Turn a globe instead of scrolling a playlist

When no particular music comes to mind, a globe offers another starting point. Stop at a city and choose a radio station broadcasting from there. Radio Garden lets listeners explore internet radio through a globe-shaped map. Place comes before the station name, offering a different way to encounter sound from searching for a particular song.

Moniker and Studio Puckey developed the project together within an international radio-research initiative. Its original conception included live broadcasts, radio history, station jingles, and listener stories. Those early research features should not all be assumed to remain in today's service, but listening across borders continues to underpin it.

The map changes the question asked when choosing a station. Before entering an artist or genre, a listener can choose a location. A city name becomes the cue to begin. One can search across countries for familiar music or follow voices and atmosphere without understanding the words.

The signal is delivered over the internet, not by distant radio waves traveling directly to a phone's antenna. The globe is an interface for discovering stations rather than a scientific map of the sound's transmission route.

Access is not universal. Radio Garden's official notice describes continuing copyright-related restrictions on overseas stations for users in the United Kingdom. A station's stream availability and the listener's location can also affect playback. The aim of border-crossing listening exists alongside these service conditions.

The appeal is not only in finding a closer match for an established taste. It is also in choosing a place first and hearing what is being broadcast there now. A hand that might skip to the next song turns the globe a little instead. The next sound begins with a city name rather than a track title.