Soundtracking a return to normality

DJ and TV presenter turns the mic on her famous guests

The world of radio has undergone a seismic revolution of late, with the pandemic seeing many perhaps underemployed broadcasters moving from the airwaves to Airpods. This also applies to Edith Bowman – except the Scottish DJ, temporarily at least, expanded her podcasting activities to incorporate a second series of shows.

A tie-in with sponsorBMW means that a dozen episodes of music discovery podcast BMW Play Next was added to the Bowman library, showcasing groundbreaking music from the next generation of talented artists as well as chatting with some more familiar names such as Skunk Anansie, Kae Tempest, and Giles Peterson.

However, it’s Soundtracking which is Bowman’s longer-term love – commencing in 2016, its 200+ episodes combine her interests in film and music, seeing the 47-year-old chat with an eclectic mix of guests ranging from Sir Michael Palin (above), to Mogwai, Warren Beatty to Quentin Tarantino (left), plus Peter Jackson and Biffy Clyro. Most recently there’s Dune director Denis Villeneuve, and Todd Haines, who made the recent Velvet Underground biopic.

All of which certainly kept Bowman busy. She calls work her “absolute saviour” during the pandemic: she presented the Baftas with Dermot O’ Leary earlier this year, and collaborated with All Points

East festival on their Play Next new music stage.

Music, of course, has always been a constant source of happinessfor Bowman – and an outlet for other emotions: “If I’m really angry or upset, you have the ability to use

musictovent,like therapy in a way.”

Just before the pandemic, she moved, along with husband (and Editors frontman) Tom Smith and their two sons, from London (“where everything is at the end of your fingertips”) to rural Gloucestershire(“where we have space to go where there’s no one else and get outside to exercise and just exhale”).

After the drought of live music through lockdown, she says

being in the midst of it again was emotional; whether that’s been watching a stripped back Lianne La Havas gig last summer, Laura Marling at the Proms or Celeste at the B aft as.

“I cried at all three of those performances,” Bowman admits. “That’s the power of music, a key sequence or a chord sequence or even a note can do something to you physically that’s uncontrollable.

“And getting those moments of being amongst like-minded souls, being among their energy – even just the smell of people, I’ve missed human contact! Being in a room with three or four people, or 10 or 15 people, I feed off that, I get energy from that– I take away things I can’t really describe from that.”

Soundtracking, and Play Next, can both be found on Apple Podcasts.