Lost And Sound – Details, episodes & analysis

Just as everyone else is winding down for the seasonal break, Lost and Sound returns after my project sabbatical with one of UK club culture’s most vital voices: I. JORDAN.

We trace a line from Doncaster fairgrounds and bassline bus journeys to festival stages — and to the 2024 debut album I Am Jordan, which places community, class, and queer belonging at the centre of contemporary dance music.

It’s a fast-moving conversation about sound, craft, and care. We talk about why tempo is a feeling rather than a rule, how working at 132–136 BPM can sharpen intent, and what happens when a seven-minute club tool becomes a three-minute vocal track that completely shifts how your body responds.

We get into the granular details too: the feedback loop between club and studio, testing dubs on big systems, and the patient editing that turns a drop into a collective release on the dancefloor.

Class and culture cut through everything. We discuss reclaiming the much-maligned donk on Ninja Tune as a deliberate act — honouring northern working-class roots while shaping a scene that gives trans artists agency, visibility, and joy. We also talk about why some crowds are easier to guide than others, what truly separates underground from mainstream energy, and how health, sobriety, and touring habits are central to building a sustainable life in music.

I.JORDAN on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/i.jordan/?hl=en

I. JORDAN on Bandcamp:

https://i-jordan.bandcamp.com/

If you enjoy Lost and Sound and want to help keep it thriving, the best way to support is simple: subscribe, leave a rating, and write a quick review on your favourite podcast platform. It really helps others find the show. You can do that here on Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen.

Huge thanks to Audio-Technica – makers of beautifully engineered audio gear and sponsors of Lost and Sound. Check them out here: Audio-Technica

Big news time: If you’re wondering where LoI made a radio documentary with my partner Rosalie Delaney for BBC Radio 3. It’s called Wolf Biermann: The German Bob Bylan exiled by the GDR and it’s on the radio on December 28th at 19:15 UK time: 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002npsf

My book Coming To Berlin is a journey through the city’s creative underground, and is available via Velocity Press.

You can also follow me on Instagram at @paulhanford for behind-the-scenes bits, guest updates, and whatever else is bubbling up.

Gwenno definitely lives through her art. I sat down with the musician and producer to trace a decade-long arc from home-built studios to a Mercury-nominated breakthrough, and into Utopia—an album that weaves Welsh, Cornish, and English into vivid, human pop. The conversation opens with a simple idea that grows larger as we go: language changes what music can say. Welsh brings political sharpness; Cornish opens a deep, interior cave of comfort and myth; English, returned to with intent, becomes a map of places, people, and time. Along the way, we talk about recording at home with Rhys Edwards, the porous line between family and work, and why songs feel more vital as the world gets more digital.

I found it really refreshing how Gwenno doesn’t hold back when it comes to talking taste, technology, and the future of culture. She pushes back on AI’s promise not with fear but with a clearer definition of progress: if a tool only accelerates the past, it can’t point to new worlds. We unpack Adam Curtis, Mark Fisher, and the feeling of living in a loop, then rediscover hope by looking at how scenes are actually made—people in spaces, collaging references into something surprising. That’s where psychedelia lives for her: in the crack where a wildflower appears, in non-linear time, in the human mistake that turns into the moment you remember.

Follow Gwenno on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/gwennosaunders

Buy / Listen to Utopia on Bandcamp

https://gwenno.bandcamp.com/album/utopia

If you enjoy Lost and Sound and want to help keep it thriving, the best way to support is simple: subscribe, leave a rating, and write a quick review on your favourite podcast platform. It really helps others find the show. You can do that here on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen.

Huge thanks to Audio-Technica – makers of beautifully engineered audio gear and sponsors of Lost and Sound. Check them out here: Audio-Technica

Want to go deeper? Grab a copy of my book Coming To Berlin, a journey through the city’s creative underground, via Velocity Press.

And if you’re curious about Cold War-era subversion, check out my BBC documentary The Man Who Smuggled Punk Rock Across The Berlin Wall on the BBC World Service.

You can also follow me on Instagram at @paulhanford for behind-the-scenes bits, guest updates, and whatever else is bubbling up.

Emerald has built a name as a leading voice representing UK underground club culture, we spoke as she steps into a new chapter as label owner and producer. From growing up as "the laptop DJ" on the outskirts of London to becoming a champion of underground sounds on Rinse FM and beyond.

Standing six feet tall, mixed-race, and bisexual, she describes feeling like "a clumsy giraffe on roller skates" yet transforms this feeling of otherness into her greatest strength. The origins of her new label Precious Stones—named after herself and sisters Sapphire and Ruby—reflect both personal heritage and her vision for music that transcends conventional boundaries.

Throughout our conversation, Emerald dismantles industry myths with a refreshing and down to earth honesty. She questions the often contradictory definitions of "underground" culture, challenges networking norms that feel forced, and advocates for spaces where revolutionism and anti-establishmentarianism can flourish. 

Listen to Emerald’s music on Bandcamp

If you enjoy Lost and Sound and want to help keep it thriving, the best way to support is simple: subscribe, leave a rating, and write a quick review on your favourite podcast platform. It really helps others find the show. You can do that here on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen.

Huge thanks to Lost and Sound’s sponsor Audio-Technica – makers of beautifully engineered audio gear. Check them out here: Audio-Technica

Want to go deeper? Grab a copy of my book Coming To Berlin, a journey through the city’s creative underground, via Velocity Press.

And if you’re curious about Cold War-era subversion, check out my BBC documentary The Man Who Smuggled Punk Rock Across The Berlin Wall on the BBC World Service.

You can also follow me on Instagram at @paulhanford for behind-the-scenes bits, guest updates, and whatever else is bubbling up.

Baxter Dury - Musician, world class exponent of sprechtgasung, debonaire racontuer, immently an alternative English national treasure and a man whose travelled a long creative and life path since appearing on the cover of his Dad, Ian Dury’s New Boots And Panties album. 

“You’ve got to go through your owl turmoil to get somewhere, you can’t be lent turmoil,” he tells Paul at some point of a conversation on a Monday morning where Paul totally lost his questions, veered off from asking him about his new album and it’s distinctive balance of grit and swoon and instead just went with a flow that only a Monday morning could deliver - philosophical, profane and humble all at once. 

Baxter Dury’s new album, I Thought I Was Better Than You is out on June 2nd on Heavenly Recordings. Pre-order here. 

Lost and Sound is proudly sponsored by Audio-Technica

Paul’s debut book, Coming To Berlin: Global Journeys Into An Electronic Music And Club Culture Capital is out now on Velocity Press. Click here to find out more. 

Lost and Sound title music by E.S.O

Gina Birch is a true trailblazer. Co-founder of the all girl post punk band The Raincoats, the music herself and Ana de Silva headed up, which so often hit the soft spot between experimental, choaotic and melodic in the truest Velvets sense, paved the way for decades of music to come and did so much for female visibility in bands. Along the way, the group picked up fans like Kurt Cobain, who invited them on tour. Now, balancing a life of creativity between music, painting and film, Gina talks with Paul about her debut solo LP I Play My Bass Loud and reflects on everything from seeing The Slits to stilletoes to Zoom ettiquette to creativity.

Gina Birch’s album I Play My Bass Loud is out now on Third Man Records.

Lost and Sound is proudly sponsored by Audio-Technica

Paul’s debut book, Coming To Berlin: Global Journeys Into An Electronic Music And Club Culture Capital is out now on Velocity Press. Click here to find out more. 

Lost and Sound title music by E.S.O

When Daniel Miller and Gareth Jones make music together as Sunroof,  they sit either side of a table, adjusting the dials of modular synths and they look like two veteran chess players locked into a very long, perhaps even decades long game. Yet instead of being in competition, it’s like they raise each other’s vibration: one making a sound, the other responding. 

Both men have changed the way we hear electronic music in the last 40 years. Miller founded Mute Records initially to release his single Warm Leatherette. He met Gareth when they worked on Depeche Mode’s Berlin-connected ‘80s records. The Depeche Mode records we all like. Gareth has produced songs we’ve all danced to many times: Erasure, Wire, Grizzly Bear, Clinic, Interpol. For decades, they’ve been getting together and making these modular improvisations and have finally gotten round to releasing some of the stuff and it’s really good. 

Paul caught up with the pair to talk about how they work, how they met and what they think. 

Sunroof’s new album, Electronic Music Improvisations Volume 2 – out now on limited edition white vinyl and digitally, via the Parallel Series of Mute

Lost and Sound is proudly sponsored by Audio-Technica

Paul’s debut book, Coming To Berlin: Global Journeys Into An Electronic Music And Club Culture Capital is out now on Velocity Press. Click here to find out more. 

Lost and Sound title music by E.S.O

Andrew Fearn’s stripped down, austere electro-punk productions and Jason Williamson’s biting yet absurdly humourous lyrics and delivery have been exploring austerity-era Britain, culture, and working class life for over a decade. Collectively as Sleaford Mods, they’ve always done exactly their own thing in their own way but their last album Spare Ribs connected with a wider audience, maybe they’ve even become generational spokespeople in the process too. Add to this, the new album’s title, UK Grim, couldn’t be more apt. Jason and Andrew talk with Paul about their status as spokespeople, humour as a form of resilience, the debilitating effect of the tory government on people and the band's creative process.

UK Grim by Sleaford Mods is out now on Rough Trade.

Paul’s debut book, Coming To Berlin: Global Journeys Into An Electronic Music And Club Culture Capital is out now on Velocity Press. Click here to find out more. 

Lost and Sound title music by E.S.O

South London-based singer/songwriter, producer, and composer Lucinda Chua joins Paul for a conversation on the eve of the release of her debut long player, YIAN, on 4AD Records. In the past better known for her collaborations with artists such as FKA twigs and for her time in the post-rock duo Felix, her solo work mixes deep introspection with stunning atmosphere. Her NTS show is ace too. She chats with Paul about the scariness of putting yourself out there, authenticity and output and more. 

Lucinda Chua’s LP YIAN is available on 4AD Records from March 24th.

Paul’s debut book, Coming To Berlin: Global Journeys Into An Electronic Music And Club Culture Capital is out now on Velocity Press. Click here to find out more. 

Lost and Sound title music by E.S.O

Suzanne Ciani is a true pioneer. One of the world’s first synth heroes.  “The diva of the diode.”  Ciani began experimenting with electronic music in 1960s California, at a time when to do so wasn’t just about a new style of music, but about creating a whole new language: a new form of music with this new technology. Like Delia Derbyshire and Cosey Fanni Tutti and many other female pioneers, it’s taken time for the world to catch up and for Ciani to be recognised for quite how significant her cultural contribution runs across how we hear what we hear. 

Now in her mid seventies, she shows no signs of slowing down, she speaks with Paul about some of the key musical moments in her life: California of the 60s, New York of the 70s, the importance of putting emotion into music and her work in spatial sound. 

Suzanne Ciani is touring from march to September this year, check out her tourdates here

Paul’s debut book, Coming To Berlin: Global Journeys Into An Electronic Music And Club Culture Capital is out now on Velocity Press. Click here to find out more. 

Lost and Sound title music by E.S.O

This week, Paul meets New York-based, Korean-American musician Margaret Sohn aka Miss Grit. Their upcoming debut LP, Follow The Cyborg finds a personal connection between cyborg theory and her identity.  As a mixed-race, non-binary artist, Sohn has always rejected the limits of identity thrust upon them by the outside world, in favour of embracing a more fluid and complex understanding of the self. The conversation touches on Donna Haraway’s 1986 essay A Cyborg Manifesto, which uses the figure of the cyborg to urge an understanding beyond the limitations of traditional gender, feminism, and politics. Margaret and Paul talk about her work, which blends a sonic mixture of machine detail and human emotion, New York living and more. 

Miss Grit’s LP Follow The Cyborg is out Feb 24th on Mute

The single Lain (Phone Clone) is available now

This episode is sponsored by Audio-Technica

Paul’s debut book, Coming To Berlin: Global Journeys Into An Electronic Music And Club Culture Capital is out now on Velocity Press. Click here to find out more. 

Lost and Sound title music by E.S.O