Listen to This One: Rumble Strip

When NPR was founded in 1970, it was a much weirder place. In an All Things Considered piece from thirty-four years ago, producer Larry Massett listed his medical allergies, while a haunted-house organ creeps under him. “The dentist—a living nightmare,” he says in a menacing voice. What’s going on? Was this a Halloween special?

Stories like Massett’s “A Trip to the Dentist” don’t play on All Things Considered anymore. These days, the good-weird stories are lurking in the dark corners of the iTunes store; like foraging for rare mushrooms, you have to know where to look. I’m talking about stories that don’t sound like This American Life; that aren’t always plot-driven; that might leave you confused for a bit and then return to you. These stories are my favorite, and they’re usually made for little to no money, in a shed or an attic somewhere, for the love of the game. 

I don’t think a good term has emerged yet for this work. Is it fringe podcasting? Experimental narrative radio? For the purposes of this column, I’ll call them independently produced podcasts, because I’m mostly interested in radio stories made by a singular audio artist, outside of any money-making podcast network. 

In my opinion, independently produced podcasts are their own genre and art form. An incredible amount of time and craft goes into making them; one must be a talented interviewer, writer, and sound mixer to make a great radio story. But where to find these experimental radio stories? We’re in such an early moment in the podcasting medium, that no distribution outlet for fringe podcasting has reached the mainstream.

So, if you’re ready to branch out from the safety of your mainstream podcasts and try something different, I’m here to recommend my favorite indie radio stories on a monthly basis. I’ve been an independent producer in New York for the past seven years, and I bow down to independent radio artists. What they’re trying to do is not only artistically difficult; it’s psychologically and financially grueling. They rely more on their own instincts than any kind of storytelling formula, and they’re forced to work with very little editorial oversight.

The first featured podcast is called Rumble Strip. It’s made by Erica Heilman in East Calais, Vermont. The motto of her podcast is “conversations that take their time,” and she tends to catch her subjects in the midst of their everyday lives; she often interviews people while they’re driving around Vermont, and it’s common to hear insects buzzing in the background of her stories. At the beginning of each episode, Erica introduces her guest and then says “welcome.”...