A Loop Within A Loop

At 9:00am this morning Radiophrenia’s Mark Vernon gets stuck in a loop on the Glasgow Subway.

The Glasgow underground is a simple circular, concentric route travelling in both directions. The Inner Circle or the Outer Circle are the only choices – and if you plumped for the wrong one it takes only 24 minutes to do a complete circuit. Although at times incredibly noisy (you sometimes leave the train feeling mildly traumatised by the sound) the subway is undeniably one of Glasgow’s best-known and most familiar soundmarks.

A Loop Within a Loop re-imagines the sounds of the subway network in an exploration of circularity, repetition and looped systems. Featuring field recordings made on the underground and interviews with former train drivers, voices and sounds loop and repeat, come and go, ebb and flow – evoking the sensations of the subway – the rhythms, sounds and smells, the motion of the train, the grinding repetition experienced by the drivers, the impenetrable darkness and the light at the end of the tunnel.