One Door, Two Rooms

For a while I had two homes for my music, and they never spoke to each other.

The radio was one. It's always on and unpredictable, and it doesn't care what you want, which is exactly its charm. The other was the catalogue, the tracks themselves, each waiting quietly on a page for someone to find it.

The trouble was the gap between them. Someone would hear a song on the radio, love it, and then lose it. By the time they went looking, the moment had passed and the track had slipped back into the dark.

Closing the gap

So I built listen.montysounds.com, one door with two rooms behind it.

In the first room the radio plays, free as it always has been, with no account needed. In the second room every track waits: more than 400 of them, each with its own artwork, each a single press of Play Now away. If you hear something on the radio, you can walk next door and find it.

For the undecided there's a Surprise Me button. It hands the choice back to chance, which is really the radio's spirit slipping into the catalogue.

Yours, or nobody's

You don't have to sign up for anything. In Local mode your playlists and recently played tracks stay on your own device and nowhere else. Clear your browser and they vanish, like footprints on a tide line.

If you want more, an account lets your playlists follow you between your browser, your phone and your TV. You link a device with a simple code and it remembers you.

Why it matters to me

A radio without a catalogue is a voice you can never find again. A catalogue without a radio is a library with the lights off. Together they become something closer to what I loved in the DJ booth: the joy of discovery and the comfort of coming back.

The radio finds you. The tracks let you stay. Listen is where the two meet.

Listen Now ↗