Marco Raaphorst

“What I really feel uncomfortable about is the thing that people do – which I think is a way of excusing themselves from being creative – where they go: ‘You’re so creative!’, and in that they’re saying: ‘I’m just a guy with a humdrum job who never thinks of anything new.’ And I want to say: ‘Just fucking get up off your knees and be proud of... See more

The banter, then, is not really what defines the “Radiolab” experience: it’s the aggressively edited context in which it resides. People clearly interviewed separately seem to answer one another’s questions or speak in unison. Elements pop up that are sliced away in most radio productions, like interviewees spelling their names during a microphone... See more

The piece practically works as a radio play. You could listen to it again and again, now or a year from now. Actually, that’s the goal: Abumrad has often said that he edits with the fourth or fifth listen in mind.

I asked Abumrad what a traditional radio producer would make of his meticulously constructed bruup bruup fhewm fhewm . “They would say it’s insane,” he said. Early on, he had to deal with “radio people” who thought he was wasting time on “artsy-fartsy namby-pampy” technical distractions. “But do you want to know why ‘Radiolab’ has worked beyond... See more

I like the word composer. I feel like it also applies to making radio stories. When you’re making a story, you’re composing the relationship between ideas. And when you’re doing that with music you’re taking sounds, and you’re organizing them. That, to me, unfortunately has a black turtleneck, proper feeling. But actually, I think it’s a better... See more