabeth Alker with music that defies classification, including the latest releases and exclusive previews. Tonight, the first broadcast of brand new music by Rochdale electronic music duo, Autechre and more new releases from Max Cooper, Observation Point and Hinako Omori remixing Jim Wallis. Plus tracks by Manchester based sound artist Hayley Suviste, broadside ballad singer Jennifer Reid and Canadian composer and pianist Joseph Shabason's take on music by Eric Satie.

Elizabeth Alker with music that defies classification, featuring Hinako Omori and Autechre

~Unclassified is a late-night listening party, a place for curious ears to congregate, disconnect from all other devices and get lost in some soothing, serene and strange new sounds. It's a home for composers whose work cannot easily be categorised, artists who are as comfortable in a grimy basement venue as they are in a prestigious concert hall.

Elizabeth Alker with frost-tinged and chestnut-coloured sounds.

Elizabeth Alker with music that defies classification, including the latest releases and exclusive previews. This week, brand new music from Polish pianist and composer Hania Rani reworking a jazz-tinged electronica track, Mogwai with the first release from their forthcoming album, and New York based cellist and composer Mariel Roberts with her debut album as a solo artist. Plus, an exclusive preview of a new work by Ang?le David-Guillou, written for saxophones and strings.

~Unclassified is a late-night listening party, a place for curious ears to congregate, disconnect from all other devices and get lost in some soothing, serene and strange new sounds. It's a home for composers whose work cannot easily be categorised, artists who are as comfortable in a grimy basement venue as they are in a prestigious concert hall.

Elizabeth Alker with a specially recorded studio session from Hayden Thorpe.

Elizabeth Alker with a specially recorded studio session from former Wild Beasts singer Hayden Thorpe at the piano, performing music inspired by the Lake District from his new EP Aerial Songs. We celebrate emerging artists in the fields of sound and music with news of this year's Oram Award winners, plus, brand new tracks from composer Donna McKevitt, The Hamrahlid Choir and Olafur Arnalds.

~Unclassified is a late night listening party, a place for curious ears to congregate, disconnect from all other devices and get lost in some soothing, serene and strange new sounds. It's a home for composers whose work cannot easily be categorised, artists who are as comfortable in a grimy basement venue as they are in a prestigious concert hall.

Elizabeth Alker with music that defies classification, including the latest releases and exclusive previews. This week, Elizabeth talks to American ambient composer William Basinski about his new album 'Lamentations', which draws on the archive of tape loops he's been collecting since 1979. There's also new music from Moscow-based musician Maria Teriaeva and a collaboration between the band Loma and BRIAN ENO. Plus, a track from one of this year's Oram Awards winners, Una Lee.

Elizabeth Alker with music that defies classification, including the latest releases and exclusive previews. This week Elizabeth explores strange night-time lights and colours in brand new music by Carly Paradis, Gazelle Twin, Max Cooper and Son Lux. Gasp at Fireworks From The Tower through the saxophone of Samuel Sharp, sigh and cry with Four Tet, Joy Orbison and Scratcha DVA. Plus music by 2020 Oram Award winner Poulomi Desai.

Elizabeth Alker with music that defies classification, including an exclusive first play of new music by American composer Caroline Shaw. There are also brand new tracks from Poppy Ackroyd featuring Hang player Manu Delango, Nightports inspired by a 14th century temple, water-themed music from Sophie Hutchings, and Kenyan artist Joseph Kamaru aka KMRU. Plus music from one of this year's Oram Awards winners, Vicky Clarke.

Elizabeth Alker with music that defies classification, including Caroline Shaw and KMRU.

~Unclassified is a late-night listening party, a place for curious ears to congregate, disconnect from all other devices and get lost in some new sounds. It's a home for composers whose work cannot easily be categorised, artists who are as comfortable in a grimy basement venue as they are in a prestigious concert hall.

Elizabeth Alker with serene, soothing and strange sounds for the night before Christmas.

~Unclassified is a late-night listening party, a place for curious ears to congregate, disconnect from all other devices and get lost in some soothing, serene and strange new sounds. It's a home for composers whose work cannot easily be categorised, artists who are as comfortable in a grimy basement venue as they are in a prestigious concert hall.

Elizabeth Alker with music that defies classification. Featuring Puce Mary and Alex Somers

~Unclassified is a late-night listening party, a place for curious ears to congregate, disconnect from all other devices and get lost in some soothing, serene and strange new sounds. It's a home for composers whose work cannot easily be categorised, artists who are as comfortable in a grimy basement venue as they are in a prestigious concert hall.

Elizabeth Alker with alternative Welsh music from Kelly Lee Owens, 9Bach and Cate le Bon.

Elizabeth Alker with music that defies classification, including brand new Floating Points

Also in the show, Elizabeth selects a track from Laurie Anderson's classic album Big Science which gets its first reissue in 30 years on red vinyl. The 1982 debut album produced the unlikely pop hit O Superman that launched Anderson into the public eye. Plus, the first radio play of a remix of GoGo Penguin's track Totem by the British electronic artist James Holden.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Bringing us to a state of deep listening, Julia Holter shares the music that moves her.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Music intended to focus your attention and a special demo from Owen Pallett.

Elsewhere, things get peculiar with new music from Osaka's Kentaro Hayashi, who channels the forgotten dancefloors of the UK bass scene on his latest album, and the ambient, psychedelic jazz of Budapest's Laurine Frost.

Produced by Frank Palmer

Electronic artist Kele Okereke sinks into the Listening Chair with a transportive song.

Elizabeth invites electronic artist Kele Okereke to settle into the Listening Chair. His pick is a piece of transportive music that has accompanied him on many a long-haul flight during his tenure as Bloc Party frontman: Glenn Branca's Symphony No. 6 ? a whirlpool of drones and dread that holds its listener rapt. There's also music from Kele's new solo release, a collection of hypnagogic soundscapes assembled from looped guitars.

Elizabeth invites Kele Okereke to pick a transportative piece of music.

Ulrich Schauss's shimmering synthesiser finds a natural companion in Jonas Munk's soaring guitar, plus fragments of a pleasant bickering between Laura Cannell's overbowed violin and Kate Ellis's rumbling cello ? as we hear music from the latest instalment of their ambitious collaborative journal of the year 2021.

Produced by Frank Palmer

Musical meeting points and sonic conversations from a world poised to open.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Elizabeth jam-packs the show with the most flavoursome new music from the past month.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Elizabeth asks Jon Hopkins for a track that transports him far away.

Produced by Frank Palmer

Elizabeth traces the lines from African traditions to contemporary ambient music.

Produced by Frank Palmer

In a programme first broadcast in May this year, Elizabeth Alker journeys to the outer realms of ambient music and the spaces in between with hypnotising harp from Colleen's new album, Tunnels and Clearings. Elsewhere Elizabeth revisits The Caretaker's magnum opus, Everywhere at the End of Time ? a haunted house of half-remembered big band motifs, degraded and reassembled in one of the most striking ambient releases of the past decade.

Also in the show, Elizabeth shares an exclusive listen to the cinematic new album from Portico Quartet, a new release of readings by William S Burroughs and there's new music from the Danish drone group Vanessa Amara.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

A Reduced Listening production for Radio 3

Elizabeth Alker invites Laurie Anderson to share music that transports her.

Elizabeth Alker presents a cinematic mix of ambient music to lift your mood. Laurie Anderson takes a seat in the Unclassified Listening Chair to talk about a piece of music which transports her. A long-term resident of New York, Laurie selects a piece by a fellow prominent New Yorker, William Basinski and his Disintegration Loops. The Disintegration Loops began as a project to digitise the magnetic tape recordings Basinski had made in the 1980s, but once the tapes started running, he discovered they were deteriorating in real time as he was recording. The result was a moving reflection on slowly decaying beauty which gained extra poignancy as Basinski finished the project on the morning of September 11th, 2001. Laurie describes listening to this piece and where it takes her.

Also in the show, Elizabeth shares an exclusive listen to the cinematic new album from Portico Quartet and there?s new music from the Danish drone group Vanessa Amara.

Elizabeth Alker invites Laurie to share music which transports her.

Produced by Rebeccca Gaskell

Elizabeth Alker shares new music from Nine Inch Nails's Alessandro Cortini.

On Jim O?Rourke?s latest record, Too Compliment, his penchant for spiralling, immersive electronics is given free rein on a beguiling modular synthesiser, handcrafted for him by one of the remaining masters of the instrument. Elsewhere, Hania Rani?s mesmerising piano composition for theatre and film is given the retrospective treatment, and the Canadian producer Khotin offers up a weird and watery downtempo groove in the form of his new single, ?Mind Altar?.

Produced by Frank Palmer

Elizabeth Alker with songs to soothe, sink into, and lose yourself amidst.

After months of dance floors lying dormant, Elizabeth kicks off the Third Summer of Love, and hosts her very own rave, Unclassified style. Expect pieces from the likes of Bicep, Octo Octa and Actress, whose songs celebrate the transportive, mystical power of losing yourself in a field, a crowd, a sound-system.

Produced by Frank Palmer

Elizabeth Alker with music that dances at the intersection of electronic and ambient.

This week, she invites Jlin onto the show for a surprising and transportive exercise in deep listening. In her startling electronic compositions, the Indiana native builds twitching digital worlds, populated entirely by mangled samples of her own creation. But in her Listening Chair selection, Jlin luxuriates in the honeyed vocals of Sade and in the process unlocks new depths of meaning in a soulful pop classic.

Produced by Frank Palmer

A Reduced Listening Production for Radio 3

Elizabeth Alker explores the spaces in-between, with a guest selection from Jlin.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Music suited to open spaces and a track inspired by Japanese gardening

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Elizabeth presents laid-back warmth and cloud-like synths on a track by Hollie Kenniff

Elizabeth Alker presents eclectic ambient music by a new generation of composers. This week features laid-back warmth and cloud-like synths on a track by Hollie Kenniff which was inspired by a quote - ?I long for a kind of quiet where I can just drift and dream?? - from the director David Lynch. The artist known as Tiny Leaves expresses his gratitude for the natural world on a track with a delicate cinematic quality that brings about a quiet hope. Plus an exclusive first play from Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip on his new album, Silence.

This week, she invites Afrodeutsche to sit in the listening chair, select a track that transports her to another place and describe how it takes her there. A future-thinking composer, producer and DJ based in Manchester, Afrodeutsche's own music combines playful melodies and techno beats with a deep appreciation of film soundtracks.

Also in the show, Elizabeth features a new single from the Scottish post-rock band Mogwai and an expansive and meditative new piece by the singer-songwriter Peter Broderick.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Berlin producer Lotic plunges to disquieting depths on her new album, Water, of which Elizabeth has an exclusive preview. Elsewhere, Robin Richards creates a retrospective soundtrack for Chernobyl in the form of ?We Take the Vow', a haunting piano composition inspired by the nuclear city of Pripyat, and the ill-fated power station situated there. And there's something from Grouper ? a reclusive, influential artist whose mesmerising dream-pop finds new clarity on her latest album, Shade.

Produced by Frank Palmer

Elizabeth Alker with songs to soothe, sink into and lose yourself amidst.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

She invites Karl Hyde, one half of the seminal electronic duo Underworld, into the Listening Chair, for a transportive and surprising selection. Far from the ecstasy of late-night dance floors, Karl?s pick is a haunting piece of choral music made famous by 2001: A Space Odyssey. Elsewhere, Helado Negro?s new album is full of bright, jubilant pop songs that have been smudged around their edges, and the DJ known as Ross From Friends delivers a record of soaring and emotional house music.

Produced by Frank Palmer

Elizabeth Alker's invites Underworld's Karl Hyde to sit in the Listening Chair.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

In a repeat of a programme first broadcast in October, she invites Karl Hyde, one half of the seminal electronic duo Underworld, into the Listening Chair, for a transportive and surprising selection. Far from the ecstasy of late-night dance floors, Karl's pick is a haunting piece of choral music made famous by 2001: A Space Odyssey. Elsewhere, Helado Negro's new album is full of bright, jubilant pop songs that have been smudged around their edges, and the DJ known as Ross From Friends delivers a record of soaring and emotional house music.

Produced by Frank Palmer

Elizabeth Alker surveys the landscape of contemporary ambient recordings, with songs that soothe, spiral, and soar. In a repeat of a programme first broadcast in October, she invites Karl Hyde, one half of the seminal electronic duo Underworld, into the Listening Chair, for a transportive and surprising selection. Far from the ecstasy of late-night dance floors, Karl?s pick is a haunting piece of choral music made famous by 2001: A Space Odyssey. Elsewhere, Helado Negro?s new album is full of bright, jubilant pop songs that have been smudged around their edges, and the DJ known as Ross From Friends delivers a record of soaring and emotional house music. Produced by Frank Palmer

As the London Jazz Festival takes over corners of the capital once again, Elizabeth looks at the ongoing sonic conversation between improvised and ambient music ? the rich evidence of which can be found punctuating this year's line-up, with the harpist Alina Bzhezhinska channelling the spirit of Alice Coltrane, and Damon Albarn leading a joyous celebration of Tony Allen's groundbreaking drum work. Elsewhere, the American poet and musician Moor Mother creates vivid hypnagogic soundscapes, haunted by half-memories from her country's past, but radically anchored in this present moment.

Produced by Frank Palmer

Elizabeth Alker with music by a new generation of unclassifiable composers.

Elsewhere in the show, Elizabeth plays a track from Manchester greats The Durutti Column's album A Paean to Wilson, which gets a deluxe reissue on coloured vinyl. And there's new music from the Polish cellist Resina.

This episode was first broadcast last November.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Novelist and nature writer Melissa Harrison sits in the listening chair.

Elizabeth handpicks the best new ambient, electronic, and post-classical music and revels in the spaces between. This week she invites the novelist and nature writer Melissa Harrison to sit in Unclassified?s listening chair to describe a piece that transports her to another place. Melissa has been in and around dance music for the last 30 years, increasingly turning towards ambient soundworlds. Her writing - including the award-winning novel All Among the Barley - connects deeply to the English countryside, and her Nature Notebook column in The Times is an evocative diary of her encounters with the natural world. Her Listening Chair selection comes from Canadian artist Ian William Craig - known for using broken tapes in his compositions - and Melissa describes how the lack of control this brings has been an inspiration for her.

Elsewhere in the show, Elizabeth plays a track from Manchester greats the Durutti Column?s album A Paean to Wilson, which gets a deluxe reissue on coloured vinyl. And there's new music from Polish cellist Resina.

Curated by Elizabeth alongside conductor Andr? de Ridder, this event features the BBC Concert Orchestra lending its powerful sound to an eclectic range of pioneering artists. Vocalist and composer A?sha Devi?s new piece brings her dark atmospheric sound to the orchestra alongside her own haunting vocals. Afrodeutsche reflects on her reaction to the racist abuse of England?s black footballers, and the DJ and producer Daniel Avery has a medley of his absorbing electronic music arranged by the boundary pushing London-based artist Quinta.

Produced by Frank Palmer

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

This week, she invites BBC 6 Music presenter (and fellow advocate for unclassifiable music) Mary Anne Hobbs into the Listening Chair to pick one piece that moves her to another world. Her selection comes from the German pianist, Nils Frahm, whose spellbinding live performances and intimate, minimal compositions have captivated her from the very first moment she heard them.

Produced by Frank Palmer

Elizabeth Alker with music by a new generation of unclassifiable composers.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

A Reduced Listening Production for Radio 3

Elizabeth Alker with soothing and seasonal sonics from the realms of the unclassifiable.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Elizabeth Alker with ambient recordings to sink into and lose yourself amidst. This week, Space Afrika sit in our Listening Chair to share a piece of transportative music. Space Afrika are a duo from Manchester who use spoken word samples and ambient unrest to create a cosmic, downtempo mosaic of sound. Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

This programme was first broadcast in January 2022.

Produced by Katie Callin

Elizabeth Alker shares sounds inspired by shifting daylight and celestial ice.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

In a programme first broadcast in January, she invites Geologist from the long-running psychedelic group Animal Collective into the Listening Chair, where he selects a piece of music that transports him to another realm. We also hear a piece from Animal Collective's new album, Time Skiffs, with which the group once again smudge the lines between ambience and all-out bombast.

Produced by Frank Palmer

Animal Collective's Geologist picks a song that transports him to another place.

This week, she invites Geologist from the long-running psychedelic group Animal Collective into the Listening Chair, where he selects a piece of music that transports him to another realm. We also hear a piece from Animal Collective?s new album, Time Skiffs, with which the group once again smudge the lines between ambience and all-out bombast.

Elizabeth looks ahead to the next edition of Unclassified Live at the Southbank Centre's Queen Elizabeth Hall. She plays tracks by the artists appearing on stage with the BBC Concert Orchestra under Robert Ames: the influential electronic duo, Plaid, Rafiq Bhatia of the American experimental rock group, Son Lux, and British composer, Daniel Elms. Also in the programme, a new reissue of one of the pivotal albums of the neoclassical movement, Goldmund's ?Malady of Elegance'.

Produced by Frank Palmer

Elizabeth Alker previews the next edition of Unclassified Live.

The night sees three unclassifiable acts collaborate with the BBC Concert Orchestra under Robert Ames. The enormously influential duo, Plaid, will perform two new pieces that take their twitching electronic soundscapes into hitherto uncharted territory. Rafiq Bhatia, of the American art-pop group Son Lox, will see pieces from his solo record, Breaking English, given the full orchestral treatment. And one of the UK?s most exciting new composers, Daniel Elms, takes advantage of the concert to premiere a brand new piece.

Produced by Frank Palmer

Elizabeth Alker presents Unclassified Live, recorded at the Southbank Centre.

The night sees three unclassifiable acts collaborate with the BBC Concert Orchestra under Robert Ames. The enormously influential duo, Plaid, will perform two new pieces that take their twitching electronic soundscapes into hitherto uncharted territory. Rafiq Bhatia, of the American art-pop group Son Lux, will see pieces from his solo record, Breaking English, given the full orchestral treatment. And one of the UK's most exciting new composers, Daniel Elms, takes advantage of the concert to premiere a brand new piece.

This programme was first broadcast in February this year.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Produced by Phil Smith

Elizabeth Alker with earthly and transcendent sounds from the world of ambient music.

Produced by Phil Smith

Elizabeth Alker offers up a mix of ambient and experimental music to soothe and inspire, moving through the hypnotic universe of Oren Ambarchi?s Sagittarian Domain to bathe in the forest soundscapes dreamed up by Hinako Omori on her debut album. Also in the show, the chance to hear an exclusive track from Omori?s recent Late Junction collaboration with Alison Cotton, as well as new music from Ben Lukas Boysen.

Held over the weekend of the Spring Equinox the festival culminates in a ?dusk till dawn' all night event. It features the Scottish duo Kinbrae whose expansive soundscapes are created with a mixture of brass, synths, percussion and field recordings. Electronic duo Darkstar bring their melodic sensibilities and emotional punch to the concourse stage at Sage. And the German artist Christian L?ffler revisits 100-year-old material from the archives of his record label Deutsche Grammophon. Performing music from his Parallels album, L?ffler expands on the shellac recordings of Beethoven and Bach with electronics and string quartet, creating a unique spin on these classic works and continuing the lineage of German music.

For all related content, search ?After Dark Festival?? in BBC Sounds.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell and Tej Adeleye

Elizabeth presents live music highlights from Christian L\u00f6ffler, Darkstar and Kinbrae.

For all related festival content, search `After Dark Festival?? in BBC Sounds.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Elizabeth Alker presents more live music highlights from Radio 3's After Dark Festival.

Produced by Phil Smith

Elizabeth Alker with a mix of ambient and groove-based music to dream and move to.

Elizabeth Alker presents a mix of ambient and groove-based music to dream and move to. The range of timbres and registers available to the piano player are central to the experimental sound world of Tom Rogerson; Federico Albanese explores memory-like loops of musical material in his compositions; and Floating Points is on hand to deliver his customary blend of subtly crafted and dancefloor-ready house music.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell

Elizabeth Alker presents eclectic ambient music, plus Eve Adams is in the Listening Chair.

Produced by Phil Smith

Elizabeth Alker with a mix of ambient and experimental music that welcomes in the light

Plus glittering synths from American composer Holland Andrews, sublime drones from Paris-based guitarist Daou, and music inspired by the calls of curlews in Orkney courtesy of a new project by musician and nature enthusiast Merlyn Driver.

Produced by Katie Callin

Produced by Phil Smith

Elizabeth Alker presents a mix of experimental and ambient music.

Produced by Katie Callin

Elizabeth Alker serves up an hour of folk-inspired electronics and ambience.

Produced by Phil Smith

Produced by Phil Smith

Elizabeth Alker goes for a walk through ambient summer landscapes.

Summer is in its prime, days of endless sky and wild flower

Produced by Katie Callin

Elizabeth Alker shares selections from the corners of ambient and electronic music.

Produced by Phil Smith

Produced by Katie Callin

Elsewhere in the programme, Elizabeth Alker selects an eclectic range of new sounds from the worlds of experimental and ambient music, including a restless horn-led electronic chorale by Ralph Heidel, art-rock lamentation courtesy of The Smile, and Ola Szmidt's blissfully free-form vocals.

Produced by Phil Smith

Elizabeth Alker selects new ambient music, and Simon Armitage is in the Listening Chair.

Elsewhere in the programme, Elizabeth Alker selects an eclectic range of new sounds from the worlds of experimental and ambient music, including a restless horn-led electronic chorale by Ralph Heidel, bass-propelled lamentation courtesy of The Smile, and Cool Maritime's blissful approach to crafting sound.