LOWLINES – a six-part sonic scrapbook, following one woman’s impulse to tune in to the pulse of place

LOWLINES is a 100% independent, 100% female production that follows food entrepreneur Petra Barran as she travels solo through the Americas, meeting people with profound connections to the places they’re from.

Lowlines was recorded and conceived of by novice presenter and producer Petra Barran, who was instrumental in bringing street food culture to London in the noughties and has earned a global reputation for urban placemaking. After she found herself feeling pranged out by the grind of the business hustle, she bought a recorder and set off without an itinerary to record a podcast with no script, no studio and no production team.

The resulting bank of tape was raw, real and revealing about what it means to connect to the ground beneath our feet. Upon returning to the UK she sought out an award-winning production duo to craft it into a layered and exciting audio experience that brings each place that she visits to life.

From Arizona to the Amazon rainforest, Petra meets remarkable people for whom place is everything, enriching her own understanding of identity and what it means to feel rooted. Packed with adventure, humour and self-discovery, this transportative, highly crafted podcast will appeal to fans of Scott Carrier’s Home of the Brave, Eleanor MacDowell’s Field Recordings, Krista Tippett’s On Being and Where Are You Going?

The series invites the audience to don their headphones and listen in on Petra’s intimate and enjoyable conversations with strangers and interactions with the landscape. Lowlines is scored by cellist Hanna Marshall who improvised to the edited tape. It is produced by award-winning audio producer/sound artist and founder of Social Broadcasts Lucia Scazzocchio. The executive producer is award-winning producer Lina Prestwood, founder of Scenery Studios and Lifestyle and Society Producer of the Year at the Audio Production Awards.