Sparrow's Podcast Recommendations
I've recently fallen back into the horrible chasm of listening to podcasts. This is fine. The problem is that I often find tiny podcasts that no one has ever listened to, or fire podcasts with no fandom, and manage to somehow avoid almost every major podcast out there. So at some point someone's gotta put together a recommendations list. Here we are! Some of these are masterpieces through and through; others are a little more amateur, but still very worth a listen. Let's see what I've got...
Midnight Radio (10ep)
Drawing inspiration from 1950s radio serials, Midnight Radio follows two women through an unlikely correspondence about community, leaving your small hometown, our relationship to the past, what it means to be haunted, and what we leave behind when we die. Remember: all ghost stories are love stories.
My all time favourite podcast! I cannot recommend a podcast more highly than this one. It's got beautiful writing and an awesome premise. It altered my brain chemistry. Legend has it, if you're lucky, and you tune in to just the right station around midnight near Dawn Arbor, you can catch the Martlet Radio show, hosted by Sybil McIntyre, as she talks through the night to keep the town company. Genuinely, this is my favourite podcast in the world; the lines from this podcast are incredible. The theme music is fire, and even the fake ads in the middle are worth listening to. Sometimes, we make ghosts; and sometimes the ghosts make themselves.
Alice Isn't Dead (36ep)
A truck driver searches across America for the wife she had long assumed was dead. In the course of her search, she will encounter not-quite-human serial murderers, towns literally lost in time, and a conspiracy that goes way beyond one missing woman.
A podcast that's sort of like if Jonathan Sims (head archivist of the Magnus Institute, London) spent more time in America than that brief little trip. A woman begins to believe that maybe, just maybe, her wife isn't dead. And she's going to do everything in her power to find Alice. (While the story is complete, in looking it up for this post, apparently it seems like they're doing something more with it this coming April. Wonder what they have planned!) If you're looking for a story about a butch truck driver and the lifesaving power of yuri, look no further!
Blackwood (6ep)
Five years ago, Molly Weaver, Bryan Anderson, and Nathan Howell started a podcast focused on the local legend of a monster called the Blackwood Bugman. Quickly, the investigation grows out of their control, as they discover that, not only are the legends seemingly true, many people in Blackwood have turned up dead or disappeared without a trace. Worse, there may be a reason why no one has ever uncovered the truth before. Someone is watching them, willing to do whatever it takes to keep the secret. Their recordings have finally been released.
One of my top two podcasts of all time! Is it the best podcast you've ever heard? No. Is it fun? Absolutely. I relisten to it every fall with my friends. Not for the faint of heart when it comes to bugs, for obvious reasons. Just three kids spending their summer doing... literally anything that's not horribly boring, actually. And nothing goes wrong, nothing at all. But the question stands: Is the Blackwood Bugman real?
God of Obsidian (3ep)
God of Obsidian is a dark fairy tale about a gaslighting relationship, as one woman desperately seeks the story that will take her back across the narrow, dangerous bridge to freedom.
This is a dark, awful podcast that had me shouting at the main character for all three episodes. It's very well written, down to every last detail of the abusive relationship. Not for the faint of heart. It's short, not much of a commitment, but it lives in my mind forever. If you've ever wanted to know what an abusive relationship might look like, this is one that hits all sorts of red flags and then continues to add more red flags until he's just sort of one walking red flag. The first was maybe five minutes in or so? And the rest of it was me going 'ew ew ew ew ew girl get out of thereeeee' which is to say it was quite disturbing and highly entertaining. I do recommend listening with a friend with whom you can commentate because you will need to commentate on this one. And quite possibly for moral support. It's a rough one, but very very good.
Camp Here & There (57ep, ongoing)
Tune in to the loudspeakers of a small midwestern sleep-away camp plagued by supernatural terrors and natural disasters. Sydney Sargent, resident camp nurse, cheerfully reports on all the terror we must face with a big smile. Let's hope there's nothing weird about that!
Welcome to Night Vale meets summer camp. Contains horror, trans rep, and a theme song created by Will Wood. Also, I love Jedediah. A wonderful and broad cast of characters with all sorts of representation and a ton of fun details about this very strange summer camp. Mind the man in the pink elephant mask lurking in the forest...
(While I haven't yet listened to any of the second season, I can absolutely vouch for the first season and believe the second would be just as good!)
Olive Hill (7ep)
In 2001 two girls, on opposite sides of town, in the dead of night, stopped what they were doing and walked into the Daniel Boone National Forest. Now, a journalist who grew up with the girls is coming home to find out what happened that night in Olive Hill.
Let me tell you a ghost story. It begins with you, as you once were, and it ends with someone else behind your eyes. This is a short yet wonderful podcast that I can't stop relistening to. It's a good ole mystery, all right. What happened in those woods? Why did they wander off in the first place?
Lake Clarity (21ep)
Five teens head up to Camp Clarity to celebrate their last summer together, but little do they know they're about to stumble on dark secrets that surround the lake.
Lake Clarity is one of the first podcasts I remember listening to and sticking with me. It's a fun shitty horror podcast, what more do you want from me? While at the camp, they find evidence of disappearances and a conspiracy/coverup. For what? You'll have to find out!
The Black Tapes Podcast (30ep, incomplete)
The Black Tapes is a serialized docudrama about one journalist's search for truth, her enigmatic subject's mysterious past, and the literal and figurative ghosts that haunt them both.
Or, Alex Reagan looks into the truth of ghosts, demons, and hauntings. Are we imagining it all? Her search culminates in the discovery of a series of tapes belonging to paranormal expert (and skeptic) Dr. Richard Strand, who seems to have solved every paranormal instance ever shown to him... save one. This is a pseudo-documentary so detailed you can believe it's true. Also, Richard Strand is a bitch and I love him dearly.
TANIS (40ep)
Tanis is a serialized docudrama about a fascinating and surprising mystery: the myth of Tanis. Tanis is an exploration of the nature of truth, conspiracy, and information. Tanis is what happens when the lines of science and fiction start to blur.
Nic Silver examines the myth of a strange place in the Pacific Northwest, an ad that makes no sense, and how he seems to fit into the ancient mystery of Tanis. Sometimes a location takes on a life of its own and becomes something outside human understanding—something that changes everyone it touches. Another pseudo-documentary by the same team that made the Black Tapes podcast, the cast of this show is broad and the research is incredibly detailed. I could almost believe there really is someplace called Tanis, that there is a real Craigslist ad that was deleted that read "Seeking Tanis. Runner available." I could almost believe that, with enough searching, we, too, could find out what's really going on with Tanis and the people devoted to finding it.
Archive 81 (35ep)
Archive 81 is a fiction podcast about horror, cities, and the subconscious.
Understatement of the century! Here's a better summary from the wiki: "After Daniel Powell goes missing following employment by the Housing Historical Committee of New York State, his friend Mark Sollinger receives hundreds of hours of audio of his archiving there. The audio, released by Mark in the form of the podcast, documents Dan's listening to an extensive collection of cassette tapes, containing interviews from a high-rise apartment building in 1994." There's a character named Rat, a guy made of static, and more body modification than you can shake a stick at. Really, beware the body modification. It's sick, but not for everyone.
Daedalus Compound (6ep, abandoned)
Jesper Ikaros has found himself in a peculiar situation: he's trapped in a mazelike library with a book that contains his whole life story. Welcome to the Daedalus Compound. Where the past haunts you, the present hunts you, and the only way to escape is by getting to the center of the maze.
This podcast was tragically put on indefinite hiatus in early 2021, and I don't honestly expect it to ever be updated. But I just listened to it for the first time last week, and I need more. Jesper finds himself stuck in a maze filled with books; first, he finds a book containing his own story, writing itself as he reads. Then he finds other books, books about other people who have been trapped in other iterations of this place, the Daedalus Compound—the very people he's been researching. If you like object heads, or if you've ever wanted to fuck a radio, boy howdy have I got the podcast for you! (Okay I kind of lied, the object heads aren't actually canon, but I think they'd be sick designs for a couple redacted characters.)
SPINES (24ep)
One day, Wren wakes up covered in blood, suffering from memory loss, and surrounded by the remains of a mysterious cult ritual. SPINES is the story of her search for answers, and the dangerous, powerful people she meets along the way.
Obvious warning for cults in this podcast. It's been a while since I listened so I don't remember as much as I would like, but I remember being intrigued the whole way down. I liked the exploration of Wren's identity, especially since she begins the podcast with so little identity and has to uncover so much of herself. Grove. Mosaic. Trumpet. What if you woke up with three words, eight names, and an irresistable need to understand?
The Two Princes (21ep)
When Prince Rupert sets out to break the mysterious curse that's destroying his kingdom, he's ready to face whatever dastardly villain or vile monster stands in his way. What he isn't prepared for is the bewildering new emotions he feels when he meets the handsome Amir, a rival prince on a quest to save his own realm. Forced to team up, the two princes soon discover that the only thing more difficult than saving their kingdoms is following their hearts.
This one's my guilty pleasure of the podcasts on this list. It's a cute fantasy romance between Prince Rupert and Prince Amir. Also there's a dragon. I listened to this quite some time ago, before the third season was out, and haven't gotten around to the third season yet (oops). But it's quite fun with the classic fantasy setting! Not my usual cup of tea, but venturing outside my tastes rewarded me with this podcast.
