'Ghost Town' broadcast on Sat 20th June on BBC Radio 3's Between the Ears
Ghost Town
- an impressionistic documentary feature focussing on the phenomenon of the ghost town in the American West, in collaboration with Alan Hall, Falling Tree Productions (www.fallingtree.co.uk). Featuring current and former ghost town residents Katie Lee, Richard Isman and Norm Darnell, with music by Bill Frisell (album 'Ghost Town), Katie Lee and Bob Parker. Recorded on location at Fairbank, Terranate, Pearce, Fort Bowie and Jerome, Arizona.
Click to hear an excerpt...
"A walk down the main street of any of the hundreds of mining towns in the Southwest of America in the 1870s would have been accompanied by a vital soundtrack: horses' hooves, carriages, men tumbling out of bars, prostitutes hoping they'll fall in their direction, and the animated bustle of a thriving community going about its business. This superb aural portrait captures the traces of this long-ago-life in what is left behind: an eerie and melancholy soundtrack of America's ghost towns. Producers Alan Hall and Diane Hope have cut in unidentified voices from some of the few people who remain in these deserted streets. They tell stories of the jail where the heat was more punishing than the lack of freedom and of the woman who rode naked through town to make her point. It's a superbly crafted evocation of a way of life lost - but not entirely forgotten."
Jane Anderson, Radio Times
"Extraordinarily atmospheric radio; evoking the vanishing towns of the American South West with music, stories and just plain sound." Russell Davis, www.Speechification.com
Ghost Town was full of bare, spare sounds and charismatic eccentrics. "Rumour has it that I rode down through town naked on a horse like Lady Godiva," drawled Katie Lee, one resident of a ghost town in the American West. She didn't confirm or deny the rumour. In this evocative portrait of these crumbling communities, everything was eerie and haunting. Diane Hope's sound recordings caught a creaking sign blowing in the wind; the soft clip-clop of horses' hooves on sandy ground. These aural details formed an atmospheric backdrop to the tales of living where a town used to be.Lee, who describes herself as a "ghost town lady", recalled busier times in the mining town she still lives in. There were restaurants, bars, hotels, opium dens and "husbands' alley, where ladies were paid for their embraces." Lee's bathtub is an old opium barrel. "It fits me like a glove," she purred. She doesn't have much company, you sense, but she isn't alone. "Oh that's my favourite lizard," she cried, spotting one on the wall. We also heard from a caretaker of several ghost towns, who keeps things ticking over for tourists. His job, he explained with understatement, "gives me a lot of peace and quiet".
Elizabeth Mahoney, The Guardian, 22 June 2009
To find out more about Ghost Towns in Arizona visit: www.myspace.com/k101fnj
Elk Song - a soundscape recorded on location in Northern Arizona and available on Touch Radio, September 2008 edition (No. 34). Are these eerie calls the terrestrial equivalent of whale song? Listen at
Lonely Nights - BBC Radio 4, May 26th 2008
"Skiff is a mesmerising subject at the heart of sound-recordist Diane Hope's experimental feature. It's blend of night sounds - frogs, elks, coyotes, and the clunking of heavy telescopes - melts into ambient music to make a hypnotic, sensual tapestry."
The Guardian (London), Tues 27th May 2008
L
"A wonderful documentary" Dominic Arkwright, R4 Pick of the Week
This 30 min impressionistic documentary feature on the eerie nocturnal world of the professional astronomer and telescope operator was a collaboration with Alan Hall of Falling Tree Productions (http://www.fallingtree.co.uk/).. Research assistant and telescope operator Brian Skiff started his career at the Lowell Observatory in Northern Arizona over 30 years ago, using the 70 year old Pluto discovery telescope. This programme featured his work on the search for near Earth orbiting asteroids, as well as lifelong project to properly catalogue the positions of a million stars. Interviews are woven together with Arizona's night time wildlife, sounds from the telescope and the music of Julien Loureau, Radiohead, Jane Ira Bloom and Steve Roach.
EVERMORE! THE RAVENS OF NORTHERN ARIZONA
KNAU Arizona Public Radio, Broadcast in April 2007
.jpg)
Photo by Eyal Shochat http://picasaweb.google.com/eyal.shochat
WHEN THE WHISTLE BLOWS
BBC Radio 4, 15 minutes, broadcast on 13th April 2007 & 18th Dec 2006
.JPG)
A portrait of the iconic sound of the American freight train horn, recorded on location in Flagstaff, Arizona by Diane Hope and Matt Thompson (Loftus Productions (www.loftusproductions.co.uk/). The programme features interviews with the writer Jonathan Raban, the Smithsonian Institute's transportation curator, a Burlington-Northern-Santa-Fe Railroad train driver and musical excerpts by Freeman Stowers, Cream, James Carter, Steve Reich, Bob Dylan and Esquivel
Critical plaudits for 'When the Whistle Blows'in the UK press:
"Diane Hope and Matt Thompson capture the magic of the story, the musical influence of those long low notes" The Daily Telegraph
"..a rich endearing slice of atmosphere from Flagstaff, Arizona." The Guardian
".. a little gem of a programme.." The Times
ACROSS THE ANDES ON HORSEBACK; AN AUDIO DIARY - Resonance FM, June 2005
.JPG)
ROMANCING THE HORN - KNAU (Arizona Public Radio), Arizona Public Radio, 2004
Winner: Regional Edward R. Murrow Award for 'Best Use of Sound'
MODERN JAZZ FROM THE MESAS
- KUYI (Hopi Indian Community Radio) 30 x 2hrs, Ist Sunday of the month, 7 - 9 pm, from June 2003 to December 2005 
Logo designed by David Fathers: