Melody Sumner Carnahan and Laetitia Sonami's "The Bench" (from Jan 1, 1995) is featured. This story takes place in a city square, depicting an episode in the lives of two street people, a man and a woman, as observed by a narrator who watches from her hotel balcony. Focusing in, the narrator begins to "hear" fragments from the minds of the lovers: The young man, once a classical pianist, now produces a hellish blues, which fuses with the courtyard's musique concrète, with shards of his narcissistic dreams, and with dehydrated strings of the older woman's distorted understanding. The narrator doesn't move to interfere, yet she is compelled by what she witnesses: Is the woman rescuing or destroying the man? Commissioned by New American Radio.

In its ten years as a weekly national series, 1987-1998, New American Radio (NAR) commissioned and distributed over 300 original works: conceptual new drama, associational documentary, language explorations, sonic meditations, environmental compositions, musical explorations and works that pioneer new dimensions in acoustic space. Wave Farm is thrilled to be partnering with New American Radio to ensure these works remain available to listeners today and into the future through this streaming online radio channel, a weekly radio show on Wave Farm's WGXC 90.7-FM, and an online archive at https://wavefarm.org/radio/nar/.

New American Radio was organized by Helen Thorington, Executive Producer and Regine Beyer, Associate Producer. A special thanks to both Helen Thorington and Jo-Anne Green for their generous support and collaboration of this partnership, and their contribution to the field at large!